Hi Nightsong,
Feeling some grief? Watch out...your are starting to sound like you're approaching the normalcy you crave.
I like what Gross Girl said about snipping the strings and not stuffing feelings. My goodness those N parents give feeling in general and feeling for ones self in particular a bad name!
And Portia is so right on about the "keep on feeling" thing. Did you see the Grinch Who Stole Christmas? I wasn't too pleased with most of it relative to the book or cartoon AND Jim Carey has a few brilliant moments that made the movie for me: One was when he is starts to feel. It isn't pretty.
You just got to see it. He is writhing in what appears to be agony and then exclaims something like "Oh no, I am FEEEEEEELING!"
In America? I haven't heard of that movie but am looking for examples of better parenting so I'll check it out.
Nightsong...I like your name. Have you ever heard the song Night Vision by Susan Vega? It likely qualifies as an oldie by now, as do I.
It is a poetic song (like your name) about seeing in the dark - like a child trying to make sense of the crazy creatures that crawl out from inside otherwise quite ordinary furniture in the middle of the night. (Perhaps that is our little baby creative subconscious hinting that life, like the furniture we rely on, isn’t going to be as endless or as stable as it appears. It makes us look a little closer at what we take for granted. Eeegads, did the table just wink at me?)
Growing pains. Cycle of life stuff. That being said....ARRRRRRG! No fun.
It does pass. Well somewhat. Perhaps we are supposed to remember some of the pain of what we lost so that we remember its value.
Watch out for that TV...especially given you are hungry for better relationships it is natural that you'll focus on what appears better. And I have found that can also lead me to
obsess on what is better and accept appearance over substance (because after all their MUST be better and asap when we are in so much pain and grief.) As long as you strive you will feel the distance between where you are and where you are striving for - that is life and especially for those who dare to strive. Just take care not to make that distance too great to span or you'll end up exhausted (in my case I learned from exhaustion too though). Try to pace yourself and your grief will adjust with you.
I just started volunteering with children who are "at-risk" i.e. those that have been severely abused. The program was started by a mother whose own daughter was kidnapped and murdered by a man who was the product of an abusive childhood. Many of the children in the program live in foster care as I did. My dream was to have a "normal" family by now and a home and THEN care for foster children – return, in a sense, when I was strong enough, when the grief had subsided to a softly sighed, "that was a long time ago." In some ways my grief has subsided though I have most certainly not recouped what I would have gained had I not been kept in a basement or drugged or beaten as a child. Not even close.
Being in touch with my pain and my anger is likely part of the reason I am not an abuser. My empathy (I derived not from my terrible pain but from the pain that was tolerable) I have discovered is also working wonders with the children. To others I appear to have an almost telepathic understanding of problem behaviors that baffle some of the other volunteers. In the sense that telepathy describes a bridge between two worlds that cannot otherwise relate I am telepathic in that I understand much of what these children feel and after a couple of decades I also get a sense of the relatively protected world some volunteers are trying to relate FROM. I am also learning things from other volunteers whose better childhoods taught them things I didn't learn, like how to be uninhibited - VOICEFULL.
By the way, I am also learning at new levels of detail and depth that many people who had what appeared to be "normal" childhoods had parents who were so terrified of confrontation and of pain, so ill equipped to deal with their emotions that they erected a facade that the children grow up behind and can no longer distinguish from their own skin - Nism! Ok, so that even the good may not be so good underneath is not very inspiring .....I just mean to say that too much pain and especially suffering without the comfort of love from others is like a deadly virus AND being radically "shielded" from pain (denial) is also. I recently went to a party I had planned on avoiding because I knew it would be attended by people with homes and children and families. Sure enough it was the beautiful warm house of my dreams. Music was playing and there was lots of light and a yard in which the owner had planted for years and reaped the rewards. I hate renting. Yup, just the home that I wanted to have and to care for foster children in. The owner seemed unable to relax during the entire party and introduced their son and daughter as children who had performed in the presence of celebrities. No mention of their interests, no communication to them. With parental hands squarely on their shoulders the beleaguered looking kids were thrust at the guests like Good Parenting Seals of Approval and then ignored. The host has many good qualities and nonetheless despite all that I don’t have I really felt I wouldn’t trade places if it required I be frantically hyper and out of touch. Actually, I used to be more like that.
I would have prefered to learn from inspiration rather than despiration and yet in the absence of a really good childhood, I at least have had enough pain and exhaustion to learn how wonderful relaxing and savoring life slowly can be without a single celebrity in the audience!
There are some clichés that really get on my nerves - one of which is the ole "Is the glass half empty or half full" litmus test for "optimism". I believe it is in equal measure if not entirely a test of
thirst. Fill your glass until you FEEL it is half full - don't try to pretend you don't feel grief or that you don't need to quench it and also try not to aim for blissful normalcy, a norman rockwell "perfectly" full glass before you enjoy a leisurely sip from what you have. Well there is a few decades of input ....thank goodness I don't have more (i'd be even older and this post even longer
)
Take & give care,
Acappella [/b]
