Tag: family

Family Traditions – They’re Not Always Good

Our lives are made up of moments.  Some bring unfiltered happiness; some bring us to our knees, and some change our lives forever. It’s in all these moments that we change and grow with what we have learned, or we stay stuck in the muck and become bitter and unforgiving and cast blame on those who we believe have brought us this misery.

It’s not easy to look in a mirror and understand that you are the one in control. You are the one who gets to decide where you go, what you do, who you want to be and who it is you want in your circle.

I stopped drinking in September of last year. A decision I made on my own because I knew it was time, and I also knew I needed to be the one to end my family’s tradition of destruction that reaches back generations.

I wasn’t out of control, I wasn’t drinking every day, but – I knew I could become both of those things very easily. I knew because I had done it before.  

You stop at a bar, you have a drink, then another. Pretty soon the bartender knows your drink and has it waiting for you when you walk in. It’s easy, it’s familiar, it’s helps ease the pain of whatever is gnawing at your soul.

But, we all know, it doesn’t ease anything. 

In doing a little family genealogy, I noticed that more than a few died from cirrhosis of the liver.  My family drinks, some socially, some to excess, but they drink. It has ruined more than one life, and abuse seems to be part and parcel of the drinking.  These genes are passed from generation to generation. I’m predisposed to alcohol because it’s a “family” gene. It’s just a part of who I am. I’m not blaming them for my behavior, I’m just saying – it’s a part of me.

It was these things and so much more that made me say – enough. I won’t be them. I won’t follow that family tradition. I won’t allow it to control me. I will be the one to end this wretched part of my family’s history.

Do I miss the drinking and the bars?   I do not.

The moments I now have in my life are not clouded with anything.  They’re not always good, but they are the moments which define who I am now, and what I have chosen my life to be.  

Not all family traditions are good.  Not all the genes we inherited are meant to be lived as our ancestors lived them. 

Sometimes we take what we’ve been given, and we make our own way. I’d like to think my Great Grandma Phoebe is proud of me for not sitting on our collective barstool anymore. God rest her soul…

Until Next Time.

XOXO

The Messy Bits

There were many times the past two years when I felt that things around me were spinning in many different directions all at one time – It always gives me the image of someone trying to keep way too many plates in the air. The truth is – most of what’s spinning is spinning because I’m giving it space in my head and my heart

Life isn’t always fair, nor is it always kind.

Sometimes, the hard times come, and they stay long past their due date. They wreak havoc and bring about anger and bitterness and seeking revenge seems to be a part of every thought that goes through my little brain.

Messy Bits…

It’s like when you’re growing up and your parents tell you some crazy story about relatives that we no longer associate with for reasons they don’t remember other than that’s how it’s always been. Long ago angers and hurts that carry on from generation to generation for unknown reasons. The only thing you know is that you can’t be the one to break the cycle. It would be some sort of stain on your family name.

You all know what I’m speaking of.

The – this is how it’s always been logic.

Messy bits.

It takes courage to break a cycle of disfunction, especially when it’s your family, your friends, your life.
There’s much to lose.

Then again, there’s much to gain by breaking free of all of it.

We are told these stories growing up that your family is the only thing that matters, but sometimes, it’s our families that break us.

They break us when we don’t conform to these standards that are placed on us as children – when we don’t fit into the place in the family that was set aside for us, when we don’t live the life that was expected of us. When we question decisions that are made for us. When we realize that nothing – absolutely nothing is as it seems.

It’s only when we understand that a foundation of secrets and lies, and guilt and grudges and phobias and expectations has allowed us to sink into following along instead of taking charge and living our own life.

Messy Bits.

What I have discovered is that it’s never too late to start over. To find the courage to say no and walk away from the messy bits that make you feel less-than and undeserving and trapped and drowning in a life that isn’t your own.

Yes, Life is indeed the messy bits, but we don’t need to live there, or wallow there or believe that all that exists in this world are the messy bits.

Break the cycle

Find the courage

You deserve the good bits

The happy bits

The joyful bits.

Until Next Time
XOXO