I have been working on my house the past few days. Accepting my life as it is now instead of wishing things were different. On Sunday a friend of mine helped me to replace the 1984 microwave oven over my stove.
I had an hood microwave that the previous owner of our business gave me a few years ago. He told some story about why it was returned I don't really remember the details now. I thought there is no way the new one will last 28 years. It was actually still working but it was really scary and probably radiating my head every time I used it . The new one looks so nice and clean.
Yesterday I spent the day making some screens for my windows. I noticed for the first time in 3 1/2 years that they were missing. While working I thought a lot about my dad. I got the fixing gene from him. My fathers only son I always told people.
He was a patient man a lot more patient than me. I used to think he ruined my life. The truth is I didn't really know him I only knew him from the perspective of a child. I was too hurt and immature to see that the man I thought I knew died with my mother. I wanted him to take over where she left off be there when I needed him. He didn't have that kind of strength but waited for him to show up anyway.
In my meditation last night I began to visit the house where we all lived when my mother was alive and during her illness. I could see every single detail of each room and all the furniture and rugs. I could see the ceramic yellow and red rooster sitting on the counter. I could see the blue couch that my mother laid on month after month while she was sick. Every detail frozen in time.
She made our life a fairytale my mom. We had the pentecostal June Cleaver version of life. We prayed together, read the Bible together had ice cream socials with the sisters and brothers from the church. There was a constant flow of visitors in our home even missionaries from other countries, life was a constant party.
So why was this coming back to me now? It occurred to me that as a child I believed that this is how life would always be. My mother made things happen she took care of us and life was great.
This is and eight year old's view of the situation. I think I have been trying to get back to that eight year old's version of nirvana all my life. My mother wasn't there to help me deal with the reality of adulthood. Help me to deal with the reality that sometimes things don't work out and sometimes mothers die. To show me what life behind the scenes is really like. Life isn't always a party like it is at eight. I think now I have been eight most of my life. I get that now.
Life taught me that life can suck when your mother dies and your dad remarries someone that wishes you would disappear. But somewhere I believed I would find the happiness I had at eight again if I just kept looking. It wasn't real except in the mind of that little girl.
My mediation made me realize that in my mind that was the last time I was happy. A childhood happy that would have disappeared even if my mother hadn't died. I have thought all this time that I could get that back. It is like when you first fall in love and it is bliss and then eventually you have to decide who is going to take out the trash. There is no permanent bliss.
In my imagination I had it all at eight and the rest of my life has been a big disappointment. Never living up to that standard. Sounds ridiculous I am sure. It wasn't all roses back then either my mother whipped me daily so who knows what life was really like outside my imagination.
So the past lives only in my imagination and it is time that I focused on just what is in front of me. I can see things just as they are instead of what I wish them to be.
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