I was pondering the words to print, what exactly do I want to get out of my head. Words, anything, feelings, emotions, rage, love, desire, silence. Listening to the rhythmic hum of my oven from cooking tonights late night dinner. The kids enjoyed choosing their favorite meal; peanut butter and jelly and bologna sandwiches. Making me mother of the year, by default, truly default by having purely no energy to cook this evening because of the exhausting day, the fight with traffic, and managing a litter of gnomes. I default as a parent. Among other things. Sadly I have been reminded of how piss poor I am to myself and my own reflection and self distinction.
Even more hideous is the fact I fully admit how hard I am on myself. Not only as an individual, but a parent, add wife…because believe me I am no perfect wife, you could probably add friend and anything else because I probably am pretty awful at that too. All around I am a paradox. Seemingly put together with my well dress, brilliance, and striking good looks and my heart to work hard and be the best, but inside and behind the masterfully articulated facade is a disaster of hurt, pain, bleakness, and realism, often considered pessimism. I hide this well, because if I wore this on my sleeve I would further scream head case.
I know though that I can only blame myself for my continued beguiling. Hiding what pains me, hiding what ails me, the suppression of feelings into the cavernous pockets of my heart. I despise hiding, the word speaks of coward and I am no coward. While I fear, I am no coward. But still I hide. However, I see no point in hiding. Maybe as a self protection mechanism to ward off future pain, hurt, and other feelings. The other reason may be to hide the truth out of fear, but again why fear?
My life has been a challenge. Not to make any comparisons, but I think we as individuals often face different challenges in life that bring us to different destinations or we, as a friend of mine said, “swim in the different currents of life.” Rather an annoying statement, but filled with the bitter truth, I love it. So life started out in a futile effort for acceptance and for some pathetic reason I continue to search for this intangible. I have never been accepted, and what is sad is I see the cycle with my children. Due to their unique personality, style, behavior, intelligence, they automatically set themselves apart which is what I did. But my apart was like a very large knife, not a wedge, a knife. I wasn’t accepted by my father because I was not perfect. I was not his former wife’s child, I was not a boy, I would not obey his every command. To this day, as a 30-something I never will gain this acceptance, while I no longer seek out acceptance, I have merely accepted this fact and moved on. My mother, never will accept me. While God bless her heart she says she does, I recall not wearing the right clothing, getting decent enough grades, sticking with an instrument long enough, having the right friends, playing the right sport, and now…now it is because I do not keep a good enough house. Granted, she did say she understands I work. She wonders where I get my “perfectionism?” What the? Really!? Needless to say a challenge for acceptance or the incessant need to be perfect take your pick.
So finally I reached a point in life where I accepted myself, flaws and all. The fantastical need to say FUCK because I thoroughly enjoy the chill feeling expressed by spewing this word from my mouth. I accepted I would not be a size four anymore, my boobs are too damn big now after the boob job and the twins, my mid section is destroyed by these kids. I accepted that I like myself, even though I am loud, obnoxious, full of life, and a salty bitch of truth, I rather like myself. I found that if I met another me I would like her. But what I didn’t like is that no one liked me, they still don’t. When asked what fruit I would be I said I am like a blueberry; an acquired taste that is sweet, bitter, or a blissful mixture of both, inviting and repelling. Why does it matter if no one likes me, well because I like me and while that should be all that matters, the entire thought process is all-in-all lonely. Then I begin the self doubt, the self destruction, and asking what the weapon may be. Am I my own weapon? Or is it fate? What is really the weapon of choice and is it that I am predestined by fate to be disliked despite my upbeat personality, my easy going nature, my high strung energy for fun and life? Then I ask do I really deserve it, did I ask for this. I am deserving because I am so imperfect because I give so much of myself, ask for so little in return and that is my reward, is no return?
I then ask myself again, why would anyone want to destroy or harm what I have worked so hard for, what I feel I deserve? Jealousy? Rage? What is the point? Why would you pop someones balloon or better yet, throw out the freshly cut roses since they are going to die anyway right? My next question would be why is this acceptable? Are we teaching ourselves, our children, and their children this behavior and when will the cycle end?