Oh, man. This will be hard to write. Sometimes late at night my brain pokes me with a sharp stick, inviting me to re-live the things I've done, stoking the guilt. Once its done, a softer voice inside says "you learned from it and won't do it again so why torture yourself?" Things I am not proud of:
Yep, that's me. A cactus.
*I once told a couple of men dressed as clowns that I had just found out I had cancer. Why? Because they were taunting me to "smile" at work as I was coming back to the department from doing something stressful.
*As a teenager I wrote all over my mother's wood paneled walls with chalk in huge loopy letters that my step-mother was a better mother than she. Why? Because I was having a very hard time and she didn't seem to care.
*I scared the living daylights out of Grayson by screaming at him over him stealing a Walkman out of someone's backpack at school and getting caught on a security camera. Why? Because I was shocked and disappointed and scared.
*I yelled at Dylan, scaring him (at age 4!) when I was at my wit's end trying to potty train him. Why? Because I was very low on patience and probably exhausted.
*I pinched Chloe's butt so hard it made her shriek and run from the room on Christmas Eve in '95. Why? She was over-excited, tired, and misbehaving.
*We agreed to spanking Spencer for misbehaving in school, and Mark did it one day, leaving bruises on the child's rear and that was a mistake that we never repeated again. Why did we do it? We were inexperienced parents.
*I got into serious trouble in high school with my boyfriend. I made poor grades in college and drank too much. I push people away, including siblings. I was a bad employee at several jobs in the past.
But even cacti bloom
I am not a perfect person, but I love my family, so it causes me pain to make so many mistakes. Poke, poke, poke.
Most of these things are one-offs that I haven't repeated. I did learn. Still, on my deathbed, I have a lot to apologize for, even if I said sorry already. Why is it so hard to give yourself a little grace and hear that soft voice more often?
I was such a timid kid that I never did much, but I still remember the absolute joy and freedom (and eventual punishing) I felt when writing on a newly-painted gray wall with a purple crayon. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSpankings were a way of life when I was growing up - and yet I still continued to make poor choices. Just goes to show how ineffective they were...Maybe sometimes the joy of doing a bad thing is worth the punishment in a kid's mind!
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