And Once Again.....Pot and Kettle Meet

I think I may soon be winning a Nobel Prize or something as I have just come up with a ground breaking piece of information for all creative types. If you feel as if you have a creative block....just start thinking about all the "chores" you have to do and should be doing and suddenly the cobwebs disperse and the ideas start to fly. Or maybe that is just me and just one of the thousands of ways I find to procrastinate. Yeah....that is probably it.

Anyway.....after having a lengthy discussion with a little blonde friend of mine this morning we were disconnected by my cell phone dying and then further disrupted by a neighbors visit. All of this while I was attempting some self hair color in hopes of saving a few dollars (am quite sure I will be heading back to a professional before all is said and done). Yes...I am gray (really gray) and I don't care if I am 90 my hair will still be some version of auburn/blackish/purplish/redish...anything but grayish!!!! Anyway after talking to my friend I thought about our conversation...alot.

This little woman drives me crazy. She is beautiful, smart, funny and she knows everyone (or at least everyone knows her) in our hemisphere. This girl has gotten up in the middle of the night to meet me at the ER when David was taken in. She fixed my family an entire Thanksgiving dinner when David had surgery over Thanksgiving and she has been a supporter of me in many cases....some she doesn't even know I know about. That being said....she has never seen herself as the woman that those of us who know and love her.....see her as. A lot of this self doubt...which often times results in self sabotage comes from family.

Isn't it amazing that family is suppose to be our safe place and our comfort zone, but often times it feels more like a war zone? Sometimes it is biological family and sometimes it is extended family....but they all seem to have a hold on many of us that effects how we see and/or feel about ourselves. In her case...for a lot of years....extended families attitude has been a reflection of how she see's herself. If you are torn down, broken down, and told you aren't good enough....enough times, then that starts to be the perception you have of yourself. It can hold you back and effect how you interact with others. I spent almost the entire conversation telling her how the people who love her and truly matter in her life see her and it is a far cry from how she has seen her self over the years. I was amazed that she didn't realize that it is usually the people who put you down the most and make you feel the worst about yourself that actually would give their right arm to have half of what you have going on. I have believed for years that this is what has been going on with her and I am so proud to say that in the last few years she has started coming into her own and seeing herself more as the person she truly is instead of the person that some around her tried to make her believe she was.

As I washed the color out of my hair....I thought about all of this and realized that the kettle had just met the pot. No...I am not some great person, but I do have my attributes and I can do some things that others cannot....not out of choice....but because I had to. For years though....I have lived on a steady diet of hearing what a lousy person and parent I am. I was brought up with the attitude that I was not smart enough or pretty enough to ever make it in the world so whatever I got....I would have to just settle for. I was even told one time that I was such a horrible person that I deserved every loss, every pain and every problem I ever had. Harsh? Yeah, and in one way it makes you feel lousy about yourself but in another it makes you stronger. After awhile you really quit caring what others think....especially if you are busy with a life that has nothing to do with them and they have no real comprehension of. Still though...when they are family or extended family.....you can't help from time to time seeing yourself as they claim to see you. It is hard not to take their words personally and not to wonder why they would say those things if there is absolutely no merit to their words. It is also hard not to identify yourself through others words.....but doing so can be a slippery slope....one I have fallen down more than once.

I know that my little blonde friend and I are not part of a mutually exclusive group. There are many of my friends and acquaintances that have gone through this too. Some have pulled into themselves totally believing the "family hype" and never once realizing that possibly the attitude behind the words had little to do with what that person or those people really thought of them, but was born out of jealousy or unhappiness. Happy people seldom go out of their way to make others unhappy, but unhappy people will jump through hoops to do so. Jealous people will even go one step further and try to topple anything good in the lives of those they are jealous of just so they get the satisfaction of watching them fall.....even family members. Those that don't pull into themselves often try to find other ways to ease the pain....drugs, alcohol and bad relationships....just to name a few. Finally....there are those of us who fight the good fight when necessary and spend the rest of the time trying to distance ourselves from those that feel the need to make rude and running commentary on our life. We struggle to keep our true identity and the identity that others try to impose on us separate. Does it work???? For the most part...... and a really busy life also helps.

So yes....I listened to my own words today. Hopefully little blonde one heard me too and realized that there was a lot of merit in what I said. I was right/am right and like I try to tell people all the time....if we could just keep the fact that "I am always right...." as a given....then the world would be a much better place!!!!!!!