Category: learning

Realization

A commenter on another post asked how my stepdaughter’s birthday dinner went over the weekend. Let’s talk about that.

It’s no secret that my husband’s ex-wife (aptly nicknamed Psycho here) has insisted on making things as difficult, contentious, and unnecessarily combative as she possibly can, for nearly two decades. I have zero patience for her lust for drama and conflict, so I dread occasions when we have to spend time with her in person, because she will gladly ruin one of the children’s events to pat herself on the back for being tasteless.

This past weekend, my husband and I met my older stepdaughter and her fiancé for their birthday dinner, since their birthdays are just days apart. Psycho and my younger stepdaughter were also there.

I realized something at that dinner this past weekend. Sitting next to my husband, holding his hand, chatting with my stepdaughter’s fiancé about football…I was actually relaxed. Not uncomfortable. Not tense. Just calm.

I keep writing about growth and true happiness, but until that moment, I didn’t realize how much things have changed within me. When we walked up to the table and were instantly greeted with a sour frown from Psycho and then a string of her deafening complaints about the time, the wait, and lord knows what else because I tuned it out, the truth finally clicked for me, loud and clear.

That woman is a miserable soul. And she always will be. For whatever reason, she refuses to change. She wants to be unhappy, and she yearns to make everyone around her as unhappy as she is.

I used to feel animosity for her. But looking at her this past weekend, I couldn’t help but see the ravages of her moldered soul: frown lines slashed into her sagging face; deadened, empty eyes; her forsaken lack of light or heart or joy.

Some people can’t be saved. They don’t want to be. They cling to their bitterness and spite, because that’s all they have. They desperately claw at others to drag them down to their level, and they rage when people are happy anyway. That is exactly what was happening that evening at dinner, what has been happening for years and years, and I understood it crystal clear for the first time. My tension melted away in that moment, because suddenly I fully and absolutely knew.

She has never hated me. Or my husband. She hates that we are happy. She hates that despite all her attempts to destroy our relationship, we are still very much in love, devoted to each other, building our lives and our future together.

And she is…nothing. She hates that, too.

Psycho bristled at that table, endlessly complaining and gossiping as always, trying her damnedest to bring everyone down with her. But it didn’t work. My husband joked around. My stepdaughters teased each other. My stepdaughter’s fiancé joined in with his own quiet humor. And my husband and I held hands and enjoyed the evening, because we were together.

A burden was heaved off of my shoulders that night. Of course I always knew that Psycho is a joyless creature, but wholly comprehending her foulness, her infatuation with me, her bitterness, and planting the entire responsibility for that onto her shoulders where it belonged, was a welcome relief for me.

Instead of dread, I felt nothing. It just is what it is. She is what she is. Ultimately, insignificant.

I went home that night feeling light. Peaceful. Loved.

Psycho went home that night exactly as she arrived. Hate-filled. Jealous. Fake. Desperate. Failed. Tolerated, not loved. Echoing emptiness.

I am a firm believer that what lies inside will reflect on your outside. For some people, that is beautiful. For others…it is tragic.

For me? I know I still have a long way to go. But the night of that dinner was a significant road marker, signaling how far I have already traveled. And for that, I am grateful and inspired. When I have seen up close and personal what refusing to grow does to a person, then every single step away from that is glorious progress.

Learn

Some of my most valuable life lessons have actually been delivered through people I do not like or respect at all. Sometimes it’s not the teacher, but the teaching, that matters most; don’t close your ears to the lesson simply because you are turned off by the messenger.

Here are some things I have learned by observing people I do not like even the tiniest bit:

  1. Respect and appreciate the people in your life who care about you. Talk is cheap: show them you love them. Leave no doubt. Pour your attention and time onto them, not onto irrelevant people who bring no happiness to your days.
  2. Focus on your own life, your own goals, your own path. Obsessing over someone else’s life will result in years flying by with no growth or positive change in yours.
  3. Hand-outs from others very often come with too many strings attached to make them worth it. I choose to stand on my own two feet instead of depending on someone who only wants to yank puppet strings. (Besides, isn’t being in your 50s and still getting an allowance from your daddy just a wee bit embarrassing?)
  4. Jealousy and bitterness age you. Lack of joy and genuine happiness etch your face like a chisel into stone.
  5. Appreciating life can’t be overemphasized. Watch more sunsets. Search for shapes in clouds. Lose yourself in the sound of your loved one’s voice. Hold on tight to life, and celebrate being here another day.
  6. Cherish what you already have. Don’t waste energy by eyeing what others have, or by comparing, measuring, and complaining. It’s a pointless drain that subtracts happiness from your life.
  7. Self-awareness, honesty with yourself, and a willingness to continuously learn and evolve are non-negotiable for a meaningful life. Without these, you end up repeating the same disastrous mistakes and reliving the same catastrophic relationships in a miserable existence, on an endless loop, with no hope of improvement. I see this in the same person who taught me lesson #2, and it is no way I would ever choose to live.
  8. Value your dignity. Throwing yourself at men and begging them to like you because you can’t stand being single is just cringe-y and desperate.
  9. Enjoy your children by respecting them as individuals. They are not blind to relentless lies, games, and manipulations. These behaviors render a toll that cannot be fully repaired.
  10. Just tell the truth. Lying is ugly and cowardly.
  11. Honor your obligations. Pay your damn bills. Oh, and don’t steal from your children or open credit cards in other people’s names. (Do non-trashy people really need to learn this, though?)
  12. A sense of humor is a must. Someone who can’t joke around or laugh at themselves is no fun to be around.
  13. Last but certainly not least: no amount of make-up or ridiculous photo filters will ever make up for lack of skin care and sunscreen!

I must say thank you to the people who offer up their life choices to model what happens when you refuse to learn from your mistakes. Even people determined to serve no discernible purpose whatsoever can at least teach the rest of us how not to be.

Holding Them Back

After 17+ years of taking the hour-long trip to Hickville for all of the kids’ events, my husband and I are not exactly disappointed that the need for those trips is quickly dwindling. No matter how many times I have been there, I find myself just looking around, shaking my head in disbelief and disgust.

Hickville is a small town, but certainly not in the charming sense. I am from a small town, and I have never seen anything like Hickville. It’s more like an inbred cult than a town. Small minds, big mouths. They are proud of their ignorance and tackiness. The louder and trashier, the better.

No one who cares about the kids’ futures would ever have dragged them to that town. No one who loves the kids would have forced them to try to grow and learn and flourish in a place like that, where enlightenment is scorned, and morphing into another mindless clone is the norm.

The only reason the kids were compelled to grow up in such a stifling, asinine environment is so that Psycho could spare herself from ever facing a single adult responsibility. She greedily refuses to stray from her daddy’s perpetual handouts, letting him think for her, coddle her, pay her bills, even offer up the shack she currently freeloads in. Over 50 years old, and she has never, not once, stood on her own two feet. It’s hard to do that when she lives shamelessly on her knees and refuses to be anything but pathetic.

The youngest child graduates soon. The kids’ opportunity for a decent, basic education is gone. They were forced to attend one of the worst schools in the state, thanks to Psycho. I don’t think they realize yet how much this has wounded them, or how much she doesn’t care.

Even worse is the attitude that leaving that wasteland of a town is some kind of crime. It’s like the adults in that town know that if kids leave, they will realize what a shit hole that town really is, and how backward and uncultivated all the adults are. So they smash their wings, suppress their ambitions, stuff them into whatever cages they can dream up to trap them there.

We attended an event at my stepdaughter’s school the other night. Looking around, I understood Psycho’s refusal to leave. She fully belongs there–a cheap clown in a dysfunctional circus.

Let her stay there and rot, then. But locking the kids up and holding them down should not make anyone happy. Not anyone who truly cares about them.

I hope the kids open their eyes to the entire world just waiting outside of that absurd joke of a town. I hope they find the courage to explore, to learn, to discover opportunities and experiences available to them if they just step out of that damn cage. I hope they are curious, independent, willing to take chances, and strong enough to build their own lives, freedom, dreams, and happiness.

Limping and Fishing

If this is true, then I am excessively educated! For almost half a year now, I have been plagued by either illness or injury. It kicked off with bronchitis right around Halloween, a hacking cough that persisted through Thanksgiving, a fun bout of flu over Christmas that I shared with my poor husband, and then a series of endless, odd injuries that have kept me hobbling, limping, and wincing.

Most recently, a clumsy accident left my knee swollen and stiff, and walking has been nearly impossible. I have steady relationships with ice packs and pain relievers, and a compression knee brace is my newest fashion accessory.

This past weekend, though, I felt healed up enough to venture outside with my husband. Yesterday was a beautiful day, and we decided to head out to the lake. Although he loves fishing, I somehow have never tried it, so he set up my new fishing pole and gave me my first lesson.

I admit, I did not expect to like it very much. Toss some bait into the water, then just stand there baking in the sun, sweating, waiting to see if a fish comes along…I didn’t see the point. But after I got the hang of casting my line, I can see how it is actually relaxing: the whir of the fishing line at it feeds out, the soft splash of the bait, then watching the rhythmic motion of the water as you reel the line back in, all the while surrounded by gently waving water, reflecting the puffy clouds and gorgeous blue sky.

I glanced over at my husband as he cast his line, and I could plainly see how much he enjoys fishing. He patiently showed me everything he was doing, talked about bass and bait fish and different kinds of fishing, moving his line easily through the water like he was steering it, and I could tell he was in his element. He was happy.

The first time that I tossed out my line, and it actually sailed out freely, smoothly, like maybe I knew what I was doing, I excitedly turned to see if he had seen it. He was smiling over his shoulder, reeling in his own line but keeping an eye on me, too.

He joked about me having a talent for getting the fishing line in a tangle, but he showed me (more than once…okay, a lot) how to free the line and get back to business. I think he really enjoyed watching me learn a hobby he has loved for years. He kept tentatively asking if I was done and wanted to leave, and he seemed so happy when I would say no, I wasn’t ready to go yet. I wanted to cast again.

I’m not sure why it took us so long to go fishing together. I’m just very glad we did.

Stagnant

It seems like the older I get, the faster time is flying by. It would be dangerous to settle complacently into a corner and get too comfortable. Before I know it, days turn into months, then years, in the blink of an eye. If I don’t remain actively aware of it, what will ever change?

For better or worse, I have a shockingly stark example of what could happen if I never change.

When I first met my husband over 17 years ago, I was also unfortunately faced with his pestilent ex, Psycho. I attempted once — only once — to have a rational conversation with her about being civil for the sake of the kids. Her response was so execrable that it left no doubt that sense and sanity would never have a place in any interactions with her. 

But people learn and change, right? Well, ideally, yes, they do. Seventeen years later, however, not one septic thought or action of Psycho’s has changed even the slightest. Still ragingly jealous. Still pathologically obsessed. Still no hesitation to gluttonously cannibalize the kids to placate her hollow ego. Same tirades, same games, same silly lies on repeat, stunted and stale and predictable.

Seventeen years have passed, one day at a time, and Psycho is content to be exactly the same as she was back then. No improvement, no learning, not one single step forward, and a mortifying lack of pride, class, or self-awareness to even be properly embarrassed by that. 

It used to drive me crazy. Surely, someday, she must change, because how could anyone remain gratified with being nothing but trash with a pulse?

One major thing has changed, but on my part, not hers. I finally made myself accept that it wasn’t a temporary flaw or a momentary blunder of hers. It is exactly who she is at heart, and I don’t need to understand it. In fact, I prefer that I never do. It’s simply not worth the time or energy to ponder her countless shortcomings when she will remain precisely the same years from now, decades from now, at best garnering some charitable pity here and there, but never respect or admiration or genuine affection. The nothing she is today is the same nothing she will be the day she dries up and withers away.

What about me? I can’t believe it’s been over 17 years already since I met my husband. Psycho is the only scenery standing still. Everything and everyone else is racing by, changing on fast forward. The kids are no longer small. This spring will be the last high school graduation for us. The oldest child is now married. My husband and I, once just friends nervously getting to know each other, are also married, with our own home, building memories and making plans and looking forward to our future together, and I can’t imagine life without him at my side. 

In the same time period, what has Psycho done? Well…nothing. She chose to root herself long ago in bitterness, jealousy, and hatred, and each passing year buries her even deeper in her self-dug crypt. Still wholly supported by her father’s handouts well into her 50s, still destroying every relationship she touches. She denies reality by self-servingly patting herself on the back, calling herself an independent woman, filtering her pictures with a heavier (and more obvious) hand with each passing year, and shoveling more and more absurd lies to whitewash her meaningless life instead of attempting any real growth or advancement. 

Psycho wears the foulness of her inside in the lines, sags, and folds of her outside. There is no light, or kindness, or goodness to soften the harshness of her decline. It’s more than merely aging: it’s stagnancy, putrefying from the inside out. It’s the opposite of living. 

Time is supposed to bring change. It’s part of life. The flipping of calendar pages should bring evolution, adaptation, development. Stagnancy is unhealthy and crippling, a sure sign that something is malfunctioning. It’s a brightly blazing check engine light, a red flag a mile wide.

It scares me to look back and realize how quickly time has slipped by already. It’s like watching the road streak by from a speeding car. The only guarantee is that it’s going to keep rushing by, whether I’m ready or not. 

I still have some control over my destination. I know two things for sure: what I want to drive toward, and what I want to steer clear from. 

I want to drive my life toward: love. Peace. Happiness. Honesty. Clarity. As close to my husband as I can get, making sure he never doubts how much I adore him and cherish him in my life. Contributing to the world around me, teaching as I learn, appreciating the beauty in the most simple things around me, and discovering more about myself and the world as I try new things.

I want to be sure that stagnancy stays far, far in the rearview mirror. I don’t understand being satisfied with a gangrenous soul or rotted psyche, but there is freedom in no longer attempting to understand. It’s not my burden to fathom anyone’s poor life choices.  

I have far more important things to concentrate on, like fully and truly living my life, holding onto the light and love of each day, enjoying many more adventures with my husband, laughing as much as possible, helping whenever I can, feeling and savoring and experiencing every single thing that life has to offer me, and making sure I don’t miss the lesson or blessing between every beautiful sunrise and sunset of the rest of my days. 

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