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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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television and childhood
Came to realize today (while watching television, of all things) that my responses to situations are often based in that feeling of making things okay on the surface. Growing up, I always had to pretend that things were fine, that my family was fine, even when things were all out of whack. And things always were all out of whack. My father always made sure of it. It's only within the past year or so that I realized that my brothers had had some kind of different upbringing. Though we shared a room, a yard, parents, a television set, we all were going through strangely different childhoods. They were not being confronted with many of the things I was having to deal with. They had this kind of freedom that certainly has its roots in gender differences, but not in any kind of generic way. I had a lot of freedom too, but not quite as much as them, and I was always expected to be obedient. My niece asks me quite often when she's going to be old enough for me to let her in on what my childhood was like, what my father did that was so bad, but I'm not able to talk about it with her. I don't have any knowledge of what are good boundaries for a conversation like this with an eleven year old. I hate to think of her growing up like I did, so I pretend that she is probably not growing up like I did even though hope never kept anyone, least of all me, safe. When I let go, everything seems to spiral towards this conclusion, towards this time in my life when my father had complete control over me. It's a drain on me, pulling me down where I don't want to go.
More lies:
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