whining

A woman whom I was a hospice volunteer for had just passed away. It's so much bigger than my gripes about money--it's life or death.

I'm slowly getting it. And I can't be mad at other people who have no empathy, selfish people who lie to their parents or cannot imagine how difficult my situation is yet not extend their empathy. I get it. This world is not full of people like me. It will not always be warm, giving, understanding, tolerable, or kind. I get it.

Not receiving help... I don't think that's my issue. I think it's the acknowledgment that I am doing okay with my partner even though it has been tough. We, the two hippies, are doing alright despite my family's values about money, and despite my background growing up with money. I feel like a person should not live beyond her means.

Here we go: the real reason. And it took some time to reason to it, huh? I feel like an outcast, and I am tired of having to try to appease others' anger about not understanding or believing that i do NOT need money, that I am doing well living my life as a lifelong student, working with children for low pay, and volunteering with old people who tell awesome stories. My beliefs of happiness outweigh my desires to be wealthy. It has always been this way, yet my family cannot let it go. They fear that I will be a financial burden in the future, yet there is no proof. I have been fine on my own for years. I wish the projection would be aimed at the right person.

I feel like it's completely unfair for me to pay for my parent's mortgages when I haven't fully lived my own life. Hell, I don't even have a family of my own. I don't have any money to spare. My mother waited until she was 35 to have me--I wish she could extend me the same timeline before I had to give up part of my dreams, dreams which require money, to take care of her. It's no fun being in a sandwich generation. If I have to pay for their mortgages, and supplement her lousy retirement pay, I'm not going to have children. FORGET IT.

I would be an awesome parent. People have told me this for years, and parents remind me that I will be when they see how successful I am with their children. This stress and unwanted burden will push me over the edge, and perhaps we will adopt in the future. As for now, I'm not having children. I feel like it's such a waste of my knowledge and experience to have it thrown away because of this added responsibility. Ah, experiencing another loss of a dream.

I will be okay. My partner and I will figure something out. For now, I'm sad, and a little spiteful. Life isn't always fair, and I will find another dream to fulfill. Patience is one of my strengths, and I am thankful to have it grow every year I work with children or the elderly.

why i blog, what i learned about grief

There is this funny disconnect with my blogging, and wanting others to understand me better through reading my thoughts, yet never directly asking anyone significant in my life to do so. The thoughts are just here, I secretly wish people in my life would read it, but a part of me does fear their judgment. A part of me secretly wants them to see the world how I do, yet I already know our values and acceptance of other perspectives are not as flexible as mine. And it's not wrong, it's just different, and I will respect that. So here are my thoughts, for ten years! I should have some one-person celebration lol. 10 year anniversary woot! I've never had one yet.

Another reason for blogging was I guess, due to my former passive aggressive personality traits, I had kept all my emotions inside never addressing them or working towards understanding my true self. Blogging helped me rationalize my maladaptive thought process and the negative emotions that resulted in them, and the negative life experiences (or lack of life experience due to fear) that resulted from that. It's cheap therapy. As long as the person seeks knowledge and appropriately applies it to ones own life without trying to "convert" others into believing things, I think the search for self and peace will be successful. I was a hardheaded preachy savior complex ridden college kid. Some of the preachiness lingers, only because I'm so passionate about learning unmedicated methods of healing, but I admit and accept when I'm being an ass. My partner will remind me when it's time to shut it lol. My past preachiness came from many things: not wanting children to experience unneeded pain from stupid parents (I wanted to fix my past by preventing pain in their lives), having a friend commit suicide and then another die in a car accident months later with no models of coping.

My parents never taught me about grief, mourning or coping with life's events. I don't blame them, and it's taken me years to understand that after a certain age, I can either stay like this and blame others and search for the "whys" I turned out this way, or I can accept it, search for ways of positive growth, and move on with my life a better person. When K died though, I wanted to relive his life, up to the point of suicide. I just learned that this is a very common step loved ones of murder victims and those who comit suicide do. They retrace the steps of murder or suicide thinking that this will bring closure, or a better understanding of the death. A reverand stated that this grief can last a lifetime because instead of addressing the pain, they took the route of revenge or suicide themselves. So, people need to address pain, accept loss and live life fully. It's not feeling guilty to be alive, it's living with people's memories instead of constant wishing they were still here. It's cheesy, but the person who died would want you to be happy, not forgetting them, but be happy.

The video also mentioned how some feel like letting go of the pain means letting go of this relationship with the person who died. Personally, I believe it. I have experienced being comfortable with depression because it was the strongest emotion that linked me to K. Looking back, I wish those Psychologists at the school I was at took me through the steps of grief, told me everyone grieves in their own way and where to go for resources. No one is perfect, I was sad for a friggin long time, but I'm ok now. I shouldn't hold grudges, I'm just hoping others will get the resources they need when tragedies happen. So if you're experiencing loss, finding a support group of nonjudging people is a good step. Family and friends sometimes don't know what to say because they're uncomfortable with the topic, or they don't want to hurt you. Silence doesn't mean they don't care, it just means they don't know what to say. Sometimes we need to tell people what we need. We're not perfect. I hope everyone will learn to cope with loss, and that the world in general will become more open to talking about it. It's less likely for us to be fearful of things we know than things we do not. <3