I read the book, WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH at some point in my twenties. My bf's mother gave it to me, lol. She's Auntie P in my life now.... one of my best friends and I adore her still. We intellectualize life, ad nauseum together, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly.
I carried that book around like it was a bible.... then went back to re highlight ever so many years, in different colors. It was interestting to see what jumped out at me with each reading. Different things according to my current struggles. (I did this with all the books I read on figuring out unhealthy patterns)
I wish there was a message board back then.... but reading reading reading was what I had and what I did.
Lupita.... our age isn't an idicator for our emotional health.
I spent my twenties and thirties working on me..... building careers and paying down a mortgage. I probably read 20 self help books and journaled a couple years of my life away.
My failures taught me lessons. The books provided signposts I recognized as I navigated life.
My age has nothing to do with my emotional health.
You're stronger than I am in many ways...... you'd have kicked my ass in school, no doubt, but nobody ever mixed a more perfect color chart than me and I was always done in minutes. Turned out I was good at winging it..... screwing up my courage and knocking on doors well enough to succeed in sales.... of all things.... but in a creative field. I had no idea I could pretend I was competent..... then work hard until I became so. Who knew? What can I say.... it was an important lesson that I've assimilated into other parts of my life.
Fake it till ya make it. That was internalized by age 30. Not earlier.
Everyone I come in contat with, amazingly, has strengths that always surprise me. My life, looking back, has been a largly selfish pursuit. I planned it that way......... I'm glad it's been what it's been but.... I don't know where I'd be had I spent some of my youth caring for children..... and not just myself.
I'd probably be in a different space, as far as figuring myself out..... had I gone through medical school, nurtured children then become a single parent in my young adult life, no doubt. but maybe having to care for others would have taught other lessons that helped me grow faster in deeper ways?
Hard to say.... this is an interesting topic though.
It's interesting that you draw a paralell between you and your students and other posters here and youself, you see the irony there.
BTW..... I'm not feeling real swell lately.... so please ask for clarification on something if it comes accross sideways.
Long posts put a lot out there that might come out wrong, I realize that. Just had a lot to say to you this morning.
