Monthly Archives: December 2014

What do you want?

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The gift-giving holidays are wrapping up (pun!), the new year is approaching. What do you want is a common question for this season, and one that’s been on my mind.

Stuff is easy, at least the smaller every-day items. I can purchase anything I truly want for myself. It was nice to have some Barnes and Noble gift cards on my account for a while; buying ebooks took less decision making, but truly, it doesn’t matter. If I want it, I can buy it. If I’m not sure I want it that much, I can investigate the options in the library. Stuff is hard if your goal is to have less of it. Acquisition is so much easier than decluttering.

It’s the bigger questions of who I want to be and how I want to live my life that weigh more heavily. I’ve been reading the Power of Habit by Charles Duggin (I think I’ve read this before). It reminds me that when we are in major life transitions, those are the easiest times for our habits to change — for good or ill. So be mindful and pay attention to how you line yourself up.

I hope to move into a more permanent residence this next year, and that’s one subject of my musings. I have learned that I would rather be out doing things, or even in doing things, but cleaning and yard work are not very high on the list of things I enjoy doing. I would like to minimize my investments here. A place that is easier to take care of, enough money left to pay for help, are ways to accomplish this. I can hire help where I am, but I am not so sure that I can find a lower maintenance place than what I had before.

I also need to work on my habits, as mentioned above. I don’t have a good way to deal with all the paperwork that comes into my place through the mail; it stacks up. Finding a better habit and way with this would help. I am not awful with dishes (my current place does not have a dishwasher), though undoubtedly I could improve. I think my biggest problem is that there are many times when I get home, or on weekends, that I just collapse into a chair, doing nothing productive. Perhaps, as Duggin suggests, my willpower is worn out for the time being. Perhaps I need to work on my willpower muscle to grow some more. I don’t like those long unproductive stretches.

I know I want to live in a place that has clean, uncluttered lines. Places to work that are ready for work when you need them. I want a certain Zen-chic, that leads towards peaceful thoughts and a peaceful mind. I am sure I will have to fight against even my tendencies towards acquisition and clutter. I am sure I need work on the paperwork demons.

I hope I can use my transition to create better habits. As with the ε>0 exercise plan, one step at a time. I hope I am mindful and aware of what’s going so that I can actually decide what changes to make, rather than having them made for me by default.

Mothers

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I found myself trying to explain my mother to a new friend today.

My mother was toxic. To so many of us. But how to capture that in words.

I remember a few (two?) nights when the whole family was up into the wee hours with threats with a knife and arguments and upset. I remember the last night I spent at home, when she was crying in the bathroom and my Dad told me she threatened him with a gun. I remember Dad coming to visit me at college with bruises that she gave him.

I remember wanting to kill myself when I was a young teen. Thinking I was crazy because things happened in my family that apparently only I saw or thought was wrong. I remember her being angry when I asked for a bra, because some other girls teased me and told me I needed one. I remember I don’t think I ever had one that fit.

So many other things, I shouldn’t start with this. I shouldn’t try to catalog them all, like a litany of complaints. Or should I try to write it down, so that I have a coherent picture for myself of what it was, both good and bad?

On the good side, I remember that she’d take us to all sorts of different parks in the area; they had names, usually with an animal. The Lion Park, the Turtle Park. I remember her taking us swimming every day in the summer, often meeting my cousins.

I spent years wanting to save my mother. When she died, I spent months grieving that I never would. I’ve spent many more years trying to understand where she was coming from, and trying to be a better person than she was. Trying to see the good things. Trying to make peace with the rest.

I am left with more questions than answers. Including about myself. I am 45 now, and I will never have children. So I don’t know whether I would have been a good mother, or whether all the negative things I saw modeled would come out of me under stress. I’ve seen them come out, sometimes; I’ve felt them want to come out in others. Moments of stopping myself and realizing that thought is a completely wrong thing to think and a worse thing to do.

Does everyone feel like this about their childhood, or is this a legacy for those of us who grew up in permanent insecurity? It makes you who you are, either by default, or by explicit choice to do something different. When you can see and understand what was happening. Because you don’t always see or understand; it sometimes takes years of mistakes before you get it.

That little niggling fear, toward the back of my brain. Am I really better? Really healthier? Really more wholesome for the other people in my life? I think so; I hope so. Or have I just been lucky to avoid the stresses that she succumbed to?

And this, Mom, is your legacy. I don’t think this is what you would have chosen, had you realized you had a choice. I hope it is not. For your sake. For mine.