Parenting: The Uphill

Being pregnant and/or breastfeeding and then mothering 5 toddlers/small children was hard.

And I thought I had made it through all those hard days as a mother . . . and that while the teen years would likely be a challenge, that making it through those hard, first ten years as a mother was the uphill part of parenting. And everything else would be like making it to the top of the hill and riding down the other side.

I was wrong.

Because then it became time to sit in the passenger seat while these humans whose bottoms I wiped and whose throw up I caught . . . learn to operate a moving vehicle. A time when I place my life into the hands of people who can barely walk through a room without losing or breaking something. Persons who, not THAT long ago, couldn't manage to wipe their behinds well enough to avoid having skid marks in their underwear. 

But so far, I've survived to tell the tale. With only a few extra gray hairs but mostly none the worse for wear. 

The Acceptance Well

I was 8 or 9, and the name "dog" was the word used most often to describe me by the peers I spent my days with.

We sat in the car. I verbalized my desire to be "cooler" and his reply was a sneer at my clothes and "well you need to get better clothes".

So I believed that the road to acceptance was paved by the clothes I wore.

Through other words and actions I came to believe that my body had to look a certain way in order to be accepted.

And then I had to say the right things,
do the right things.
Say yes to every request.
Keep unpopular opinions, beliefs and parts of me to myself.

So, one by one I swapped out me for some politically correct Stepford Wife. I would let a little bit of myself out to play to test the waters, and then quickly remove it and replace it with something either . . . blank . . . neutral . . . or whatever I believed would be the least offensive thing.

I spent 10 years of my marriage watching super hero movies and claiming to enjoy them.

I didn't. And I don't.

But this is a defining characteristic of my life. He also didn't hear me sing for the first 5 years of our marriage.

Ultimately, it all comes down to me rejecting myself. Because if I accepted myself, it wouldn't matter what anyone else said or implied about the way I am.

This rejection of myself has lead to me seeking out acceptance from others. But the thing is, if I don't have the acceptance already...no amount of getting it from other people will fill the well where my self acceptance goes.

So I'm asking myself a lot of questions. Like, is writing a way that I seek acceptance? Or is it truly something I'm called to do? Do I believe what I say or do I say the things that I know will be acceptable to the people I want to be accepted by? Where have I buried my identity for a more acceptable one?

I don't have definitive answers to all of those things. I'm still soul searching.

I know that I'm supposed to have all of this figured out before I write about it, I've read all the things too. But I'm not Lysa Terkheurst or any of those other women, and I'm not trying to be. I'm just a real lady dealing with real things.

Take it. or leave it. It's up to you.