I want to say how envious I am of the people who can blog on a much more regular basis than I can. Mind you, I have only one entry posted to my blog and that was in September, 2011. But, I must say, it is really a good one and the subject matter is not only universal, but also, unique in my telling of it. That subject concerns relationships and love.
I have been wondering how to follow up that blog, since the responses to it have been nothing but positive. My book was released on November 16th so I also have that as another valid excuse, at least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Don’t you love the rationale behind the amazing mind/brains we humans have. We literally can convince ourselves of anything.
Hey, maybe that should be the subject of this blog. ‘How we make excuses for not doing something that we know we need to do and then that old guilt riddles us from heard to toe when we don’t?’ What do you think? I know that when I was younger I could blame, if nothing else, my parents for the age old excuse. ‘They don’t understand me”. But, really? Does anyone truly understand another? I, now, understand that there were leaps and bounds that I didn’t comprehend about my two ex-husbands. And, of course, they didn’t grasp me either, ergo the ex…
How can we know and understand each other when we are terrified of letting our guard down? We really aren’t taught to allow ‘people’ to get too close, for fear that they will, gobble us up. Well, not literally, but? If we were given, as children, the feelings that ‘we’re okay and you don’t have to have my feelings and beliefs,’ then perhaps we would.
By, this, I mean, if we felt it was okay to vary from what our parents, teachers, and even, our peers believed, then maybe we could trust our private thoughts in the hands of others. I’m not totally sure where this lack of self-confidence comes from, but I know it to be true. I felt like an outcast in my own family. My sisters, father and mother were all extroverts and I was the only introvert. In all honesty, my mother could maneuver between both worlds easily, and if I had had her longer in my life, then I believe I could have essayed between them both better than I have.
I understood this inability to essay between the two, and feeling non-accepted for the way I thought and behaved. I preferred a book to my friends’ and peers’ company. I was the only one, besides my mother who did read when it wasn’t a school requirement. I later, inherited her extensive library, since my siblings had no desire for it.
So when I was carrying my daughter, reading to her while she was still inside me and for every night until she was in her teens was a natural thing to do. Because I did this, she too, loves the written word, and has always read well beyond her years. Her early reading, also for some reason, made her want to know about my favorite book, movie, color, place, etc. It gave rise to her asking me, “mommy, what’s your favorite”. I didn’t want to overly influence her and wanted her to choose for herself what appealed to her and not what ‘mom’ liked ‘best’. I wanted her to believe in her choices and it was more then okay if they weren’t mine. I still remember how hard life was to not agree with the rest of them, them being family and friends.
My daughter is now 24 and no longer does she ask me ‘what’s my favorite’ and she would laugh or will laugh when she reads this, but she also knows, this to be true. We want our children to have it better than we did, and we try desperately not to make mistakes, although, I have made some zingers with her. Fortunately, for me, she is an ‘old soul’ and has, I believe, forgiven me. I am still working on forgiving myself.
So what is the moral thought of this blog? I’m only sure of one thing. I needed to say what I have said and I believe most parents will understand this need to say to their children, “It’s okay to have separates beliefs, feelings and ideas from me, in fact, it’s more than okay. Go out and discover.”