Sometimes I’m sure I have to be the saddest person in the world. For no particular reason, I just start to cry. It’s a sad, broken hearted cry. Like grief. It comes from deep inside and radiates outward, sometimes taking the strength from my legs. I find myself in the bathroom at 2 in the morning, bent over double, crying from the very pit of my stomach, trying not to wail and wake up the household. I tell myself there‘s no reason for it, but I know there is. There‘s plenty of reason for it. Sometimes it’s triggered by a sad scene in a movie… or a Hallmark commercial, or a thought that goes through my head. I hold everything in until it spills out. It has to come out sometime. It can only stew for so long, and it‘s been stewing for almost 50 years. Every now and then, I have to open a valve or something, ya know? It can‘t be good for a person to feel “grief“ so often, when there‘s nothing to grieve except their own pathetic life. It can’t be good for a person to have a pathetic life. And I know what everybody says, it’s my fault because I just didn’t ignore all that stuff and “overcome”. It’s so easy for people to talk about how comfortable your shoes are until they put them on and wear them. I couldn’t pay anybody to wear my shoes, but I got a lot of free advice and opinions. To most of them I would respond in the words of my late sister-in-law, Linda Duncan, “Opinions are like assholes and yours stinks.”
I can’t afford a therapist so I just have to run this stuff through my head, day in, day out….hoping I’ll come up with some kind of solution or I’ll hear the voice of God, and he’ll actually tell me what to do….or maybe I’ll have one of those epiphanies and my life will change in an instant. Or something. For the most part, all I’ve done is confuse myself more. I was born into a ball of confusion and a den of dysfunction and closed mindedness. People with blinders on. Good people, just unwilling people. Unwilling to move on with the rest of the world. Willing to judge, but unwilling to lead by example. I always felt like a burden. I can’t remember not feeling that way. I can remember praying at night for God to let me die because “things would be better if I wasn’t here”. I was 13. A 13 year old shouldn’t feel that way.
A lot of the things that my family finds ‘unattractive’ about me, in my adulthood, are things that I learned from them.
The things I learned as a child are as follows:
Make sure they’re pulling out of the driveway and driving away before you start talking about them. No one is immune to this. Whether it’s the people you live with daily or people you haven’t seen in years, whether it’s a holiday or a surprise visit. Everyone gets a good raking over the coals after they leave the house. Everything negative that they’ve ever done and every negative opinion that you have should be voiced. In front of the children or not. Doesn’t matter, children aren’t people yet.
Always hold a grudge. No matter whose fault it is, or if it would make me the bigger person if I extended my hand in friendship or if my very life depends on it…. by God, hold a grudge. Take it to the grave. Never forgive anyone for anything.
Never respect anyone’s privacy. Only “high and mighty” people knock before entering a room. If you’re a relative, it’s not necessary to knock when you visit, just come on in!!
Children are to be seen and not heard. Actually, we don’t want to see them either, get out of here.
Children are not supposed to have fun or laugh in the presence of adults. Giggling is absolutely prohibited.
Name calling is completely ok, you “slab ended hussy”.
People who hug their children and say Grace at the dinner table are “putting on a show”.
Children lie. Especially if they’re saying something unbelievable and horrible about an adult. They lie.
The things that I’ve discovered since I gained a clear mind and have really thought about it are as follows:
I had a dysfunctional childhood.