A long time ago, when I had a stepfather, in the brief period in my history (4-5 years) where I had siblings, I played a certain computer game. Well, ok, so I played a lot of them and the first one was Wolfenstein 3D, one of the next was Richard Scary's BusyTown with my little siblings, but the one that made the stronger impression was Loom. I finally completed the game (I say completed because it was a story style rpg, not a game you 'beat' in my opinion, you just find the story's ending eventually) years and years later once I no longer had siblings after I rediscovered it in a box.
The premise of the story was that life is a weaving. There's a pattern to it that you weave, you can break the pattern, you can change the plan, and you can also look to the tapestries of your life to see the patterns of your past.
It's the patterns of the past that concern me. I have a history of having wonderful beautiful special children come into my life, both of us being important to one another.... and then something coming into play that keeps me from being a part of their lives any more. I personally prefer boys, and yet all of these children who have meant the world to me have been girls. I miss them all. Now I find that I wear armor where children are concerned, partly because I hate that I could not stay a large part of these children's lives as they grew up (partly because parents today don't know the meaning of control, :D). I was abandoned repeatedly from 2 on, in very significant and painful ways. It destroys me that I have been forced by circumstance, and in some cases been forced to choose, to not be a part of these children's lives.
Patterns freak me out in some ways in general, simply because they imply an underlying order to either life or my thinking or the choices I've made that led me to something that happens.... larger order or deep underlying things that I don't see in my day to day decision making process. Have I led myself to abandon these children? Have I led myself to be the one doing the abandoning (I've never been broken up with, etc.) because I can't stand the idea of being the one abandoned again?
I don't honestly know.
A Softer World: 1248
7 years ago
The only patterns in life are the ones you make. Perhaps they reflect your past, as you suggest, but once you recognize that there's no reason you can't break them if you want to take your life in a different direction.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this particular pattern will break up for you.
Thank you for this.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading the same idea about life being a weaving in The Sandman, and I think it's referenced from a myth from somewhere, but I can't remember.
I've felt that about my life too - that the same fears and problems keep coming up again and again and it's like I'm trapped in this cycle that I can't escape. Sometimes it makes me feel like I have no control over what happens to me... but, then, I *do*, with more things than I realize. You can make choices, you can gain deeper insight into yourself, you can try to change yourself, you can put yourself in contexts and around people that are good for you and help you and make you grow.
Where/when do you build these relationships with children?
I never responded to this comment, life got away from me. I've just been so lucky as to have friends of the family with young children and two goddaughters and at one point a boyfriend with a little girl.
ReplyDelete