Monday, October 23, 2006
The Life I Planned (from Beth Moor's poem)
When I saw this week's quote to write on, didn't even have to think whether I would. How do we figure out who we are, and what our life will be?
My life began in southeast Texas, where I lived the first 36 years of it. I loved southern cooking, and thought the Dallas Cowboys ranked right up there with pastors and doctors. No, that's not exactly true. What is true is that I hadn't yet eaten other foods, or learned about other sports.
Had I been born in China, or Japan, I might like squid more than Texas Roadhouse steak, and think men wearing only loin cloths while wrestling was more sport than football. As I grew older, I also changed my opinion somewhat about clergy and medical people. But for thirty six years I absorbed the culture I was in. I still walk and talk a lot like I did back then.
Until I married when fifteen, I learned only bits and pieces of my people's culture. Sometimes we don't, we can't know how important some of those pieces are. In my older years I wonder if my grandpa realized what he gave me, when he told me bedtime stories of his childhood on a South Carolina plantation.
Some things we learn more from example than from being told. My favorite grandma taught me more without words. Her getting up every day and building a fire in the stove, and later sweeping the porch, while dinner slowly simmered, her courage, her never complaining about how poorly she lived didn't seem like life changing examples at the time.
When I learned about her life, that she was widowed very young, left alone to raise four children, I treasured each sweep of her broom, and time spent helping her snap dried peas.
Many times, in the Old Testament when families traveled to foreign lands, it seemed to me that wives left their people, and went with their husbands. In a way, that's what happened to me, even though we stayed in the same town. Early on in marriage, almost all family gatherings, interactions were almost always with his people.
Holidays, special occasions, all our Kodak moments and pictures were made there. At fifteen you're probably not that aware of how much you need to be with family, how much you need their influence and support. All that was taken from me, all but a few bits and pieces. Sometimes I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
I don't know, maybe it's passed on in bloodlines, but even when I was a little girl I loved learning. Hardly anybody emphasized it. It was just in me, and I had to do it. I could write a whole other story about how I got educated, but am trying hard to stick to the subject here.
If I had planned my life, my parents would have had a a nice home, like my grandpa did, and they would have got along and raised me and my brothers and sisters, instead of us all being sent in different directions, and not growing up together. If life had been anything like ideal, pretty flowers would have grown in our yard, instead of sand and sandburs.
My children would have had much better childhoods, and school days, and enjoyed Christmases sometimes at Grandpa's, and been amazed at the huge holly tree he put up each year. One child wouldn't be an alcoholic, and one would not have killed himself, but life isn't always pretty. Like the Christmas tree, sometimes we have to decorate it ourselves.
Do I wish my growing up years had been different? oh yes, but I may as well complain about the wind and rain.
My years were not all bad. Many people helped. A teacher, someone I met somewhere would say a few things that stuck with me, help me begin to believe in myself, or show me a new trail to check out, and it's still happening today.
A few months ago I began what would be a huge change. I thought it was all about where I lived, and what job I had. It was much more important than that.
I had sunk into a deep rut, that while comfortable at first, eventually wasn't. Without challenges, without something interesting going on, life was getting duller almost every day.
When I was a child, someone would decide where I would go, and how my life would be.
I think I've discovered a new definition of freedom. It's me deciding where to take me.
So I moved to the other side of a mountain, and took on challenges my rut style of life didn't require. This morning I looked out my window, at the part of Colorado I'm in. October's ending, but Autumn's still around. My God, it's so beautiful here!
I read somewhere until you embrace your past, you cannot love your today. I was hanging on to the wrong part of my life, betrayal, the hurt, the anger. I didn't understand that doing that kept me from knowing and loving myself.
When I thought of me as a little girl, I didn't think about being almost beautiful, and very smart. I pictured the wrongs done to me, and felt very sad.
After I gave myself permission to take me where I want to, I decided to do something else. I remembered the little girl I used to be, and what it was like to be her, and smiled as I left her back there, then picked up my treasured bits and pieces of family history, and reached out for a new day, and me.
My life began in southeast Texas, where I lived the first 36 years of it. I loved southern cooking, and thought the Dallas Cowboys ranked right up there with pastors and doctors. No, that's not exactly true. What is true is that I hadn't yet eaten other foods, or learned about other sports.
Had I been born in China, or Japan, I might like squid more than Texas Roadhouse steak, and think men wearing only loin cloths while wrestling was more sport than football. As I grew older, I also changed my opinion somewhat about clergy and medical people. But for thirty six years I absorbed the culture I was in. I still walk and talk a lot like I did back then.
Until I married when fifteen, I learned only bits and pieces of my people's culture. Sometimes we don't, we can't know how important some of those pieces are. In my older years I wonder if my grandpa realized what he gave me, when he told me bedtime stories of his childhood on a South Carolina plantation.
Some things we learn more from example than from being told. My favorite grandma taught me more without words. Her getting up every day and building a fire in the stove, and later sweeping the porch, while dinner slowly simmered, her courage, her never complaining about how poorly she lived didn't seem like life changing examples at the time.
When I learned about her life, that she was widowed very young, left alone to raise four children, I treasured each sweep of her broom, and time spent helping her snap dried peas.
Many times, in the Old Testament when families traveled to foreign lands, it seemed to me that wives left their people, and went with their husbands. In a way, that's what happened to me, even though we stayed in the same town. Early on in marriage, almost all family gatherings, interactions were almost always with his people.
Holidays, special occasions, all our Kodak moments and pictures were made there. At fifteen you're probably not that aware of how much you need to be with family, how much you need their influence and support. All that was taken from me, all but a few bits and pieces. Sometimes I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
I don't know, maybe it's passed on in bloodlines, but even when I was a little girl I loved learning. Hardly anybody emphasized it. It was just in me, and I had to do it. I could write a whole other story about how I got educated, but am trying hard to stick to the subject here.
If I had planned my life, my parents would have had a a nice home, like my grandpa did, and they would have got along and raised me and my brothers and sisters, instead of us all being sent in different directions, and not growing up together. If life had been anything like ideal, pretty flowers would have grown in our yard, instead of sand and sandburs.
My children would have had much better childhoods, and school days, and enjoyed Christmases sometimes at Grandpa's, and been amazed at the huge holly tree he put up each year. One child wouldn't be an alcoholic, and one would not have killed himself, but life isn't always pretty. Like the Christmas tree, sometimes we have to decorate it ourselves.
Do I wish my growing up years had been different? oh yes, but I may as well complain about the wind and rain.
My years were not all bad. Many people helped. A teacher, someone I met somewhere would say a few things that stuck with me, help me begin to believe in myself, or show me a new trail to check out, and it's still happening today.
A few months ago I began what would be a huge change. I thought it was all about where I lived, and what job I had. It was much more important than that.
I had sunk into a deep rut, that while comfortable at first, eventually wasn't. Without challenges, without something interesting going on, life was getting duller almost every day.
When I was a child, someone would decide where I would go, and how my life would be.
I think I've discovered a new definition of freedom. It's me deciding where to take me.
So I moved to the other side of a mountain, and took on challenges my rut style of life didn't require. This morning I looked out my window, at the part of Colorado I'm in. October's ending, but Autumn's still around. My God, it's so beautiful here!
I read somewhere until you embrace your past, you cannot love your today. I was hanging on to the wrong part of my life, betrayal, the hurt, the anger. I didn't understand that doing that kept me from knowing and loving myself.
When I thought of me as a little girl, I didn't think about being almost beautiful, and very smart. I pictured the wrongs done to me, and felt very sad.
After I gave myself permission to take me where I want to, I decided to do something else. I remembered the little girl I used to be, and what it was like to be her, and smiled as I left her back there, then picked up my treasured bits and pieces of family history, and reached out for a new day, and me.
