Forks in the Road

This is my late night rambling.  Any typos will be fixed tomorrow. This is a stream of consciousness writing. ….

Sometimes we grieve for a thing we missed out on. This might be a person we thought we were meant to be with. Or it might be a situation like a job or a certain path we imagined was right for us.

But we really do not know what would have awaited us, had we ended up with that thing we were sure we wanted.

Think of a person that you ended up wishing you had never wanted to be in a relationship with. You were sure it was what you wanted at the time, but as time passed it was not what you pictured the relationship to be.

There is also some situation that you were sure you wanted that eventually turned out to be a devastating disappointment. What if you had never gotten it?

You might still be grieving the loss of what you imagined the outcome to be.

There is no way to know if you really missed out on a “dream job” because what you imagined it would be like is probably not how you would have felt once you were in it.

And that person you thought would have been the perfect partner…so much so that you compare your other relationships to that one perfect relationship that you imagine you missed by a hair….

Maybe you did something that you consider a mistake and it kept you from following along that particular path you thought was the “right” one.

While you spend your energy lamenting these imagined scenarios and how well they would have gone, you may be missing the inner voice that is calling toward something much better.

Rather than a loss of great magnitude, some of these things you missed out on may have ended up being the very things that would have kept you from the wonderful things you have yet to experience.

We sometimes feel that we are at a “fork in the road” and that if we choose the wrong path it will completely change our lives. But you are still you even after a seemingly dramatic choice.

You never know where any path will lead or many more moments of truth will seem to present themselves. It could be that you would wind down one path, only to find it ended up joining with the second one anyway, further down the road.

It is important that you know your values and what you believe in. It is also important that you are open to seeing things in a new light, if the facts you come across show you a new way of looking at things.

There are very few, if any, paths  that have a certain right or wrong way…at least not one you cannot correct , change or adapt to.

It is when you go against your inner voice and reject yourself that you get into trouble. You must honor your inner voice and allow it to guide you.

Do not reject yourself for the sake of pleasing someone else.

The sooner you learn to respect yourself and your resiliency, the sooner you can begin to have confidence that whatever direction you walk, that feels right, will eventually lead you someplace where you will be okay.

 

What are We Passing Down to the Next Generation?

When I was 6 years old, I got hurt on a see-saw. The person on the other side suddenly decided to get off. They jumped off in mid air, sending me crashing to the ground very hard.

The shock sent nerve pain streaming from my bottom all the way up my spine. I never got on a see-saw again. I did not let my kids get on them at the park. I simply fear them.

When I was 9 years old, I smashed my finger in a nutcracker. You know the ones… they look like a wooden doll that is a man with a white beard and a red jacket. Yeah, those things. I was playing with it because I thought it was a toy.

I ended up getting my finger smashed and it was extremely painful. To this day, I hate the sight of those things. I won’t let my kids even touch them in the store. I don’t even like regular nut crackers. I buy the nuts in the can that are ready to eat.

When I was 12 years old, I stepped on a tack. It got stuck in the heal of my foot. It was so stuck that it did not come out, even when I lifted my foot, jiggled it or yelled. (yeah, that one was a long shot…)
So I had to pry the stupid thing out of my poor foot by myself.

Ever since then I have not liked tacks. I don’t like bulletin boards that require tacks. When I am someplace that has a bulletin board, I immediately start looking on the floor for tacks. I have never allowed my kids to have bulletin boards in their rooms , even when they asked me for one.

These were physical pains. The memory of the pain is triggered by the offending objects. (ok that was a little dramatic… LOL).

By now you must be thinking “For God Sake that poor clutsy girl. It is amazing she survived to be an adult.

Yes, it probably is!

My father always says he did not think I would survive to be 2 years old because of all the furniture I ran my poor head into. He had to pad every corner, including but not limited to the handle on the kitchen fridge.

So, is this an article about my traumatic childhood. A memoir of how I was abused by inanimate objects? No, but let’s suffice to say it is still an ongoing problem for me. The battle with inanimate objects, that is.

No. This post is about the fears we carry and pass down to our children without really meaning to. Are my children deathly afraid of tacks, nutcrackers and see-saws? No, they actually think I am a little crazy about those things.

But if we carry fear with us about those things, imagine what fears we carry inside about mental and emotional harm that we incurred. It makes you wonder what fears we are passing down to our kids that we are not even aware of.

Not only that, what fears were passed onto us? How many generations can they go down?

Just a thought to ponder.

Namaste,
Annie