Hurt people...

hurt people. That's one of those things people say to make us feel better when we've been wronged or to make us feel better when we're the one doing the wrong. I do believe it tends to be true. Of course, not everyone who has been hurt, hurts and not everyone who hurts us has been hurt. But we've all been hurt and, frankly, we've all done some hurting of others. The second part of that sentence tends to make us uncomfortable, but it's still true. We are all part villain and part victim. I'm the bad guy in other people's story* and maybe you are the antagonist in mine. We've all done and said things that have done harm. I mean, we can't all be the victim all the time, right? Someone has to be doing the hurting. Someone has to be the one giving the hell.

When someone has done something to me that has created a wound, I do (usually) try to understand why. Is it me? Am I the one who caused the initial hurt that's now being reflected back to me? Is this person simply lashing out at me, because I'm the closest or easiest target? Do they feel safe expressing their anger or sadness or hurt with me, because they trust me to understand and forgive? Or are they just plain mean? Usually, it's not mean, it really is a bad seed someone else planted in them and for whatever reason, they are reaping it all over me or you. Or maybe I am the drama.

When I was in fifth grade, we had a new principal. He was a younger man and, in hindsight, I can easily say he was earnest, serious and desperately wanting to be taken seriously. He was a bit more than necessary. I remember distinctly on a warm day at the beginning of the school year he was giving what I truly believe he thought was a profound and inspiring speech to our class. He walked up and down the rows the entire time he was addressing the students of whom he was now in charge. I remember feeling very snoozy and overly warm and bored out of my mind. I was fighting to keep my eyes open and sweating like, well, a kid in an un-airconditioned class room during late summer. My glasses began to slide down my nose. As the principal walked by, he took his middle finger and pushed my glasses up my nose, the tip of his finger ever-so-slightly tapped against my forehead between my eyebrows.

And something inside me exploded in white hot rage.

It was embarrassing, of course. Girls shouldn't sweat (keep in mind it was the early eighties). It's likely only the classmates sitting to my left and my right saw, if they even did. It wasn't the embarrassment as much as the tap of his finger on the spot of skin at the top of my nose. This man touched me. Now let me be clear, it wasn't something nefarious, it was a simple gesture meant, likely, to be helpful and at worst to assert his authority and make sure I was paying attention to his dutiful droning. But to a little girl like me who was terrified of men, who had been touched in terrible ways, who couldn't tell anyone what was hurting, it was a match dropped in gasoline.

I sat in that chair hearing nothing but the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears, the rest of his bloviation lost on me. All I could think about, all I could feel was that hot, angry, shameful spot at the top of my nose. It felt on fire. And that fire began to spread and grow and it started consuming the part of me that could control my reactions to men. It burned through my desperate need to be nice and liked and made me a heat-seeking missile toward men. 

Interesting isn't? I had endured horrible touching and suffered in silence without so much as a tear. I didn't make a sound at that, but this...this fingertip to my forehead caused me to get very loud, very quickly. A few minutes later, our class went to P.E. and that is where 10 year old hurt Lisa, hurt someone. 

Our P.E. teacher was a man. He was actually an incredibly kind and encouraging man. He had a wife and children. He was doing his job and working with kids who were of varying athletic ability and interest. Yet he showed up week after week to teach. And I was there, week after week, putting him through hell. Now, I realize I was a kid, and, because I'm pretty ashamed of that behavior now, perhaps it wasn't as bad for him as I feel it was. But perhaps it was. Maybe, I did hurt him. The incredibly harsh things that came out of my mouth, the attempts to undermine his authority, the blatant disrespect...I feel almost sick thinking about it now. If I were he, I would have hated me, even though I was a kid.

But if he felt that way, he never let me know. He ignored it for the most part, and when he did address it, he didn't yell, he just told me to go sit down and be quiet. Sometimes, he'd send me in to wash my face and calm down. He never sent me to the Principal. He just kept showing up and doing his job. I'd like to think that maybe I wasn't that bad, but I know I was. It's a big regret of mine. I can tell myself that I was a kid who was betrayed and broken, but I still can't excuse my behavior to myself. 

I was a hurt person who hurt a person, right? No. It's not right. It's really, really not. And yes, I was a kid and he was an adult and yada yada, but it's still wrong. Just because you were hurt doesn't make it excusable to hurt someone else. We still have to be held accountable for our actions. We can't excuse it or ignore it or explain it away, because if everyone who is hurt goes around hurting people, then everyone will keep being hurt and keep hurting and the ride won't ever stop. Hurt people who hurt people are still absolutely wrong for doing so. Full stop.

Adults now use that little saying to allow them to perpetrate all sorts of emotional damage on others. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in triggers...see above with the finger to the glasses, BUT I believe my triggers are my responsibility to address and monitor and regulate. Grown Lisa knows that the fire that was lit by the simple, innocuous touch was about something deep and terrible. It was about ME not him, but it also wasn't about the teacher who bore the brunt of my rage. 

Let me be clear here, kids who have been harmed are not to blame for the way they process and deal with what happened to them, again, full stop. I do believe we have to start teaching personal responsibility and accountability for behavior at some point, so that the hurt doesn't perpetuate hurt. We have to start somewhere, yes? We cannot dismiss transgressions against others simply because we've been transgressed against. (Forgiveness without boundaries is also unhealthy, but that's for another day.) 

We need to start listening to what people aren't saying out loud, but their behavior is screaming. We need to ask what was created in them that is now creating damage to others. We need to help them find and then heal their villain origin story before they become someone else's. As importantly, we need to not allow them to go unchecked. They can't go around causing explosions without so much as a look back. Hurt people don't get to hurt people without repercussions. They can't or everything and everyone will go up in flames.

I've thought about that teacher a lot lately. He didn't know I was hurting. I'm absolutely positive that if he did, he would have helped. He didn't know, because I couldn't say. All I could do was be mean. All I could do was hurt, because I was hurting. But I'm so very sorry. Adult Lisa is so incredibly sorry for what 10 year old Lisa did and said. So, yes, we should try to understand why someone is lashing out, acting out, and hurting others. We need to gently walk back with them until they find that point where someone caused the hurt that creates more hurt and help them put that fire out before it consumes them and those around them. Even when we are burning, we must choose not burn others, because lighting someone else on fire won't put out the flames of our own hell.

*This is a different story for another blog. If you think you know, you probably don't know the truth.

You've heard said...

comparison is the thief of joy, I'm sure. I wish I'd heard that when I was younger. My lands, the amount of time I spent comparing my hair, clothes, skin, body, accomplishments (or lack thereof), grades, inability to shoot a lay-up or actually do pretty much anything athletic to my peers and my siblings probably, embarrassingly, adds up to years of my life. Now, don't get all weird and start with the "not all comparisons...". You understand what I mean, and if you don't, you're either choosing not to, or this particular porch visit isn't for you. And that's cool. Maybe the next one will be. Because you see, I'm okay with not being everyone's cup of tea, because, to be fair, not everyone is mine.  

I think about what I could have been doing during that time instead of stealing my own joy and I almost roll my eyes out of my own head at myself. I still compare myself to others, but on a much smaller scale than I used to. I do believe with age comes maybe not necessarily wisdom but at least some clarity. I'm not racing anyone except the mean Lisa in my head who wants me to live in a constant state of "you're not enough" or "you're too much". Mean Lisa's voice seems much quieter now. She tends to only cage rattle when someone outside of my own little brain says or does (or doesn't say or doesn't do) something intentional or not that makes me question myself.

Those questions, at their core, are about the validity of my life choices or the space I'm currently occupying. Should I be doing more? Should I have more? But ultimately the question ends up being "Should I be more?" Since Mean Lisa is pretty freaking abusive, she wants to isolate me with these thoughts. She compares even the fact that I'm having those thoughts with others. "I'm sure SHE doesn't toss and turn at night about THAT." "I'm sure they don't second guess things the way YOU do." 

I'd like to be noble and say, "I hope I'm the only one." but, truthfully, I hope I'm not. If comparison is the thief of joy, then companionship is the bearer of hope. I know I'm not in this alone. People I love have talked to me about their own self-doubt, about the Meanie who lives within them. If we're all in the same boat with this, we need a bigger one.

Remember being a teenager and having your entire life ahead of you, and being in some kind of all fired hurry to have it all planned out? My wedding colors were going to be pink and yellow (Egads!), I'd have three kids, write speeches for the President, and have a sunken living room with a sectional (we called them pit groups in the eighties). With the exception of the pit group, none of that happened. Seventeen year old me would have been so disappointed in myself. Now that I think about it, Mean Lisa is 17 year old me. She's also an echo of every mean girl who made fun of my clothes, hair, body, etc. The good news is, those voices are less intrusive now. I can tell them to shut the fresh hell up, and they do. Because we are in control of what we think about ourselves, if we chose to exercise that control.

Now that we know who the thief is and who the bringer of hope is, there's one more meme we need to create. Expectation is the death of contentment. Okay, so I'm of course not talking about expectation of behavior (i.e. don't be a jerk, obvi) or expectation of performance at your job, or expectations of behavior within a relationship or honoring your commitments. I'm talking about the expectations we put on ourselves to have, be and do. "I should have more..." "I should be more..." "I should do more to have more and be more." 

Round and Round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. WHAT it stops is contentment. It's the capacity to stand in the middle of your life and feel peace. It can make us take for granted the things we do have, what we are and what we've done, because we're expecting the next thing. Man is that lesson hard to learn, especially now when all we see is MORE than we are. Cleaner and bigger houses, wide smiles, adorable children, well-trained pets, magazine-worthy decor, perfect marriages...perfect lives. We certainly know all of that is curated for public consumption. I can't count the number of times I've taken a picture of my dogs doing cute things immediately after cleaning up a puddle of pee in my dining room. (MOOSE!) We know it's not the entire picture, yet we try to recreate it just the same.

My older step-daughter knew from a young age that her passion is teaching, and she has worked her cute booty off to make that happen. She's brilliant at it. The kids in her class are incredibly fortunate to have someone so dedicated. Her path wasn't always easy, but it always had a direction. She is thriving. It's a beautiful thing to watch. Just because someone's life seems to be a "natural progression" doesn't mean that it hasn't been hard-fought and without struggles. MPG has consistently persevered and created that progression. I'm constantly amazed by her tenacity. 

My younger step-daughter's path has been a bit less of a straight line. The girl has been all over the place. (Disclaimer: my younger step-daughter knows I'm writing this and whole-heartedly approves of this message. She's looking to encourage with this, just like I am. So for real leave the porch if you can't understand that.) She has tried on several hats while searching for her passion. Let's see... nurse, respiratory therapist, math professor, business major, insurance sales, cosmetologist, and now she's majoring in kinesiology. DID I MISS ANY MAB?

As people who are fully invested in her success, we sometimes want to say (yell?) "DECIDE ALREADY!" My goodness kiddo, pick something and do that. Have, be, do and have, be, do it right now. And I know she's felt that from us. I know she's felt the frustration and displeasure, but what it really is on our part is fear. What if she doesn't ever have what she needs? What if she's never what she is supposed to be? What if she never does what we all expect her to do, which is settle down and ease our worries? Because while we all want joy and contentment for those we love, what we also selfishly want is for them to be sorted out so we don't have to fret about them.

It's not just our expectations of ourselves that can destroy our contentment; it's our expectations of others that can not only kill their contentment but our own. Right? I mean if I'm constantly expecting people to fit into the boxes I've assigned them arbitrarily and even selfishly, how am I ever going to be at peace? If folks aren't being and doing and having what I think they should, how can I know contentment? And how can they when they feel us pressing in on them to settle down and follow the path? We steal our peace and theirs. We are not only our own Meanies but, terribly, theirs as well.

Ugh.

It's so hard to not think that our route on the map is always the best one. We came up with it, so it must be. But our route is ours and someone else won't have the same experience following it. Perhaps there's more traffic for them, or they hit every single red light. Perhaps they enjoy a more scenic route. Or maybe they see the value in taking a more direct way in order to get where they are going because they are ready to be there. Saying "the joy is in the journey" isn't always fair or accurate. For some people it is a joy and they find their haves, bes, and dos along the way, and for others it's being at their destination so they can have, be and do in the place they've been moving toward their whole lives that brings their joy. Neither is wrong. Neither is better. Both are valid. Expecting others to use our map ruins the journey for them because where we are going isn't ever where they are. Each life path is unique and fresh. Realizing that for ourselves and for others actually translates to our being able to see the part of others' journeys that hold joy and helping them when they breakdown or hit traffic.

As usual, all of that has been headed here. The midlife crisis thing is a real deal for some of us. Maybe crisis is a misnomer. Perhaps we should reframe it as a midlife refreshing. This summer I struggled with it. While I am absolutely content in my very joyful marriage (no comparing/no expecting), I found myself wondering if this is all there is professionally. I have several wonderful people in my life who are experiencing this same thing. Empty nest, loss of partners to divorce or death, loss of careers, direction, motivation and on and on. Lots of loss and empty. And man, that is some scary hell. The question, "Now what?" plays on repeat. So does, "It's probably too late for me to do... or be... or have..."

Again, ugh. There are times I've wondered if perhaps I had taken the long and winding road to get to my destination, I wouldn't feel so lost where I'm at. I didn't know what my passion was, so I picked a job. That's a very hard thing to come to terms with. Writing it is weird, because it doesn't feel entirely honest. The truth is, I think I did know what it was, but I was too scared to do it. Or maybe I was so busy expecting to have everything figured out that I didn't take my time to find out what would give me fulfillment and contentment, in other words, to actually figure it out. I think maybe I'm taking baby steps to get and be and have what I've always wanted. It's scary and exciting and refreshing, even if I did wait until mid-life-ish to change course.

Folks like my older step-daughter KNEW her passion and moved heaven and earth to make it happen. My younger step-daughter hasn't always known. Maybe she still doesn't, but she isn't settling. She's still seeking. She's still driving us mad with her twists and turns, but it isn't about us in either case. It's about their individual journeys. It's about them cutting a path, climbing over and under and through to find where they belong. And it's our jobs to worry and care, of course, about those we love but also to encourage and cheer and help them change a tire when they need it. We can point out the obstacles, but we shouldn't be removing them or forcing them to re-route because it's what we want. That obstacle may be steering them in a better, truer direction. Recalculating, make a u-turn, recalculating...I hate when my mapping systems says it, so I shouldn't be saying it about anyone's life.

Here's the fresh in all of this, I am excited about where I am going and what comes next, but let me be clear, I am so incredibly content with where I am. Which is, once again, sitting in my bed in the middle of the night*, dogs and husband snoring softly, hand on my leg, talking a little fresh hell with you.

*DU if you are up reading this, I hope you are content with your cereal choice and it brings you joy. You deserve it.

We've all had...

things in our lives or in the lives of people we love that are just so profoundly overwhelming we almost can't say them aloud. They can be good things or bad things. Like when my husband found out he was going to be a grandfather, he, perhaps unknowingly, whispered the words, "a grandpa" as he let them take hold and settle in and alter who he was. He has a new moniker, a new superlative for the shingle he hangs outside himself that attempts to describe all the things he is: son, brother, uncle, welder, dad, husband...grandpa. It's a beautiful moment when someone opens a welcomed gift life gives them. If you're the one giving that gift, it's even more lovely. It's like holding out your hands and showing them heaven. As life sometimes works, that of course means sometimes the hands open and what we see looks a little more like hell. 

I read a quote the day the hands opened and I found out my niece wasn't going to live. "We are all just walking each other home." -- Ram Dass. I don't even remember where I saw it. If it was you who posted it, thank you. I've run my fingers over that like a smooth stone dozens upon dozens of times since then. And not just about sad things and hard things, but I've come to see that walking each other home happens in the light and the dark.

I see us all headed in a general direction together on a wide expanse of hard-packed dirt road. Along the way, there are forks in that road. Sometimes those forks lead to gentle slopes with spectacular, breath-taking views. Sometimes they are dark and overgrown to almost impassable and you aren't sure where you will end up or if you'll find the way through. Both times we call out to our people, to the ones who walk with us and to the people who've taken those similar paths before us... "Come see this...it's beautiful" or "Come with me...I'm scared. I'm lonely. I'm grieving. I'm broken." 

The truth is, while I firmly believe we are all in this real life production together, we are all very much the main character in our own stories while being the supporting cast in everyone else's. And while we are all on the road together, walking each other home, no one else walks in our footsteps. We are all somewhat alone together. While that may sound disheartening, it shouldn't. Being alone together means that looking to the left or the right, you will find someone there and even if that person is scared, you still have someone to be scared with. Alone together is better than alone, alone.*

Think of it this way, if it's night and the power goes out and you can't see anything but dark, you would find comfort in knowing that one of your someones is in the dark with you. Maybe they aren't afraid of the dark. Maybe they have a better sense of space, a better memory of where things are so they can guide you around the chair leg that could surely break a pinky toe. Maybe they know exactly where the flashlight is. Maybe they will sit in the dark with you for as long as it takes for the light to return. Maybe you are the someone who isn't afraid, who knows how to navigate, who will share their light, who will sit until they can see again. Be that person. Be the sharer of the light. We need to be people who are as willing to help shoulder the burden or shout the good news as easily as we share the gossip and the scandal.

When someone is going through hell, we don't want to say the wrong thing. Maybe because we've had people say the exact wrong thing to us and felt it burn as it went into our ears and swam around our brain and slammed into our heart in a way that fueled the angry part of going through a hard patch. I think we all so much want to be the person who says the thing that heals the wound, and we just as much don't want to be the person who says the thing that makes the cut deeper.

I think back to the times I desperately searched people's faces and words to find the ones that made my hurt or fear or uncertainty lessen... "It is well with your soul. She's in your future now. You will find a way to carry this." Or the words that increased and confirmed my greatest joys... "You were born to do this. You are exactly where you were always meant to be. He's who your dad was talking about when he said you would find the very best man for you." I think back, and I so very much want to wrap those feelings of safety, optimism, hope, comfort, peace around my people, my fellow travelers. I want them to know their good and bad are seen and acknowledged and felt by me, because I want them to know I'm rejoicing when they do and mourning when they are. I want them, the ones sharing the road with me, to feel what I felt from others. That in their aloneness, (because no one else feels your exact joys or sorrows) I'm together with them. I'm either cheering for them or ready to carry with them.

I'm up in the middle of the night talking to you, because I'm thinking about the people who have walked with me. I'm hoping that they know I'm walking with them too, that we are walking with each other. My heart and my mind is heavy tonight, because I have a dear friend who has a family member who isn't well. I've typed and deleted the "not well" several times trying to find a softer way of saying it. Trying to find words that convey the enormity of the situation without dramatizing it. Trying to recognize the weight they carry without dwelling in the unknown. Trying to stand beside her in the certain hope that everything is going to be okay without silencing her need to say the scary things, so she can see them outside of her head and know that the fear isn't always the reality. When I see her, a lump forms in my throat. All the things I want to say, all the things I don't know how to say, all the silly and trite and unhelpful things, the platitudes that don't feel sincere but are the things everyone says when they don't know what the right thing to say is because there is no right thing. All of that sits in my throat. And she knows this because she's swallowed those kind of words for me too because she has never failed to walk toward home with me. I don't want to fail her.

The joys are easier. They are. Cheering, if you really love someone, is so natural it happens without effort. 

Hard stuff is, well, hard. It requires your best effort. If you really love someone, you stay with them through their hard stuff. You show up for it. You don't veer off the path and wait for them at the end. You just don't.* 

I guess the point of all of that is this, even when I am standing here with a lump in my throat that contains all the things I want to say, all the help I want to give, all the things I shouldn't say because they won't help, the point is...I am standing here. I am right here looking at your face and seeing your pain or sadness or fear.

And the moment you take a step, because you will take a step, it's inevitable, I will follow you even into the dark. I'll bring my light. I'll carry it because your hands are full. I'll run along side you even when we can't see where we are going. I'll go because you are. Because that's what love does. Love sometimes travels through hell to walk you home.

*I'm not talking about toxic or abusive relationships here. You know better than to think I am, I hope.