Tag Archives: relationships

Expectations and the Pedestal

I used to have a friend that was constantly three hours late for everything except work. The fact that she worked two or three jobs at a time made some of the tardiness excusable. But after a while, we had to adjust our scheduling as a group to accommodate this. If the event started at 7PM, we’d tell her it started at 5PM and she’d show up fashionably late. It was a running joke for a while, but tardiness bothers me when it’s repeatedly done. To me, it says, “My time is far more important that you are. I’ll get there when I get there and you’ll just have to deal with it.” Now, I know that’s not how the thought process works, but it felt that way.

We all have those people that hang on our periphery that just don’t quite make the inner circle. It’s not that they’re bad people, per se, just that they may have habits or ideals that don’t quite fit with our own. Maybe they’re disrespectful of your time by being perpetually late or they find the bottom of a bottle far more interesting than taking care of their children. Whatever the reason, they are still called a friend, but aren’t close enough in our emotional commitment to be able to stop by any time. Cull the herd. It is unnecessary to hold on to people just because you worked with them 15 years ago. Letting them go doesn’t mean a confrontation, just a silent goodbye and an unanswered phone call. It’s okay to allow that relationship to organically decompose.

But what about family members? Those are far more tricky to deal with because of the blood-kin ideal that family is family. Remember, at least the black sheep is an honest hypocrite. We all know at least one that is of questionable views on the world (I push that boundary so I labeled myself the dark gray sheep), but even if they aren’t living life like everybody else tells them they should, they’re making their own choices.

It is my opinion that loving them does not mean enabling them, criticizing, or judging their every action, but realizing that they might not be ready for the kind of love you have to give. Being supportive doesn’t mean that you have to rush to get them whenever they fall down, it means listening when they talk to you about their own wants and desires.

I’ve recently had to relearn this. It was extraordinarily painful because the person in question was throwing out thousands of dollars to the lowest bidder, giving away a free education, and walking around in a drug induced haze while doing nothing to further his life. I was furious with the choices he was making. No matter what I said or did, he kept making the worst possible choices in my eyes. But my tactics weren’t working and it was driving a massive wedge between us. Communication had broken down to the point of stony silences and terse comments. Something had to give.

I took away all expectations and started from scratch. Chores have to be done on these days because that contributes to the family. Three days a week. Daily stuff included being respectful, not using at my house, and sharing responsibility for our four legged friends. I made that change three weeks ago. Things have become our normal at our house. We joke and laugh. We all seem to be happier. When I removed the expectations about his life and kept them to expectations of family responsibilities, it worked out a lot better overall.

Relationships are complicated enough without, what I call, THE PEDESTAL! When we place expectations on other people to say, behave, or be a certain way, we set ourselves up for major disappointments, resentment, anger, frustration, and confrontations. I have to ask myself this question, “Is this them being a human or is this them being a jerk to me?” It helps me narrow down the field and realize that my perception of them is skewed by my idea of who they are or should be in my mind. With practice, it becomes easier to let them be who they are without making them justify every move or action.

I don’t claim to be an expert, but I have found that culling the herd, communication, taking the pedestal out from under them, and living my own life has made a dramatic difference in my happiness level.

These Are My People: Matthew McBee

My son and I line up at the counter
Draining blood from the coffee maker
Refilling our need for bonding
At our morning communion ritual
Not offered by a priest but by Folgers.
We settle at the dining table
Scrolling through my Facebook feed
For videos to spark heat into our spirits
Blaze them up with conversations
That can’t be repeated in public.
I don’t like the days when
It is just me standing in line
Waiting for the “good days”
Where the shame or guilt of bad decisions
Don’t hang like piñatas waiting
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Raining the inner conflicts into our laps
Tarnished with expectations of perfection
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Against one another with words
As bitter as the coffee we cream in avoidance
Of the redeeming absolution we could
But don’t usually offer to one another.

These Are My People: Avi Knight

Shutterstock
There is a crescendo in my tacenda
Where I am normally, to him,
common time and a capella
My cadenza clumsily proceeds without cadence
Without rhythm or beats
My need for espressivo
longs for a nocturne
requires harmony
but instead is a series of operettas
that fall flat in parody
We’ve played off key for so long
That this piece became, not my canon,
But the silence of my sixteenth note,
A dirge with a pianissimo possibile refrain
of Rococo design.

ABC’s of Rebuilding a Relationship

or put that fire out

Lighting the bridge of forgiveness

There’s a person in your life or your ex-life that you just can’t shake. A person that is missed so much that whatever drove you apart sits on your back like a bag of bricks. Perhaps you’ve tried to set that bag down and leave it without unpacking the contents but by some weird irony it’s still attached to your weight slumped shoulders from the burden of things left unsaid.

Is that relationship toxic? If so, then perhaps reading this article will help you set those bricks down and walk away.
http://theanjananetwork.net/2014/03/27/say-goodbye-ending-toxic-friendships/

However, if that relationship is not toxic, but instead requires your attention to make reparations like this article demonstrates:
http://theanjananetwork.net/2014/03/26/persephone-and-demeter/

Then how do you go about making that happen? How do you go from no contact to tentative conversation when time has elapsed and perhaps caused a Grand Canyon sized hole in your heart? It can be done with time, patience, compassion, and forgiveness.

  •  Admit you started the fire to burn the bridge: One of the hardest things is to admit to yourself is when you’ve done somebody wrong. It’s easy to lay the blame at their feet because after all they’re the ones that caused your anger and your release of the relationship in the first place. But sometimes that’s a lie we tell ourselves to keep from being responsible for our own actions. It’s a reflection of our not so shining moments. Try it on. I made a mistake that wrecked a relationship. Take responsibility for your error.
  •  Build a new bridge: Reach out to the person via text, email, phone call, sky-writing, blog post or any other way to let them know you’re willing to speak with them (I asked my brother to mediate). If they are receptive, apologize for what you did or said wrong. Leave expectations on the floor because sometimes the wound you’ve caused can run so deeply that there may be rejection or disbelief of your intentions. Remember to not just speak the words but act appropriately. You’re asking for a new relationship which means you’re approaching them not as the former person, but as you are right now.
  •  Compassion for yourself and the new relationship: The old wounds will be there. They may be scabbed over or even scarred, but they will be there. Realize that when you look at those with compassion in your heart, they fade after time. Think of it as falling in love with that person’s current self and from the point you’ve come to in the realization that this relationship is worth it. History can’t be changed, only the right now is important. Be gentle with yourself and their feelings.
  •  Dissolve anger, pride, and resentment: Holding on to anger is that bag of bricks that weighs your spirit down. Realize that you reacted or acted in a very human manner. Your feelings of resentment about their prompting actions or because of their absence from your life because of your choice have no place in the new relationship you’re attempting to re-establish. The pride that kept you from making the reconnection before needs to find the humbleness of release. Feel the emotions, but don’t hold them. Allow them to dissipate.
  •  Evolve your view of the person you harmed: Are you the same person you were when you cut the relationship from your life? Of course not. They aren’t either. Meet them as if for the first time, because technically, you are. Get to know their current self because what you remember may (or truthfully, may not) be accurate. Anger changes the color of memories to murky depths instead of embracing the current vibrancy of now. This is a new day and a new relationship based on time passing. Let them be who they are now, not how you remember them.
  •  Forgive yourself and the other person: This one can prove difficult depending on the circumstances of the separation. By setting down your feelings from the past and allowing things to be as they are, forgiveness is not far behind. Forgiveness helps us to see things clearly again. It wipes the slate clean even if the faint outline of the transgression can still be seen, it’s no longer the focus of the relationship. The focus shifts to rebuilding instead of rehashing.
  •  Give love willingly: What if the person you’re reaching out to rejects your attempt at reconciliation? What if they don’t want anything to do with you or your efforts to rebuild? Love them anyway. Just because you’re ready to re-establish a relationship doesn’t mean they are or ever will be. Love them anyway. If they are willing, then don’t be afraid to let them get to know you as you are now. Your personal growth has brought you to a point where you realize the value of what you’ve been missing. Let them see that. Allow the vulnerability of love to fill in those parts, whether rejected or accepted. Love them. Love yourself. Let it be organically grown from your heart no matter their response.
  •  Healthy Communication: Be honest with yourself and the person you’re re-establishing a relationship with. Speak from your heart while listening to their spirit. There is nothing more satisfying than accepting one another exactly as you and they are. You don’t have to be a “Yes, ma’am/Yes, sir” kind of person when you disagree with them, but allowing yourself to communicate your own wants and needs, you’re establishing grounds for them to do the same. It builds trust, balance, and reinforces your sincerity.

Great things can take time to build or rebuild. The patience you offer while putting the relationship back in order pays off by giving you what you seek should they be willing. At the very least it will give you closure, understanding, or a clear picture of what could have been. But it can also give you the opportunity to forgive your younger self of the follies of poor choices. Although there is no guarantee that the other person will be receptive to your outreach, discovering that you can set down that bag of bricks is totally worth it.

Reawakening My Mother

Mother and daughter reunited

Mother and daughter reunited

Persephone yawns and stretches from her slumber. The trees respond with kisses of green bud promises. The flower bulbs planted in the autumn reach out to impress her with their dazzling array of colors. Coaxing her to return, beckoning her to shed the grays and browns of her winter clothing and cloak herself in their kaleidoscope prism.

 

The birds sing in accordance with Demeter’s joy of her daughter returning. The birds, the animals, the people engage in the renewed mating rituals of the season. The winds whisper, “She is coming. Persephone returns.” And the mother responds to the words with rains of happy tears and dabs the scent of rejuvenated earth to entice her daughter closer.

 

My nature heeds the calling I hear as the Wheel turns from icy winter winds that left me breathless to the return of the daughter to her mother.

 

I was estranged from my mother for over 18 years. By my own hand, I severed the cord between us, rejected her wisdom out of spite. If the words came from her, they were lies and falsehoods in my mind. I despised the idea of her loving me because, at that time, she couldn’t love me the way I needed her to and I couldn’t give love to her.

 

The parting of ways was vicious, brutal, and in written form. I wrote a letter describing why I no longer wished her to be a part of my life. I called her out on her behavior toward me as if by doing so she’d fall at my feet and beg forgiveness. Maybe, I expected her to do that. What I hoped to accomplish by writing that letter was to instill guilt and shame with my anger and rejection. I slapped her face and walked into the underworld with my eyes closed to her love.

 

I attempted, half-heartedly, to re-engage a relationship with her twice in that time. Neither of those times was I ready to see her as anything but a cold woman who withheld affection if I wasn’t perfect. I expected her to be Demeter, the ever loving mother. I held her to such an impossibly high expectation that anything less was not acceptable to me. And so I slept for years without dreaming in the darkest years of my life.

 

My anger towards her was so venomous to my heart that I plotted her demise in short stories I’d write, a play, a painting, a drawing, and with each creative endeavor, I found nothing. Blank canvases and gray washed depictions of my denied roots, my lost heritage falling behind me in hateful words and actions.

 

I embraced my lover Hades with such completeness that I lost myself in the darkness. I surrendered my heart to injury, accosting my own heart without thought to the consequences because those, too, were unbearable. I moved through the thickness without finding the light of hope within myself. Where I was had no winds to herald my rebirth for, in a way, I died.

 

I became a daughter when I realized through the boy I had placed in my custody, just how powerful the love of that child was in my heart. For every bad choice he made, my heart ached and I cried tears of longing for the connection to my own roots. I, before then, had not understood the sacrifices a parent makes to love a child.

 

I suddenly found the world becoming brighter. A light was dawning, calling me. I could hear the birds telling me to return home. I could see the flowers lined up for inspection against the concrete wall enticing me to return. The smell of my mother’s kitchen haunted my heart. I could feel her reaching out to me. I could feel my shame and guilt that I’d so carefully placed at her feet reminding me that I’d burned that bridge. I could still smell the smoke of that fire I’d set 18 years before.

 

But I ignored the lies I told myself throughout my time in darkness. I set down my pride in a heaped up pile of scrap at the curb of decision. I reminded myself of her smile, her laughter, her conviction when she saw injustice. I changed how I saw her. The winds shifted and I could hear her calling my spirit with her own. I picked up the phone and physically called her.

 

That first call was naked. I stood before her shedding my anger, refusing to give in to my fears of rejection, dropping them to the floor like the rags they were. We bonded by being mothers together. I confessed my darkness to her. I explained the reason I’d buried myself in the world. I discarded my shell and reached out my fragile tendrils seeking a grafting to my family tree. She watered my efforts with careful tentative tears of rejuvenated faith in me.

 

Without anger there was no longer pride or anxiety to hold us apart. For the first time I saw her, not as my mother, but as a woman. I saw her with scars and wounds, some healed, others healing and she was beautiful. I’d forgotten just how lovely she is. I transitioned from plotting her murder to embracing the human woman. I released the winter of my life and embraced the floral scented breezes of spring.

 

She told me, that although painful, the bridge that I’d set ablaze had been extinguished not long after I started it. She waited hopeful, like Demeter, for my return. When I rediscovered the bridge to return to my ancestral lands, I took out my ropes and my trees and I began working on reparations. I started at my side, she started at hers. When we’d reached a point of understanding and completed the walkway towards one another I sobbed with relief and ran the distance between us with cautious steps, careful words, and noticed the bridge had been reinforced with her love.

 

After our reconciliation, I returned to Michigan, my home state where my mother lives with my dad. On her 65th birthday, I sat at her dining table in her welcoming kitchen and I drank Kawphy*, ate homemade blueberry buckle (my great grandmother’s recipe), and loved my mom with such a deep sincerity that I tear up writing about it.

 

After breakfast, she and I went downstairs and onto her patio. She produced the letter I’d written in ancient tongues of a wounded woman/child. I read it and felt ashamed but she wouldn’t allow me to linger on the past. We hugged tightly, cried, and then, together, we lit that letter on fire and let it burn. It was one of the most profound moments of my life.

 

Not a day goes by that we don’t speak, email, or post something on each others Facebook walls. Our relationship has become a key part of my identity. I know that someday I won’t be able to call her, but to me, that makes what I have with her now so valuable and precious that I can’t imagine taking it for granted or discarding it again. My roots and heritage are found in the wisdom and love of my mother. My only regret is that I took so long to remember I love her.

 

Spring returns. Persephone has found Demeter once again. I, the daughter, found my way home and together with my mother, we rejoice in rebirth and reclamation of a woman’s wisdom.

*(Kawphy, in my family is a sacred ritual. It is a time of sharing, conversation, and the exchange of ideas that flow like the warm beverage between familial spirits)