Paradigm: This is the World I Created

 

Wow. That’s profoundness right there.

 

I live my life according to some rules of what “they” believe I should be and how “they” believe I should live. I live a life of anxiety and fear, never quite sure what will happen if I don’t do what the amorphous “they” have decided is right for someone like me.

 

What do I mean?

 

I am a 35 year old woman. I have been raised to believe that by this point in my life I would

1) married,

2) a mother,

3) a homemaker,

4) work outside the home,

5) own rather than rent the place I live

6) volunteer at my kids’ school

7) have friends and family surrounding me all the time

 

But that’s not how it IS. How it is is that I am going through a divorce, I am no longer married, I no longer have someone that calls me their partner. I am a mother, but due to the situation of divorce I am forced to share my children’s time equally with their father, so I don’t even have children to come home to on a daily basis. I rent a basement suite, I own nothing. I work full time hours and do not have the opportunities to pour my time into my children’s lives or the lives of my larger community, and I certainly do NOT have a life surrounded by friends and family.

 

What I don’t want is to be LONELY. What I do want to be is LOVED.

 

Its just that getting to LOVED from LONELY isn’t going to go the way that everyone around me seems to think it does. Right now I am not in that situation of a loving committed live-in relationship, I don’t have a lot of friends to lean on, and I feel, quite frankly LOST and confused about what it is that I need to do.

 

But…

 

 

So my situation isn’t ideal if what I am holding onto is what I have been raised to believe is right, if I think of my life as incomplete, or if I get stuck in the mindset that there is only one way to live a rich and full life, there is only one way to have a complete family?

 

For years I lived in a marriage that just didn’t work. But I stayed, because I believed that this was the only way that I would be socially acceptable, the only way to have a family, when it was so very clear that it wasn’t working. I lived in a control paradigm world — my exFIL controlled his wife and sons through his beliefs in the bible and by withholding love and praise, theEx controlled me by jealousy, mistrust, violation of privacy, finances, guilt, and criticism, and I, in turn, tried to control our children by fear, intimidation, discipline and bribery.

 

Now I am FREE.

 

I don’t have to be accountable to my parents, because I’m 35.

I don’t have to be accountable to my husband, because (as far as we are both concerned) we are no longer married.

I do not have to answer to Reg, because although we are in a relationship, we aren’t at a stage where I have to do more than respect his feelings… I do not need to ask permission.

 

 

I have to be accountable to MYSELF… I have to honour MY committments to the world and people around me… and I get to decide what committments I make. 

 

And you know what? I can choose NOT to commit to things or people too! It might sound like common sense, but to me its profound.

 

For example: I have children and because I choose to have my children (it was a very heart wrenching choice with each of them) and because I have fought to have as much time as possible with my children, I have made a committment to make their lives the best that we can. But, I do not have to commit to EVERYTHING in the world that comes along with the idea of parenthood.

- I have agreed to commit my time and energy to 2 activities for each child, for each of these activities I have committed myself to getting the child to and from the activity, to events related to the activity, and to help them doing fundraising for the activity.

- Because my life doesn’t allow for me to quit my job and be a full time home schooling parent (99% due to the fact that my legal agreement with theEx will NOT allow such a situation at all) my children attend public school. I will read to my children, I will have them read to me, I will help with homework, I will assist them in gaining extra information on things that interest them, I will guide them in working around the pedagogy that the school refuses to veer from… but I cannot do EVERYTHING. I have to believe that I know what is best for my children, and not allow the school system to drag down either myself or my children, or feed into theEx’s attempt to discredit me.

 

I can make the choices that work for US. And you know why? BECAUSE I AM A GOOD PARENT, and the few things that I can’t manage to find time for do NOT discredit that, as much as other parents, theEx, teachers, or other people believe that not being able to do EVERYTHING they demand means I am not.

 

 

A good parent takes care of their children’s basic needs — provides food, clothing, shelter, water — and I provide all that.

 

A good parent takes care of the emotional needs of their children — providing a feeling of safety, security, trust that they are loved and wanted, belief that they have someone to reach out for — and I do this too.

 

While I might not be able to give them EVERYTHING they want when they want it, and I might not be able to let them do whatever they want when they want to, I provide for there physical, intellectual and emotional needs to the very best of my abilities and I always have. Do I do everything absolutely perfectly? NO. And you know what? I likely never will.

 

There will be times when I cannot do things for them, when they have to do them for themselves. There will come a time when I can’t protect them from EVERYTHING. 

 

There will be times homework goes undone for the night.

There will be days when they go to bed without eating because they don’t like what is set before them.  

There will be events missed out on because they chose to break a rule or not listen.

There will be times when I yell or scream or cry… there will be times they yell or scream or cry…

There will be times they fall and I can’t catch them

 

 

This is only STEP ONE of my work to shift how I see things… and sometimes I will STEP FORWARD, and sometimes I will SHUFFLE BACK…

 

Its a matter of keeping my balance and momentum and never letting what other people think hurt me (or my kids)…