Blessings and Curses

Welcome to 2016 everyone! I know I wrote a 2016 post but I also took a week off from blogging. It was really nice and it helped me just think about some new topics and allow myself to just be creative. Since starting this blog, I’ve never taken a week off and considering how often I tell you all to take time for yourselves….. 😉

First may I say how happy I am that Christmas is over? I know from all the emails, shares and comments to my “Trauma and Christmas” post that I am absolutely not alone. It is nice to feel less alone but also sad to know so many of us find Christmas as well as many other holidays very difficult.
Are you okay now?
Did you manage to find ways to take care of yourself?
Please just know that you were all in my mind.

This was a really weird Christmas and New Years for me. I was struck how my thoughts and feelings were pointed one way and yet the other way all at the same time. If there is a way to go north AND south in the same moment? I did it over the past 2 weeks.
One situation that came up over and over in my mind was how often the very things that I counted as my blessings were also my curses. Isn’t it strange how the same thing that makes you happy in one moment is also what makes you sad in the next? Do you find that at times?

One example for me this year (and it was a big one)… my kids.
On one side it was so much easier to plan for Christmas. I was able to give my husband a nice gift which never used to happen because we were always so tight to the wire with 3 children. We travelled locally when we felt like it and didn’t need to worry about rushing home to make supper or taking a child to a friend’s house. It was a much cheaper, easier, and for the lack of money only, less stressful.
On the other hand? Not having them around was so hard. There were more tears than I could count and a moment of pure happiness was often followed by incredible grief.

My own biological family is another example. My mother does not like me and never loved me (her exact words) so that counts her out. My father knows about and admitted to ignoring the abuse I suffered only to phone me 3 hours later calling me a sociopath and telling me that calling the cops would be a terrible idea for me. My siblings are either gone to the other side or to a life so filled with alcohol and drugs that they in any way that matters, are really gone too.
I am happy that I found the courage to leave all that behind and begin a life that is so much more positive. The life I have now is a healthy one. That makes me so very happy. I love the life that I have now and I am happier in my own skin than I have been in a long, long time. Probably ever. This is such a HUGE blessing…
… and a curse because even though I KNOW they are not good for me, that they are sick in many ways and I am better off without them in my life? I miss having my own family at Christmas more than any other time of year. Christmas is all about families, memories made now and chatting about memories from years ago. It just makes me really sad.
This year I really grieved too, I just wanted (in all honesty, still want) a mom and dad that loved me. Not MY real parents but I just wonder what it feels like to be taken in to a mothers or fathers arms and know that you are loved and that you are safe without condition. What does it feel like to know that you have parents that love you? It must feel really good. Do people ever adopt 45 year olds? ❤

Then there is my past. What a bang up job people did to make my life hell. My mother was the ringleader but there were hundreds upon hundreds of others that were right in there with her.
I spoke about this a bit in my post “A Beautiful Disaster” but it is worth saying again in my opinion…
Without all that abuse and those memories plus being diagnosed with DID and being treated for PTSD? I wouldn’t have this blog. I wouldn’t have the same compassion for others that I do now. I really “get it” when someone tells me that they had a hard life. I wouldn’t be running a support group and I wouldn’t have my art. All 3 began as a direct result of my past. For as much as my abuse took from me, it also made me who I am now and it is responsible for my livelihood.
I know I’d have a different, maybe better life if it all had not happened but would I appreciate it as much as I do now? I doubt it.

In the end it all goes back to my belief that a situation is rarely what you think it is. Your perception can cloud even the smallest issue and make it feel huge. It can work the other way too. I know when bad things happen, I usually don’t react at all. My perception due to my past is that there are FAR worse things in life.
My issues lately can be seen in a good light, a bad light or both. It is all about the perception that I have that day or that moment.
Maybe that is how life is really supposed to be in the first place?
Good AND bad.
Happy AND sad.
Up, down, AND all around.

We never really need to label events in our life at all because our curses can also be our blessings.