I've made blogs before, they weren't consistent then and this one isn't likely to be either. I'm not doing this to hold anyone's attention, I'm not trying to entertain, this is more an outlet for me than anything, kind of a way to journal when I'm not in the mood to go find my journal and write stuff out by hand.
I've read some of my old posts, and as folks tend to do when they read any old thing they've written, I finished about two sentences and cringed away... there's some kind of background motive for this to not turn out that way, I don't want to disappoint my future self. But that's also not really a way to operate, people discount the future. If you didn't, how would you function? There's enough of a feeling that someone's looking over my shoulder, I don't want to have to deal with someone staring me down as I walk towards them, too.
The title of this blog is A Work in Progress, which I am. The url is boughtandpaidfor, which I also am. I don't know when exactly I became a Christian... I was raised with the general belief system, we started going to church when I was twelve, and I really got to know Jesus when I got to college. All the in between is rocky and dark and interesting, but more than I want to unpack right now. I don't know why I feel the need to lay out who I am if I'm rejecting the idea of an audience...
That's my identity that's true, that's the already. But I am dealing with all the hang ups in the not yet.
One of those is my parents' opinions.
This virus has me on house arrest for the next few weeks at least, realistically longer, and at first that was fine; I'm a homebody by default, so having an excuse to stay in, not make plans, felt great for the first week or so. We're in the end of week two now and tensions are running high in the house.
Maybe that's an exaggeration, it's not like everyone's fighting all the time, we're not, so maybe tensions are just high for me.
My dad and I are making a kind of clearing behind our house, just beyond a thicket in the woods; we're going to cover the whole clearing surface with rocks, and in the middle we're going to put a giant plastic drum down in the ground, surround that with rocks, and burn stuff in it.
Dad and I talked up the idea sometime last year and have just gotten around to doing it. The only issue- the first link in the chain that leads up to my retrospectively melodramatic idea to create a venting blog- is that a couple months ago my mother built a good and proper firepit in our backyard. She worked really hard, and it works well; we had a family bonfire the other night, it was great.
She is less than thrilled when she saw us making the pit. She feels that A- we're going to set the forest on fire by accident, and B- that we're showing up her firepit, oh and C- that Dad and I are trying to separate from the group- the full group being both my parents, my brother, and myself.
This makes it very hard to enjoy making this thing; I feel like I'm engaging in open rebellion against my mother, consciously doing something that makes her upset, but stopping working on it so that she wouldn't be mad would be a coward's move- running from something that's harmless as soon as Mom says she doesn't approve- it's a people-pleaser move. I just want to fix it.
Mom's detaching the idea of the pit from me so she can just set her anger on Dad; she told me, 'I know it wasn't your idea,' and I told her it was, it really was both mine and Dad's idea. Why does it matter to me how they feel?
It's apparently human to care about other peoples' opinions, it's part of wanting to be known and seen and loved by the people around you, that makes sense to me. But I want to be selective with that, I want to only give that power to the people who won't ever use it badly. But that takes the risk out of it and so won't work.
I'm almost 20 years old and I forget who and how to be as soon as one of my parents says they don't like something I'm doing; I guess that's a good power to have as a parent, you can guide your kid away from stuff that's actively bad for them, but working on a project with my dad isn't bad for me, it's not hurting anything. Mom is always preaching logic and critical thinking and facts over feelings, but her feelings are illogical.
Why do they matter so much to me? She wasn't abusive, so it's not like a certain feeling triggers some warning that if I can't turn stuff around soon I going to get physically hurt. I don't like it when they disagree... maybe that's something- I can handle if both of them tell me, '___ made us mad,' then I feel like at least they're together on the thing- there are two clear-cut sides, mine and theirs. It's not Mom's and Dad's then mine somewhere in the middle... so that's a conclusion of sorts: it's less the actual irritation that bothers me and more the irritation at each other over something I'm a part of that frazzles me. But that still doesn't answer why I can't deal with Mom and I having an argument without resolving it and having to walk around the house dealing with her all angry or whatever. It sucks the energy out of me, like how am I supposed to just carry on as usual without it seeming like I'm rubbing it in her face? I have to acknowledge her feelings, I have to tell her that I see that she's mad and that I'm sorry and that I'll fix it. But that's not healthy. Her feelings aren't wrong, they don't need to be fixed. I need to figure out how to sit in the same room as them without letting them change the way I feel, but the how to do that stems from the why it's even a problem in the first place, and that's still unclear.
Could she have been manipulative early on? Maybe, but I don't know and I don't know that that's fair- or maybe I'm worried about her finding this someday and accusing me of being unfair... hypothetical manipulation could explain it- say I learned that when whoever was sad, it was my job to make them unsad, and that if I didn't then they would... what? Call me heartless, or uncaring, or mean? I don't want to be any of those things.
So say it stems from there: I don't want to be thought of or seen as not kind, as wrong, and if Mom's mad then something must've been done wrong, and if she's mad at something I did or was involved in, then I did that something wrong and I could have kept her from being angry by not doing whatever it was, by hiding it from her, by doing everything I can to show her that I'm doing the right thing the right way. I made sure to explicitly invite my brother to come work on the pit, I'm ashamed to say, not because I particularly wanted him to come along that time, but so that I could tell Mom that I tried to include him.
We're not taking sides, its a firepit, we're not trying to show you up, we're just trying to build a nice thing in the woods- open to the public. Maybe we could make a little fort or an overhang facing the fire, maybe it could be like a clubhouse or something when my brother and I have kids. I wish Mom would've seen how proud of this thing I was, how excited I am, how many ideas I've got for it...
I also wish Dad would give me a definitive direction when I say anything about the pit. I could say, 'Do you want to widen the circle?' and he'll say, 'I don't care, there's no rhyme or reason to this thing.' Yes there is what do you mean- we planned this, we had a plan when we started the whole thing, of course there's a rhyme and a reason to this thing- so with the way he was handling it, it was like it was becoming more and more my project, and more his outlet for cabin fever, and so Mom's anger about the fire pit should be directed at me primarily, because I'm the most enthusiastic about it. Disagreeable enthusiasm is met with disproportionate anger... that's a little dramatic again- Mom controlled herself and told me she's not mad at me- I could go on and on, but I won't...
There's hope. Where there's frozen ground, there's progress to be had.
Ultimately, the only approval I need is that of my Lord- His love is enough for me, it just doesn't feel like it sometimes, but that is nothing but human and is where God's strength is made perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment