Wednesday, October 24, 2012

me right now....

I feel as though I am slowly drowning and no matter what I do nothing will help me. I sit here an I think about ways that I could have prevented this moment. I think about the what ifs that could have derailed me from drowning. Then again I think maybe this is how it is all supposed to turn out. Misery loves company, they say. Could that mean that we all develop relationships out of our current miseries. Its a possibility that we wont ever admit to sober. You may wonder what I am referring to. Well I am talking about my life status, and more specifically my job. When I brought up my concerns and feelings about my job my friends have helped me, laid out facts, and always told me that we all need a job. That is the truth and sadly most of us come for exactly that, a paycheck. I do not want that in my life I want to be able to find meaning in everything I do. Granted my current job is important for teachers, administrators, and all who work wtih kids here. The thing that truly gets me is the extreme tediousness of the job itself and all the things I am required to do. The stuff is not hard at all, some of it is catching up on data entry that other people neglected to do, and most of is just that: data entry. I sit on my ass all day long pounding the keyboard and making things easier for others. I am happy to a certain extent that my work is part of a team and helps others. I just have a hard time fully accepting it. I mean I do accept it and work daily but the feeling of boredom always comes up. I get bored so easily especially if I am doing something that does not challenge or develop any of my skills at all. I do robotic work, and that is the problem. Unfortunately there is no other way around it because the work needs to be done. I guess the question is what can I do? The answer to that maybe simple but I make it complicated. I could just leave my job and find another but that problem there is my small town does not have very many employment opportunities. I could move to a city, but I have to be here for my family right now. You see how I make it complicated. I have to work because I have to pay for bills that I have created for myself over the past year. Now work is essential to pay for my living. I look back and wish I could have just stuck with one bill, which was my phone bill. But in time I will figure that all out and eliminate bills I do not need. The truth is being home and helping my family brings me joy because I am impacting and creating meaning for those I love. That is the main reason I put up with all this bull crap of a job. Can I voice my true opinions, I don't think that is such a great idea. I come here and work hard and get money. That is the vicious cycle that I have fallen into but the only hope I have is that it is only temporary. Yes that is what makes me wake up everyday to get it over with. The joy is being with my siblings and making them laugh that is what it is all about.
When I first came home I was so lost and angry at my parents for my childhood years. I was consumed by anger that I tortured my mother every chance I got with my words, my actions, and my point was to make her suffer. There once was a lady who said, if you have the opportunity to hurt others who have hurt you, then you have not forgiven them. This simple truth opened my eyes to the fact that I need to forgive. There was so much tears that were welled up in me from the pain that I had not let out. Once the tears came, forgiveness came shortly after. I am not saying I will forget because my past is what brings me to me right now. It did heal my heart and now my relationship with my mother is slowly rebuilding. My father is another story all together. I have forgiven him but I do not trust him, I do not talk to him, and I do not care about him. You see my father is really my stepfather and he is a very selfish man. He has done so much wrong in his lifetime and he continues to this day. He has walked all over my mother, and continues to this day. Slowly I have seen changes in my mother that reflect courage, and strength. She is learning to speak for herself, she is learning to stand up for herself, and she is learning to love herself. Those are the things that I want to see happen for her. My mother did not have the same life choices I have had. She got pregnant really young and what was there to do. She did not complete her high school and to this day that is a struggle of hers. One day I know she will do it and when that day comes I want to be there. I love her so much that I want her to finish school and know the importance of education. That day will come someday. When it comes to each of my siblings I can only hope the best for them and pray they make good choices in life. I used to be very helpful, and always intervene when it comes to my siblings lives but as I got older I saw that regardless of my intervention they always end up doing what they wanted to do. Suddenly it dawned on me that I just need to be supportive and speak only when sought out. I am known for speaking even when the situation does not warrant my views. So the older I get I see that I do not need to be speaking all the time, and have to hold my tongue. I do need to listen more and be able to open my ears even when I want to walk away. Some of my elders words are now coming back to me and I can see just how wise their words and advices were. Only if I had listened more in my younger years.
My point of writing today is to say that writing soothes me. I was feeling super unhappy about my job responsibilities but the truth is taking in the larger picture things are not so bad. I must continue to remind myself that there are people out there that have it worse than I do. That is the utmost truth that we forget quite easily.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

morning brainwork

The past few months I have been plagued with such intense negativity. Actually I think it started about a year ago and sitting here thinking about it all I must confess it has been exhausting. I remember throughout my years of high school and undergraduate school I always seemed to find an optimistic attitude and kept moving forward. Although this attitude served me well I think it is good to have a balance of negativity to make everyting make sense again. You see as a child I was traumatized in various ways that I wont go into detail here, maybe later. Having lived through those moments of horror I always stuck to choosing to be happy. I guess in a way this was like overcoming the whole mess. For years I had blamed myself and had a perfectionist attitude. I could do no wrong! Yet like with all things everything caught up to me about four years ago. Since then I have been on a rollercoaster ride that lead me to the now. The negativity was comforting to me because it really wasnt being super negative. It was merely being blunt and straight up honest with everyone around me. I did this for about a year and then started to tone things down because I noticed that not everyone like me very much being super honest. I realized I have very little tolerance for stupidity. And funny enough that is what my family is good at doing is acting a fool. Sometimes I just wonder what in the world were they thinking. You know if you do this___ this are the possible outcomes ___!!! Here it just kept happening over and over again UNTIL I just said screw it and told it like it was. Alcohol in my family is a destroyer and this truth no one believes.

Back to my negativity. Once I had a good year of being honest and not holding back. It is time to get back to a more balanced view of the world. In all this I am slowly knowing more and more about myself. I think I like myself alot more now. I am proud of that. I could not have said that a year ago. Those closest to me have a knack for laying on the guilt and somehow I need to change so things will be better. This use to bother me, well it does but not so much. It hurts my feelings but I can move on from it easier and much smoother. The truth that rocked my core was: I cannot control things out of my reach, but I can control how I react, I can control me. That has been the biggest life changer in my life. I am very appreciative of all that I have gone through because I would not be the me I am today without going through all of the bad and good things.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Babysitting side effects...

Over the past week my sister left her 4 month old baby girl in our care. OUR means myself, my mom, and my youngest siblings. The main babysitting responsibility was my mother because I had work and my siblings had school. BUT this weekend I took care of my baby niece one whole day. Just me and very little help from anyone else. The experience was tiring, revealing, and shocking. My niece starting a running nose and small cough the night before. So during the day at one point she got a fever that scared me to the core. I did not know what to do. She is so small and could not communicate like adults. When I get sick I hate it, and know the crappiness that comes with it. But as an infant I just imagine how much worse it is. Because as an infant I cannot speak to how I feel. I can only cry to signal my distress. I just about started crying from not knowing what to do. Luckily in ten minutes things calm down and she was calmer. I think babies can be like horses and can sense how you feel. Maybe my niece took pity on me and not freaked out so much. Since I was doing all the freaking out for the both of us. Anyway afterwards I sat on the bed with her and I was the only one in the house. I started to think maybe this is how it is for single parents. Suddenly I felt lonely and thought wow I wonder if it was like this for my mom. You see I was raised by a single mother and a stepfather whom was hardly ever there. He did show up once in awhile to show me what NOT to do in my life. As I was sitting on the bed being alone with my baby I realized the amount of work goes into having a child. I was there when my sister gave birth to my niece and saw all the strength she put into pushing. It was an amazing to see life coming into the world. I wonder if men ever feel that same feeling of women bringing life into the world and know just how much a baby impacts our life. Men have never been a good role model in my life. Men have always brought destruction, hurt, betrayal, and pain. So you see my opinion of men in general is not that great but over time I have come to terms that not all men are evil. But I cannot help but bring up how men could just easily impregnate women but never experience the impact it really makes on the woman's life. It is easy for a man to change his mind and move on. Yet for women, especially women from my family, there is a strong tie to their children. At the end of the day I decided that having children would wait, and if it ever happened it would be limited to two.