On NOT Becoming Bitter

Author's note - I bought my first fabric pieces today, as my class starts on Saturday and I want to practice. I also wanted to blog all about it, but I can't find my camera cord, so alas, that post will have to wait. Instead, I bring you something else that has been on my mind lately...

It would be fairly easy for me to get wrapped up in feeling bitter ...

Wait, let me rephrase that ...

It IS fairly easy for me to get wrapped up in feeling bitter. Being bitter is something I have fought from a fairly young age on. Heck, my name even means bitter...although, my namesake was anything BUT bitter and she watched her son die on a cross! So, what right do I have to waste my time on such a useless emotion.

None.

Being bitter doesn't get you anything in life, but feeling bitter and being alone. I watched my Grandma lose herself in bitterness for most of her life and when I got to be a certain age, and realized what she had done to herself, I vowed to NEVER let that become ME. Dont' get me wrong, my Grandma's heart was always in the right place ... and she desperately loved all of us ... she just had an interesting way of showing it that made you feel like you were dirt under her shoe half the time. Her way of pushing you to be the best you could be often involved comparing you to "better" people and saying the most God-awful things to you...things that often made you want to cry or scream or both. As I got older, I saw this behavior for what it truly was, but it still upset me. Even though I knew this was all she had known as a child, and it made me so sad for that little girl, I still thought to myself, "hell woman, you've grown up to marry a wonderful man, had 5 great kids and 19 grandchildren who all honor and respect you, how BAD can it really be?"

You see, my Grandma and I share one thing in common ... we are both "Motherless Mothers." We both grew up without that calming and lovng influence in our lives. Thankfully, I had a father who was actually present in my life, she didn't. And not only was he NOT present, when he was physically around, he was abusive. To this day, my Dad refuses to refer to him as anything but "my mother's father." Interesting to say the least. In any case, my Grandma allowed the death of her mother at the age of six and the subsequent neglect and horrendous childhood experiences she suffered to create a lifetime of bitterness in her. She never quite overcame all that tragedy...even when she moved on to marry my Grandpap (an AMAZING man), have 5 successful, loving and wonderful children and become a Grandma who could've spoiled her grandkids rotten. We never had that "warm and fuzzy" relationship with our Grandma...it was more like she was a mother in many respects...the harsh, disciplinarian, lesson teaching Mom that makes you want to get away.

Ughhh, I don't mean to disrespect her memory...if you know me, you also know how I fell apart at her funeral...dissolved into a heap of sobs at her casket...cried the entire drive home...lost weight because of it...cried through my Dad's speech at my wedding...that I asked my Aunt to read something to my Grandma that I wrote, right before she died, because I knew I wouldn't get to her in time to tell her myself. You KNOW how I struggle to find peace with the fact that she is gone and I never got to see her truly happy. That I know there are people within our family who have very strong (very valid) feelings toward her...not always nice ones...because of how she was. And that I struggle with my anger at her bitterness too. She was the only true mother figure I had...and she did the best she could...but sometimes, her best left a lot to be desired.

I also struggle with me NOT becoming that way. I don't want to be that Wife, Mom or Grandma. I don't want to be on edge and grouchy. I want to show my children and grandchildren how much I love them, everyday, and that even if they "fail" at things, it's OK, because that's how we learn. I want to help them become the very best they can be WITHOUT resorting to comparisons or yelling or name calling. I want them to see the vulnerable side of me ... only seen in my Grandma at my Grandpap's funeral and the immediate timeframe following it. I don't want Bill to have to explain my love to my Grandchildren, or wonder about my feelings for him, because I'm too busy bitching at everyone (excuse my language please). I don't want to constantly be rolling my eyes, looking to the ceiling, snapping my mouth, or praying outloud to "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" when my kids or grandkids do something I don't like. I don't want to only show my soft side when I'm dying and on meds.

I want to embrace all aspects of my life, because they make me who I am. Was it totally shitty (again, with the language!) that my Mom died? Yes. Was it equally shitty that I never got to know her? Yep. Do I feel I was cheated? You bet! But, does that have to define me? Nope. Will I ever understand the things that have happened in my life that have been awful? Things like my Mom dying, my niece dying, my childhood being...interesting..., my son having to undergo open heart surgery, my labor being a total nightmare and the aftermath even worse? Probably not. But, if I can learn something from it, then it's not in vain. And even if I can't, which I suspect is the case with things like loved one's dying young, if I survived it, then I can't let it continuously keep holding me back, because that's not truly surviving.

So, it's a daily battle...and some days are very good, some days are very bad, but most days are somewhere in the middle. I won't ever stop fighting to NOT repeat history and to keep the bitterness from winning. I have to much to lose if I let it win.