Category Stuff I don’t know what to call

Personal history

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We can’t change our personal history, only the stories we tell of it. We can say something different about what happened and what we now feel about it but we can’t change what really happened that day or how we felt then, nor how we grew around the emotions of it. In a search to reconcile with out past we retell our stories changing this or that. Often we start by giving a benefit of the doubt to one character of the other. It is too great a burden to keep blaming. It hurts to much to be angry, to feel rejected, to take it all personally as a reflection of ourselves. We have to find a way to explain things that lightens the burden of responsibility we carry. Going around blaming your mother/yourself is just so tiring.

It’s a long journey around all that. You start feeling angry and unloved. She wasn’t nice, she was mean. For 40 years she did that shit and she even admitted it. But now you have to forgive her because it’s you who carries the weight of not laying it down. It has to be someone’s fault. After all it was choices people made, she and I, I think. She didn’t have a mother, she was impatient, she had unrealistic expectations of what children are, she didn’t really like being a mother, she expected children to wait on her, she expected girls to be dainty dolls she could dress up in frilly finery, they would never get dirty, or make a mess. She didn’t know that children fight for who they are, they aren’t as plastic as she thought. It’s not her fault she didn’t know, is it? Not to fight meant to lose, to lose cost even more. So, it’s my fault for fighting, hers? Maybe I could have changed things earlier or faster. Is that a question or statement? I wasn’t brave enough to ask the questions she seemed to be willing to explore.

I’ve noticed as I work this through that my sadness expands as possible pasts pop up. What if…, what if…? How much is lost? What would I have learned, what did I lose? What could she have said that would have made it worse? I think I was afraid that with the unlocked door, if I responded she’d get defensive and slam that crack back in my face. I didn’t want her to take it back and I was sure she would. I never gave her a chance so maybe. . . As long as I can recall and as long as I live I will never trust her not to take “it” back.

She said she tried with me. I believe her but she didn’t know you can’t just try once in a while. That’s almost worse. You are nice and then you are mean again. Trust  needs a foundation of more than shifting sand. You told me I was a liar so you’d never believe me. You didn’t, it didn’t matter even when mostly I told the truth. It’s the same thing, you asked me to believe you loved me then you proved to my little girl’s heart you didn’t. You didn’t even like me. You were mean. I have to remember that, not to whitewash the past. If I do I’m left believing I’m the only one to blame. I have to remind myself, she was the grown-up, not me. She was the mother, I was the child. It was her job to love me first, to show me how to love and live, not mine to prove my love first.

Could it have been different? Maybe, if we were different people. We were who we were with all the things we knew and felt those days. We didn’t know we could change it. We didn’t understand both of us had to go first to stop the cycle of blame and of pain. But then, I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t have learned I could fight so hard and win. I might be someone not as strong and as happy as I am today if we had done better. So I have to believe I had the best possible history if it lead me here today. But it isn’t perfect and I still mourn the child and the mother who went through so much. At least I’ve forgiven you and see you held in god’s arms with me. We both lay our heads on her breast in equal repose because we are so loved. Now I need to let go of the rest of the stuff that makes my heart so heavy. I see progress but it is as slow as losing weight.

I keep trying to tell the story to turn you into someone who I more than feel sorry for. I do feel sorry for you and for me. I want to instruct the mother and console the child. I can do neither from this end of the string. This is not the end that unravels, the bag opened at the other end. What is done is done, now what’s left is to tell the it and explain it so that it is a story I can live with. As I travel to the end of my life I see you in the mirror and wonder how close we will come.

 

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b-3 Wishes

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I play games in my head of “what if . . . ” all the time. As a kid we all wish for those 3 wishes so we could be rich, beautiful, and smart. But it’s really an interesting game to play as an adult towards the other end of my life. I think these things while going to sleep or even day dreaming, resting my mind.

I’m not that old, nor ill, but I’m in a stage where my number one wish really is to get rid of a lot of this stuff I’ve acquired over time. I have no way easy to get rid it of without feeling the huge loss I’d feel if I just gave it away. I’m deeply sentimental. I have no family who would treasure it for its history as I do. I don’t want more so don’t need riches. I’ve outlived the rage for great beauty, being smarter, maybe. Then I suspect there a point where smarter becomes a burden.

If you had 3 wishes what would they be? Would you reject your urge to gather wealth and power and go for the humanitarian instead? How about world peace? What would we be if we didn’t get into fights all the time? It would be a radical change in human nature to come to a point where we didn’t feel the need to fight for the right or water or money or whatever we think we have a right to.

What would happen if humans didn’t fight for everything they wanted? I suspect our species would be very short lived. There would be outliers and they would just take over. What would that mean? I don’t know, maybe we’d be happy worker bees making honey for the queen who rules us. Maybe happy is better than all this freedom we don’t know how to handle and often don’t even want. Then the outliers would end up fighting and send their worker bees to fight for them. Hum, no improvement with that scenario.

What if we eliminated the outliers with our wish, there would be no bosses. This doesn’t bode well for us, we’d never get organized enough to get anything done, we’d starve or die of the cold or something. Certainly innovation would grind of a halt if we didn’t have an instinct to do the hard stuff and push back against those demanding conformity.

OK, so world peace is out. So we accept there will be fights. How about getting rid of the nuclear weapons? No, we have only used them only twice and yet we are constantly at war with 6,000,000 refugees looking at their lost homelands today. So, war is the problem. If you can’t have world peace and it doesn’t seem to matter if we have weapons of seriously mass destruction, then what? Can we change the laws of physics or introduce magic to eliminate the ability to kill each other? Is killing really the awful thing or is it the smaller horrors of poverty, abuse, and domination that are really what we want to go after? Is there a magic answer to war?

Let’s see, how about something really easy, wish that everyone would be nicer. That would be wonderful. People wouldn’t drive like maniacs and endanger others, they’d hold the door for you, they would be OK with supporting welfare for those who can’t work. Wait, would they? Maybe not. Nice usually ends once your hand goes into your pocket. It wouldn’t change our ideas about who deserves what. If we all agreed on things this world would quickly depopulate as humans died out of boredom. It would still be good if people had better manners. OK, maybe this is possible but is it worth a whole wish?

How about taking only half the wealth of people who are too wealthy and giving it to those who need more. You can’t do that? Why not? Oh, their wealth is paper wealth, not like real money. If you took it away you’d be closing Apple, Microsoft, all the big banks, lots, just a huge number of the biggest businesses in the US and even the world. Who cares, you think. Well, where do the people who work there go? What about the investors? That is yours and my retirement money. Now the whole world is poor. At least you’ve mostly gotten rid of income inequality, no probably not. The uber rich are always there even if he has five horses and you just have a goat. We are back to the times of plagues and massive starvation around 1500 or so. No wealth isn’t a good idea. Lots of things are bad with that idea, forget it.

Is there something I can do with my wish for the world? How about eliminating cancer? All the cancer patients will now be all well. What could be wrong with this? Not too much if done right but then what about the next thing? What about Alzheimer’s? Them too? What about AIDS, MS, what about every sick person? Can you leave anyone behind? Now we really will have a population problem and the old folk will have to go through the dying process all over again as will their families. Or maybe not, everyone will just drop dead without suffering. Really, why and when? Are they supposed to know when or is it just random times? Oh no, this is all too complicated. There are too many details. What is fair? Should those born with handicaps that limit their ability to live a full, pain free, productive lives live as long? Who will care for them? Even more complications that have no fixed answers. I’m sure not going to be in charge of managing this new world, even if I have a wish or two left.

It’s beginning to look like three wishes won’t save our world. What good things can be done on a smaller scale? Now we enter the territory of power. If a smaller scale how will that work? So you opt for being the richest person ever. It’s all cash so you can spend it. Part of the wish is you don’t have to pay taxes on it. So you have this money. What is the first step?

Oh, you have to use a wish to make you live long enough to carry out your plan. Now you’ve used two of your wishes, one for wealth and the second for health (instead of beauty). You have one wish now. It’s crunch time. Everybody wants your wealth, they have their hands out or an idea of how to connive getting as much as they can from you. You have to spend more of your time and wealth protecting you from the money grubbers than doing good. Who can you trust to help you? Who should get money? It will disrupt the economy of the country/world to put too much new cash into the world so you have to care about this stuff. You have to hire body guards because the jealous will hate you. You have to live behind a fence with cameras and guard dogs. You have to protect your family. It has all gotten way out of hand. This isn’t worth it. You can’t do good when you spend all your time protecting what you value. This isn’t your wish. Is there one? Maybe it is to be smart enough to deal with all of this. That’s your last one.

After all this I think 3 wishes is a trap. Having to turn down all those grand dreams might lead to regrets. Maybe I’d wish on a smaller scale. I’d wish health for my family, friends and myself, happiness for us all, and enough money to live comfortably but not enough to make anyone want what we have so we can live peacefully. The greatest part of that happiness would be to be content with the choices I’ve made in life across the board.

I suspect a smart geni would give three wishes with a mandatory year between each one, two to made messes and a third to set it all back where it started. Maybe I had those three wishes and that’s how I know I’m content with our little house, the love we share, and the community we are still in the process of building and taking care of. The best place is to feel content and just dream about the possibilities as a doorway to good night’s dreams.