ORIGINAL POST DATE: 9/4/10
I have a big birthday coming up. By big, I don't mean we're having a big party, or that I'm reaching some milestone ending in a 5 or a 0. What I mean by big is that I am way past the slender numbers, the svelte 2's and the curvy, pleasing 3's. I am now officially semi-deep into the 4's, the square jawed, hulking, angular and unappealing 4's.
The 4's are scary. The 4's have you taking sudden and repetetive inventory of your life thus far, mentally calculating: "Have I done this, and this? Have I saved enough so far for retirement? Have I raised my kids to be good people? Is it too late to lose that weight and still have time to enjoy looking hot? Will I ever travel to those places I wanted to visit?" Etc., etc. etc.
The 4's are the stage when you being to feel as if you are borrowing time from younger generations. Although you are more than likely still an active, productive member of society, you feel this growing dread that every new accomplisment or personal goal you achieve is either overshadowed by those of your children, or worse yet, slightly embarassing, especially if it is something that most people would have accomplished years ago. There is swelling pride whenever a 5 year old learns how to ride his/her first bike, but when a 40 year old accomplishes the same goal, there is probably far more jeering and laughter from the sidelines than there is glowing encouragement. This, of course, is an exaggerated example, but I believe it illustrates the point.
The 4's have you looking at life from a morbid angle. There are, after all, only three strikes in baseball. After the 4th down in a football game, the ball changes hands. No one says, okay, let's lift this box together on the count of 4...ready...? 4 is around the corner, seemingly too long, or too late.This personal milestone has, for me, been a real wakeup call. I know people say that all the time. "Oh, wow, that *insert dramatic event here* was a real wakeup call!" I guess, then there is a powerful reason for this common experience, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of us saying it.
In many ways, the 4's are a good place to be. There's alot of comfort in the routine of life. There is alot less pressure to maintain the physical attributes of younger years. Things kind of go along at their own pace, often stressed and rushed as usual, but with a more defined, expected outcome. We already know the insurance company is going to try to bilk us out of our claim, along with all of the tactical trick phrases and tecniques they will use to try to trip us; we know this, and we are ready, armed with the knowledge acquired from decades of getting bilked, screwed, and shafted by various conglomerate entities.
There is power in this knowledge. I once got our cell phone bill reduced to a ridiculously cheap amount for two lines, on a completely unlimited plan with worldwide coverage. I was able to do this because my years of experience had taught me that nearly 99% of everything in this life is negotiable. It's a deep, dark secret they don't want you to know about, and one that you will never discover in your "2's" if someone doesn't just tell you.
The other part of my urgency to live out my dreams comes from a loss I have experienced recently, the loss that I have alluded to and written about in more recent posts. This loss, I will reiterate, was not the loss of a romance or a human partner. It was the loss of something very personal and passionate for me, the loss of my position as a singer on my church praise team. The details of how this happened are not important here. What is important is that I have just recently lost something that was very dear to me. It was a coveted gift, a place of satisfaction and fulfillment, and it's absence has left an empty, gaping hole in my heart that, so far, refuses to heal.
There are also the interwoven relationship issues related to this loss, the taking of sides, the division of opinions among friends, the friends who want to be supportive, but keep an arm's distance while doing so, to protect themselves from the fallout. All of these are devastating, wreaking havoc on my stress levels to the point of disturbed sleep. Worse, however, than any of these, is the surprising alienation I have felt. The cutting off of the relationships who had nothing directly to do with the problem, but were bound together mainly by that association. When the association is cut off, the relationships flounder, because the singing, the band, the camraderie of the learning and performing of music together is what held them together. Each individual one is like a separate, whole, and unique death all its own, with its own experience of grieving, and melancholy, and loss. This is the weight I have had on my shoulders for over three months now.
My husband told me the other day how much more joyful and healthy I looked than I had in recent weeks/months. Truly, it has been a summer of changes for me. I have changed jobs twice now (the latter of the total three being the reason I was so happy the particular day he made the comment). I have made definite decisions about my career path once I finally graduate college (another late-blooming activity that is usually best completed earlier in life). I know there has been some happy progress for me in these areas, but my personal life, even my spiritual life, since this matter is related to the body of believers with whom my whole life surrounds, is in a shambles.
Inside, I am a grieving, molten wreck. The worst of it is that I have tried to resolve the issue numerous times. I have offered my hand in friendship, offered to meet with the people involved and repent of my own mistakes, and make peace, all to no avail. No one seems to hear me, and no one will give me any solid responses to any of my questions. I feel as if I am a portion of chaff, drying in the merciless sun, and being lifted away to oblivion on the wind. The joy on my face just proves that I have another talent honed to perfection only in the 4's, the ability to act as if nothing is wrong.
After all, who really wants to hear someone go on and on about their struggles and problems all day? I know I don't. It's depressing to hear someone defeat themselves over and over again, by breathing life into the lies that others have set in motion as being the truth about them. We need to change our diets when we get into the 4's. Just like we can't physically survive on the junk food we used to thrive on in our 2's, when we reach our 4's, we need to get rid of the crap, and the BS, and all of the poisionous, toxic waste we hear day after day.
There is another lesson to be learned in the 4's, and that is that what we create can sometimes be toppled and destroyed unexpectedly by the actions of others. Once we bring our creation to the table, it is there for everyone to feast upon, and some diners partake daintily, some with appetite and true appreciation, and some with greed. We cannot protect what we have created once we have shared it with the world. There is no promise of permanency in anything we do. Often, sometimes many times in life, we are required to look at the rubble fallen all around us, and stoop to pick up the pieces, determined to rebuild them and create something new all over again.
No one can determine who we are and what we are to become but our own selves, both by what we do with our hands, and what we speak forth into the air.God created the world with one breath. He spoke just a word, and there was life, abundant life, and all manner of creature and animal, including man (and woman). We have his creative power within us, if only we would believe it, and grab hold of this wonderful adventure and begin to really live.
The relationships I have lost are precious, but they are gone now, not part of my future, and therefore not worth time dwelling upon. I loved them, love them still, but we have come to a crossroads, and I cannot spend any longer standing here, deciding which way to go. There is only one way, and that is forward.
Love to All,
---soul
3 comments:
You said "There is another lesson to be learned in the 4's, and that is that what we create can sometimes be toppled and destroyed unexpectedly by the actions of others."
I had a feeling it was something similiar to what happened to me. Like you said the details are not important but my brother told me not to ever talk to him again around Christmas. I was blown away because well, I had just lost my daughter. I only have one brother.
I should say HAD one brother.
At first I cowered in fear, hurt and grief.
Now I suppose I'm in the anger stage. He abandoned me during the most horrible time of my life with no thought to the consequences.
Maybe the details are important, I don't know. He wanted to move into the apartment. I didn't want him to because I felt like SHIT. I had shingles. I had (in retrospect) kidney problems. I need space and time to be alone with my grief.
I have the right to say NO. And for that I was disowned.
A man who abandons his sister when she loses her daughter is not a man.
Maybe you need to get mad. It feels better than feeling like the victim. (not saying YOU do...just saying I DID before)
Sherrie,
I don't want to assume anything, so I'll ask. Why did your brother want to move into your apartment? Was it for his own financial reasons? If so, he is a user, taking advantage of your situation for his own well being. Does this explain why he was so quick to abandon you when you had the guts to say no?
As far as family dysfunction, honey, our family is the POSTER FAMILY for that. My parents, who never got along when we were kids, who verbally, physically, and emotionally abused us, exposed us to the horrors of pornography, substance abuse, and observing them in questionable relationships, divorced when I was 18. My mother called me at my new apartment to tell me. My response? "What the hell took you so long!"
Even as an adult I am pulled this way and that way by their lingering bitterness over one another. After all these years. My Dad has been remarried to his current wife longer than he was married to my mother, but he still can't let it go.
I have two brothers who suffer long term effects from the things we endured as children. I think out of the three of us, I'm the most "normal" one in the family, and that's really not saying much! One talks to my Dad and not my Mom. One talks to my Mom and not my Dad. I talk to both, but can't talk to either of them about the other. It's exhausting. And then, after all that, I get the constant guilt trip of how a good daughter would call more, visit more, remember birthdays on time, etc. Holy crap, don't they know it's a defense mechanism because I need to be away from all of that poision? My mother has never even met my children, and she complains I don't send her a Mother's Day card. Give me a break.
I said all that to say that I am no stranger to grief, though certainly not the deep grief of losing a child. My grandmother died when I was twelve. TWELVE, and my mother blamed me! She had recently babysat us for a week just prior to her death, while my parents went on a very strange and rare trip together. The reason it was my fault? I supposedly must have given her a hard time during her stay, and caused her heart to fail!
Grief does strange things to people. My mother was never the same after that, and trust me, she wasn't winning any June Cleaver contests before the fact either.
She abandoned us, emotionally, physically, in every way that mattered. She lived in the house, sure, but she was just a shell, no longer a whole person. But who was there to care that we were grieving too? She was my mother's mother, but she was MY (our) grandmother! When we needed a shoulder, a hug, a lap to sit on and cry, all we found was each other. We used to sneak into one another's room late and night and just talk, trying to find comfort in one another's presence when there was none to be found anywhere else.
I'm sorry your relationship with your brother is severed. I don't know if you feel it could ever be restored, but you have the right to be angry, and the right to put him on the shelf, for as long as you need to. Sometimes people hurt us with a deep hurt that can't be healed, and there is nothing to do but cut them out of our lives. I have had to do that many times, and it always hurts, but it is always the best choice.
Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers. You have my support.
--Kristen
I am so sorry to hear about your grandmother...and being blamed. I mean what can I say except that?
Grief does do strange things to people. I think the strangest thing he (my brother) said to me was "I can't imagine losing a child, we just lost our cat...." and I'm looking at him thinking ohhhh, your NIECE is causing you less grief than your CAT? She lived with them.
I think it's best this way, keeping certain peeps at arm's lengths. You can't make sense out of nonsense.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh, he wanted to move into my apartment "to find a job". He hasn't worked in YEARS. Why would it be different now?
Plus I didn't want to live with him. He wasn't listed on the lease. =p
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