Sunday, March 28, 2010

ROSY LIFE

I haven’t had a rosey life. You will never find me thinking things are going to be good, even when they are in the moment. Instilled within me from childhood is a feeling that one day the other shoe is going to drop and no matter how bad things seem they can and will get worse. Even during the happier times in my life, when I was seemingly unencumbered by stress and worry this nagging feeling was always there, waiting to jump out of the darkness of my mind and attack me.

One of my first memories is of my mom and dad fighting, there’s screaming, shoving and then blood and blinding light...from what my mom has told me I was around 4 at the time. I saw my dad get arrested for the first time after seeing him choke a woman until she blacked out and I remember thinking “At least it isn’t Mama”. I had my first panic attack in 2nd grade. I started my period when I was 9 and lost my virginity and got raped the year I turned 12. There is more and the list goes on but I won't, it gets worse from there but a lot of that is my own stupidity.

I don’t expect sympathy for any of those things. I have had enough sympathy and people shedding tears on my behalf to last me the rest of my life. My life has been sad but other people have had it worse. There’s a saying that goes something like “If we threw all our problems in a pile and you could see everyone else’s then you would grab your own back and be thankful”. I’m not entirely sure that is true because I know some people who have led a charmed life but for the most part I don’t want anyone else’s problems, issues or trauma because I know how to deal with mine.

When I hear someone say that the universe balances itself and you have to take the good with the bad I can’t help but feel a little resentful that all of my bad stuff had to come to me at an early age...then I realize I am being optimistic and put a stop to that rather quickly. No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse that nagging voice in the back of my head reminds me and I shut off those thoughts that all my troubles are behind me.

Some people would consider this negative or self defeating but I don’t, I consider it realistic. My son asked me why I was crying at the end of a movie the other day, a kid’s movie with a happy ending. I told him that one day he would understand, when he knew how much bad there is in the world he would get why something happy and sappy would make a grown person cry.

Do good and bad always balance out? Is there always a little pain with the pleasures of life? I don’t really know the answer to that but never in my 26 years have I ever held a rose that didn’t contain at least one thorn.

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