Easier to Love
I keep looking for ways to continue my life in blogging but I am in a constant state of "writer's block". This is funny as I'm not exactly a writer. But I have a lot I'd like to process and a lot I want to say. I've lived an amazing life and I'm frequently told to write a blog. Well, starting a blog is quite simple if you have an email address but publishing content worthy of being a blog is another whole Oprah show! I mean, where to begin, what to say, how much to say, do I share private issues, will it hurt, will it help...
11 years ago I was widowed at the age of 37 (I'll do the math for ya, I'm now 47) It was then that I could no longer hide under the apron of, well, anyone. I was a mother of 3 and they were looking at me with their big saucer eyes to see what we were supposed to do next. Funny thing is, I had no idea. There have been a number of times when I'm at home and I step over a small piece of trash (like a piece of paper or a wrapper) and it hits me like a ton of bricks that it's MY house and if I don't pick it up, then MY house suffers. Holy moly, I'm not living with my parents or my college roommates anymore - it's all up to me to determine the course of my life!! Not that it wasn't up to me before this sudden independence but it's now, quite honestly, a matter of life and death! Little kids expected me to keep them alive!!!
I am certain in looking back in my life that God had prepared me for moments like this. I hadn't exactly forged the easiest of path for myself. Some of the rocks in my path were a result of biology and others (MANY others) were stupid boulders that I kicked on my very own. As the youngest of 5, and by youngest I mean the oldest twin so I'm not quite the youngest, I'm the 4th kid. Yeah, the fourth kid is worse than the middle child. My brothers were the oldest - I know that they have their own set of issues and would probably slap me silly for even daring to complain about being the 4th one. Then my older sister is 2 1/2 years older than I am and she considers herself the middle child but, really, it's not as bad as being the oldest twin of the youngest kid.
My brothers are 11 months apart - not quite Irish Twins but close enough - and they were forging life together even though they were so different from one another. My older sister was the first daughter and when my twin and I came along 2 1/2 years later, she finally had playmates. But, she really only needed one and I didn't make the cut. I was outspoken, probably a bit annoying, and my twin was quiet and soft-spoken so she was easier to love. Ugh, that expression, "easier to love" was something I heard several times growing up. It makes me cringe to hear it and even though I know that my parents loved me unconditionally, they often told me that when I'm old enough to have my own children that I will find out that some of your kids will be just "easier to love". I have a 20 year old son, an 18 year old daughter, and a 13 year old son and I've yet to experience this ranking system. As a kid that heard this on repeat, it became one of those darn tapes that has played over and over in my mind. If I wasn't one of the easy to love kids then that would make me hard to love??? That would make me unlovable? And hence began my rocky path.
In my quest to become easier to love, I was desperate to find friends and activities that would make me stand out from my A List siblings. I excelled in sports but so did my siblings and while I never resented their athleticism, it did present another challenge in this quest. I am thankful for sports because on the court or on the ball field, I thought about nothing but my own pursuit to do well and to help my team win. I never thought about anything except for the sheer joy I got out of playing sports. In academics, I was an above average student. I was never going to affect the curve in a class but I sure as heck wasn't going to be caught under the curve either. I finished just above the middle of the pack in high school - I believe I was in the top 45% of my class which I was proud of until I'd hear the snickers of my jackass classmates that I took the "remedial" math while my twin took honors math - ummm, my math class was not remedial, it was pre-calculus while my sister took a straight calculus class. Not that there is anything wrong with any sort of remedial class but, seriously? I can tell you this, I used my pre-calculus class knowledge exactly never in the course of earning my degree in social work. So, I'll take remedial for 500, Alex!
Perhaps the hardest chapter in my ridiculous quest to prove to the world how lovable I was, is in my weird relationships with men. I love my daddy and he was tough but fair my whole life. I certainly wanted nothing more than for him to notice me and most times that didn't happen but I never felt abused or neglected. Maybe a bit forgotten. In the space in my head, I had to do things in order to be remembered and loved. This is quite a dangerous combination in trying to make good choices in boyfriends.
I think I'll save that for my next blog post :)
11 years ago I was widowed at the age of 37 (I'll do the math for ya, I'm now 47) It was then that I could no longer hide under the apron of, well, anyone. I was a mother of 3 and they were looking at me with their big saucer eyes to see what we were supposed to do next. Funny thing is, I had no idea. There have been a number of times when I'm at home and I step over a small piece of trash (like a piece of paper or a wrapper) and it hits me like a ton of bricks that it's MY house and if I don't pick it up, then MY house suffers. Holy moly, I'm not living with my parents or my college roommates anymore - it's all up to me to determine the course of my life!! Not that it wasn't up to me before this sudden independence but it's now, quite honestly, a matter of life and death! Little kids expected me to keep them alive!!!
I am certain in looking back in my life that God had prepared me for moments like this. I hadn't exactly forged the easiest of path for myself. Some of the rocks in my path were a result of biology and others (MANY others) were stupid boulders that I kicked on my very own. As the youngest of 5, and by youngest I mean the oldest twin so I'm not quite the youngest, I'm the 4th kid. Yeah, the fourth kid is worse than the middle child. My brothers were the oldest - I know that they have their own set of issues and would probably slap me silly for even daring to complain about being the 4th one. Then my older sister is 2 1/2 years older than I am and she considers herself the middle child but, really, it's not as bad as being the oldest twin of the youngest kid.
My brothers are 11 months apart - not quite Irish Twins but close enough - and they were forging life together even though they were so different from one another. My older sister was the first daughter and when my twin and I came along 2 1/2 years later, she finally had playmates. But, she really only needed one and I didn't make the cut. I was outspoken, probably a bit annoying, and my twin was quiet and soft-spoken so she was easier to love. Ugh, that expression, "easier to love" was something I heard several times growing up. It makes me cringe to hear it and even though I know that my parents loved me unconditionally, they often told me that when I'm old enough to have my own children that I will find out that some of your kids will be just "easier to love". I have a 20 year old son, an 18 year old daughter, and a 13 year old son and I've yet to experience this ranking system. As a kid that heard this on repeat, it became one of those darn tapes that has played over and over in my mind. If I wasn't one of the easy to love kids then that would make me hard to love??? That would make me unlovable? And hence began my rocky path.
In my quest to become easier to love, I was desperate to find friends and activities that would make me stand out from my A List siblings. I excelled in sports but so did my siblings and while I never resented their athleticism, it did present another challenge in this quest. I am thankful for sports because on the court or on the ball field, I thought about nothing but my own pursuit to do well and to help my team win. I never thought about anything except for the sheer joy I got out of playing sports. In academics, I was an above average student. I was never going to affect the curve in a class but I sure as heck wasn't going to be caught under the curve either. I finished just above the middle of the pack in high school - I believe I was in the top 45% of my class which I was proud of until I'd hear the snickers of my jackass classmates that I took the "remedial" math while my twin took honors math - ummm, my math class was not remedial, it was pre-calculus while my sister took a straight calculus class. Not that there is anything wrong with any sort of remedial class but, seriously? I can tell you this, I used my pre-calculus class knowledge exactly never in the course of earning my degree in social work. So, I'll take remedial for 500, Alex!
Perhaps the hardest chapter in my ridiculous quest to prove to the world how lovable I was, is in my weird relationships with men. I love my daddy and he was tough but fair my whole life. I certainly wanted nothing more than for him to notice me and most times that didn't happen but I never felt abused or neglected. Maybe a bit forgotten. In the space in my head, I had to do things in order to be remembered and loved. This is quite a dangerous combination in trying to make good choices in boyfriends.
I think I'll save that for my next blog post :)
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