For most of my life I was fueled by one thing; have a career so I am never poor.
I was the middle child and my mom was a single mother. In my middle school years, I was very aware, if not sooner, how little we had. Yet, we never really went without. My mother always found a way. I think that is a superpower moms have. As a mom, I may be biased on this.
As I grew into my teenage years, my awareness and awkwardness grew as well. Wanting and trying to fit in but doing a terrible job. I remember as a teenager swearing, I would make enough money to afford the same shoe in every color if I wanted.
I did just that.
I reached a point in my career where my salary was 10 times that as coming out of college. The reality of it though, is I could have reached that point faster. If it were not for the false beliefs that came along with me. False beliefs ingrained in me from youth.
False beliefs drove me and anchored me, all at the same time.
33 years later, I feel myself anchored to that spot again. Running (or somedays what feels like walking) my own business. I ask myself, “Why didn’t I do more today?”.
I don’t even know if asking is the right word. It feels more like judging. I realize it isn’t me I am judging so much as it is a learned behavior.
You see when I was young, I remember thinking, “Why doesn’t my mom do more?”. “Why doesn’t she do something?”. “Why doesn’t she get a job?”.
I was young, I had no idea what it meant to be a single mom of three kids. I had no idea what it meant to be divorced. I just knew my own world of wanting something different than what I had. Which really was better than most.
Here I am 33 years later, and I find myself transfixed in the same spot in the hallway, looking to my mother’s room. And there she is sleeping. I can almost see every detail. It stands out in my mind so vividly because I realize it is the last time I expect anything different, a pain point has become a pinpoint. It no longer causes pain. Because I don’t allow it to. I put a pin in it and change course.
The issue is my energy is fixed in that moment. I am continually there unconsciously.
Whenever I do anything in my day that feels less than, I am judging myself. I have come to realize I am being hard on myself for not living up to the expectations of the girl in the hallway.
So, what was it, really, that I put a pin in?
It wasn’t my mom not getting a job. Really. I had clothes, food, and warmth.
If I go back to that girl in the hallway. What was it?
When I left for school each day, it was like I was one of the other kids. I loved school, my place to shine. I felt nurtured. Even the long bus ride home was fun. I would laugh with kids as we walked home. Some days quietly in the wind. Other days huddled under an umbrella. As we headed up the long driveway I was still in the euphoria of school. Then I was home.
We never came home to cookies baking, mom singing or music playing. It was usually quiet. Perhaps this is why I love the quiet country so much. Upon reflection I think the little girl in me was waiting for the cookies, the warm embrace, the apron wearing mom we saw on TV. TV is a head trip.
My mom was a great cook, an amazing seamstress, and a reliable chauffeur (well there was the one time she forgot to pick me up on my 16th birthday). You never saw those moms on TV in the 70s and 80s.
I know my mom loved me. There was just a part of me wanting the love shown in a different way, though I didn’t know it. The rebel in me later refused to ask for it. The enlightened part of me now realizes the distance was necessary for my journey.
So, back in the hallway. I find myself stuck in that moment in time.
But why? Why that moment? I realize it is that moment because there are no others after it.
It was the last time I stopped expecting anything different than what was. Those moments are when our pain points, become pinpoints. The point where our journey makes us turn.
We no longer keep on the same path. The point marked on our souls, like the points on a map of landmarks cities or visited countries, a memorable point in a journey. The best vacations or journeys are the places we want to go back to. I think our souls want to get back to those places as well. To return to the expectation and to the hope of a different outcome. But ultimately to the healing.
So, what is the little girl in the hallway wanting to heal?
What expectation did she release?
If I find it will I renew an expectation of myself?
Maybe the expectation released was not of my mother, but of self.
A stepping into an acceptance of self, a false belief.
A relinquishing to the world of another false belief, to another false belief.
Maybe the released expectations were that of turning from my soul, and not my mother. I turned my pain point into a pinpoint of believing I wasn’t worthy of anything else. That I was the problem. Not my mother. Perhaps in some unknown way I was getting what I deserved. Had she given me what I wanted I likely would have shied away from accepting it. Love and affection, made me feel uncomfortable.
In truth, the girl in the hallway was looking for a new door to walk through, to be seen, a fresh start, to stop pretending.
I turned into my room. A place of sanctuary, where I could control, pretend, hide, not hide, be me. We think we are so smart when we are young. We are not.
That hallway holds so many pinpoints in my life. I remember them in fine detail. Now. But before this moment. They are a mist.
I remember my brother holding me down and doing Chinese torture, or that’s what we called it as kids. You know the one where someone bangs their fingers on your chest. I had bruises he did it so much. My mom at her desk or sewing machine me fighting to get away.
Another of my brother and I fighting and wrestling in the hallway.
We lived in a single wide trailer folks, the hallway wasn’t a hallway. It was more like a small passageway. There is probably more passing room in an airplane bathroom.
Well, on this one day we were going at it. I was older now probably 12. Growing up in the country where we were always running, and riding horses makes you strong. Doing sports makes you stronger. On this day, I got the upper hand, and due to my leg strength was able to pin my brother down. I took advantage and started punching.
I’m sure I started most fights with my mouth. This was likely no exception. But I never backed down to what I felt was an injustice.
I got some punches in, but knew I was in a pickle. Once he was free. I was going to have to make a break for it.
Then, in a flash, things turned and he pushed me off and backwards. The drawer on my dresser was open, which I rarely left open, and the back of my head hit the corner. The blow stunned me. But luckily there was no damage. I think it scared us both. We never fought like that again. Of course, I like to believe he knew he messed with me one too many times and I was too old to push around.
What I have come to realize about pain is that when I put a pin in it. When my acceptance of self and false beliefs, overrides the pain. I shut the door on it.
My life is a bunch of pinpoints of the worst parts of the trips, flat tires, bad directions, canceled flights. My brain doesn’t store the laughs, the names, the good, because each pinpoint where hope and expectation of something different in my life existed, I stopped it with acceptance of being unworthy.
In that same hallway I broke the heart of my high school boyfriend, made my sister cry, drew the line in the sand with my mom and stopped expecting a life of ease.
Oddly, I knew this was going to be my life. All these events, and more, I knew would happen before they did. How is it, you know, before knowing? Come to acceptance, before being asked. I believe we come into the world knowing what we must do, without knowing. Like having to go to school. It is a requirement to get where you need to go.
I know where each of my relationships died years before they ended. Pinpoint.
I know where my energy remains because of a choice. Pinpoint.
Even now I feel the pain inside, fearing the what if. What if people really knew the real me. What if I told my full story?
Why don’t we? Is it for protection of other people or preservation of self? Maybe both.
It’s easy to tell the easy stuff. People don’t mind hearing that. But what if they need to hear the real stuff, the hard stuff. Because too many people talk about the easy stuff. They hide the real stuff. Yet, they want to hear other people’s real stuff. Is that to make them feel normal or to help them heal? Both?
When we put a pin in it and don’t share, are we releasing expectations of others, acceptance of unworthiness, or both.
How do we battle that false belief and reclaim our worthiness?
Must we return to the hallway?
To the pinpoint.