Don't like the hand you've been dealt? Change your cards.

on living~~~Joie de Vivre....the joy of life~~~

So many things seem to come to me late in the game...you know, little things like....common 'self' sense, real understanding of the need for personal fiscal responsibility, what I should be when I grow up, self love (not THAT kind), family, real and unconditional love, and ticking biological clocks. 

OK, so the last one never even happened and at this stage, it wouldn't be welcome. I think being 63 with a teenage daughter might come off as more than just eccentric, and border on ridiculous, but that is a blog for another time.

My most recent self discovery isn't really a dawning of new understanding, just sort of a lower case "ah ha".  You know...something I already knew and have operated on or with most of my life, but have just taken a second to acknowledge it to myself.  And like any good "wanna be" writer and blogger, I felt compelled to write it all out for the big void of the internet. And along with most self acknowledgements, there are dark sides as well as bright and both have to be embraced in order to truly appreciate their simple (or complicated) truth.

So, we've talked a tiny bit about my upbringing and there are always depths I could go to that are deeper and darker which I tend to stay away from for the most part.  For one reason, I don't want to bore my 1 or 2 occasional readers with things they probably already know...for another, I don't want to garner or to appear to want to elicit anyone's pity or for anyone to think that is the goal, so let me assure you- it isn't. Ever.  No way. No how. 

Anything I share is to either impart validity on something else I have said or expressed and is more about catharsis and is sometimes just self therapy for me.  Self indulgent?  Maybe...If any of it helps anyone else or provides hope or inspiration, a warning bell or just of nod of recognition...so be it and that is cool. 

We all get just about what we bring to the table, I have found.  I'm just looking for some new things to bring to my own table and life.

So, what I've come to realize is that I am ridiculously happy and content despite having lived in and been in some pretty dark places. I was born into darkness.  I have come to realize that the cards I was dealt were similar to cards that have driven others to madness, to crime, to depression, suicide, self destruction....you get the drift. And I don't mean happy in some bipolar sort of peaks and valleys sort of way.  I mean to say that I am happy...truly, genuinely, happy.  And completely un-aided by any pharmaceuticals or mood enhancers, save the glass of wine or three I might be inclined to have when stateside.  I bound around singing...dance around in the workout room, walk around smiling for no reason and have caught myself wondering WTF about it sometimes.  I have become a person I never thought I could.

I have witnessed all manner of dark things in my own (biological) family my whole life.  This is the primary reason I thank them silently for bringing me into existence, and the reason that I have endlessly sought something different for my life.

I've watched as these karmic life cards seem to manifest themselves as excuses, anger, fear, a reason for blaming the world for everything, a reason to say "fuck it" to everyone, a reason to shut the rest of the world out, to retreat into a fantasy world, to use drugs, to overindulge in self pity...to thrust unrelenting judgments about others onto the ears of any who will listen (willingly or unwillingly) - -again,  you get the drift. 

And all I can say and all I can think is that for as long as I can remember being alive, I have fought this kind of negativity and mental enslavement and victim mentality with every heartbeat and breath, with every fiber and molecule.  I don't know why.  I mean, I don't know why it didn't pull me under.  I don't know why I fought it.  I don't know why I refuse to let the darkness take me.  It just isn't an option and that is almost always the reactionary thought I have..."sinking into darkness is not an option".

Now, of course I've had my fair share of dark and regretful moments.  I've practiced and mastered self destruction and self pity.  I've been to rock bottom more times than I wish to count and the only thing it has taught me is that being at rock bottom certainly isn't the end.  And it really isn't that bad.  It has a bouncy, sort of trampoline like texture and when I want to bouce out (when I'm ready to bounce out) - I do.  I bounce.  Bounce and Choice.  These are common themes with me.  But they ring pretty damn true when it all washes out.  Dontcha think?

So, without going in to it too deeply, but maybe with more depth than you want to read....and hopefully for the impartment of understanding to anyone needing understanding...my dark cards in a nutshell format and somewhat chronological order are laid out as follows:

• I was born to Paul and Patricia, parents who, might have done the best they could, but certainly had no business procreating - ever.
• Raised to think I was unworthy by a mother who hated my father for I have no idea what reasons.  Don't care what reasons... as my mother, she's supposed to do better.
• My mother often told me as a child that she and my father fought over custody of me when they divorced...(only that she fought not to have me and my dad fought not to have me...and that she LOST.)  In retrospect, I think this is bullshit, as people didn't do that in those days.  I think she was just being mean and projecting her own feelings of self disatisfaction onto me.
• That same ever-lovely mother, whom I actually worshipped at the time, beat the hell out of me at every turn.  I spent more time running from her belt buckle and her screaming than I did having tender moments of childhood bliss. 

            Childhood bliss for me was when I was anywhere my mother wasn't.

• On one occasion, I was chirping happily about my day at school (in the second grade) while she was making mac and cheese....as was her usual custom, she told me to "shut up", because she was cooking and of course I kept talking because that is what kids do and she turned around and backhanded me so hard I fell off the stool I was sitting on.  As I started to cry, I remember wiping my little girl snotty nose on my sleeve and then screaming in complete horror when I saw that my sleeve was covered with blood.  My mother had bloodied my nose. I distinctly remember that day as being the day I lost any affection or respect that I would ever have for her.  I stopped crying, looked at her long and hard, then ran to my room and locked my door.  She panicked and ran after me.  I think she even cried a little.  She begged me to let her in.  Prior to this, I had obeyed her without question.  I did not let her in.  I don't know if I stopped fearing her that day and refused to let her in or if I refused because I feared she would do worse to me.  I do know that I did not trust her.  And I never did again. 
• Fast forward to other such moments...me as the little kid asking a question, talking about my day, trying to learn....her most common response "leave me alone, I'm reading". "shut up, I'm cooking". "go away, I'm watching TV."...or any combination of "I'm on the phone, I'm in the bathroom, I'm getting dressed, I'm smoking a cigarette"....whatever.  All it translated to me was "I don't like  you, I don't want to be your mother, you are a nuisance and a burden." She actually said that last one a couple of times. Or did she?  It's what I heard, regardless. 
• Further childhood moments included me begging my father to let me come and live with him and my stepmother because he told me that I could if things got too bad... and they really were TOO BAD....Then his heartbreaking response that he "just couldn't do it" and that he "didn't think it would be a good idea" and that I made my stepmother feel bad because I sat around not smiling sometimes when I was at their house.  I was like 11 in this scenario.  Maybe if I had smiled more? Geez...
• Then there was the old incestuous childhood sexual abuse that everyone goes through.  Wait, What??!!  You mean not everyone goes through that?  Oh shit. I definitely won't bore you with those details ...my grandfather, a babysitter's husband, some neighbor kid...all probably were abused themselves or some other such nonsense - but I will say for the record - that is an offense for which I will and would willingly and publicly commit murder.  Don't do it, ever.  If you feel any sort of inclination to touch a child sexually, show them sexual material, discuss anything sexual with them in any way - then, please Go shoot yourself in the head. Right. Now. You will not only rob that child of their innocence forever and replace it with a feeling of confusion and despair and a lack of identity and do who know's what else to their self esteem and affect every choice they make for the rest of their lives, you'll also take away their ability to trust themselves and others.  They may or may not recover from this.  Some do.  Some don't.  Don't take any chances, just kill yourself. No therapy, no rehabilitation. Just remove yourself from the world.  We really don't need your kind.
• Cut to ages 11-17.  Mommy dearest showered me with terms of endearment that all daughters love to hear like "whore","bitch" and "liar" almost daily.  I wasn't. She was projecting her own self loathing.  I know this now.  Also, NOT in the handbook for raising happy, well-adjusted children.
• As many of you know, I've always enjoyed cooking...I started when I was a kid because that was how I got fed when I was hungry...(girl's gotta eat!!)   I had learned to grill and was rather proud of myself and had made steaks for my mom, my step-dad and my little brother one summer day.  My mom didn't care for garlic and I had marinated one of the steaks in garlic and some other spices for myself...so when she went to grab that particular steak at dinner time, I warned her that she might not want to eat that one, as I had prepared it with the spices and stuff she didn't like.  Her loving, motherly reaction was to grab me by the hair...and hold her steak knife to my throat. No, I am not fucking kidding. Then, my stepdad did the one thing that finally made me love him and will endear him to me forever.  He stood up and raised his voice (something he never did, for he was afraid of my mother) and told her to leave me alone.  And can you imagine what her reasonable, adult reaction was?  Yes, to scream at him and proclaim that he was trying to kill her!  (??what??) Then she grabbed her keys, said she was leaving and never coming back, and drove away.  Oh my god!!! I felt the sweetest peace I had ever felt to that point.  Unfortunately, she came back 4 hours later and never spoke of it again.  She didn't apologize.  She just glared at me. And at him, and hid in her room for a few days. (Never trust anyone who doesn't like garlic.)

So, there you have it.  Not even a semi-charmed upbringing and yes I have made tons of mistakes that I can attribute to just not having a clue what being in a normal relationship meant, (how could I?)... or what loving oneself meant or what was healthy or wasn't...what the right reason to marry was...although I do have "knowing what the right reason to leave a marriage" is down to a science though. 

Funny sidebar.  I'd like to be marrried.  Or at least in a long term, committed relationship.  I am good at it. Really good.  I just think that I may have been married too many times already and this may have already upset the universal balance for some other woman who may now not get married because of me. Of course, that isn't true, but gosh maybe I'm not good at it?  Living and learning...

But, and this is the moral, the caveat, the exception, the miracle, the cool thing, the oxymoronic reality of this whole story.....Yes.  I was dealt some shitty cards. I went through some major crap.  Life seemed to suck sometimes.  I used to walk around in the woods as a kid (to get out of the house and away from my mother) and shout at God about how pissed I was at the life I was living and given.  Then, I bought a new deck of cards.  Hell, over the years I've bought several new decks along the way. With each new deck, I made a choice for me. To be happy.  To accept myself.  To love myself.  To KNOW myself.  And to genuinely dig being me.  And to keep figuring it all out.

As I have said before, I am not everyone's cup of tea...and I might not be easy to get to know, but if you're from my cosmic tribe, you'll understand and we'll most likely be friends forever.  And really, that is quite something.

So what I have come to realize in my lower case "ah ha" moment....is that no matter how cliche it sounds, life really is short.  And as I continue to gravitate towards good and light and happiness and self awareness, adventure, yearning for learning (dorky, but it rings true) and simple "joie de vivre", I find that it has just become a way of life.  It really is a choice to me.  An informed choice...a hard earned choice...not an overnight choice...an oft misunderstood road to choice... but still a choice.  I've discovered that the manner in which I chose to see my world and my life and my opportunities saved my life. And my sanity. And taught me appreciation. And about love.  I chose to bounce.

And this little unconventional life of mine which doesn't make sense to a lot of people? I'm overwhelmed by the wonder and beauty of it.  It is richly layered, colorful and beautiful and chock full of people and experiences that fill me with, for lack of a better way to express it - peace and joy.