What Do You Lie To Yourself About?

 

This past year has been ripe. The amount of positive outcomes continue to blow my mind and leave me in a state of equal parts shock and pride. Can I believe things are as they are today? Yes. However, I don’t have the fullest understanding of how things got be this good! Ever since I brought the kids to Clarksville, things have just continued to settle into a beautiful rhythm. Having all three of my kids close does things to my heart that I didn’t know would happen, until it did. The boys are happy. Visibly happy. My daughter and her husband make me tremendously proud and have me taking notes. They are truly a wonderful example of what “right” looks like.

Right after I bought the house, I had a pretty big job change. Instead of working on post, I now work from home. Which is poetic really. The only place I really want to be most of the time is in this space the boys and I have created. It’s just me and them. The house isn’t always clean. The boys are, well…boys. I went from driving kids to school, to them being on bus routes (LOVE IT). Then for about 6 hours a day, I have this place to myself to just listen to the sounds of this new life. Working from home has put a magnifying glass on so many details of the ins and outs of it all.

I play my piano a lot more than I have in a while. I am working on new material and trying to improve on my skills. The guitar is more neglected than I would like to admit, but it get’s its strings massaged from time to time just to remind it that I haven’t totally abandoned her. I’ve read three books. I’m seriously considering taking some courses soon to maybe actually finish my degree. Things are just all so freaking rounded that I get caught off guard at how complacent I have become with the new, truly joyous norms. The amount of reflection conducted over these past six months has also been fairly intense.

About a year ago, I picked up a prompt journal. I thought it would be fun to have a topic to write to instead my own musings. Don’t get me wrong, I still totally feed the ego with my journal, but there’s something a little more revealing when writing against a direct question or context. This past week, I came to one that sent me down a rabbit hole that had me staring at the ceiling and just shaking my head.

“What have you lied to yourself about?”

Well, shit. Tons!! But I wanted to pick just one to focus on. Because, well… efficiency. Not trying to write a book about my screws up! After a few minutes of mental pivots, I landed on the one that seems to have had the most direct impact to the core of my joy. I have adamantly lied to myself regarding the definition of love I want, need, desire, and truly want to feel. As I was writing about this lie, the unraveling of truth spun off the lines of the paper. Initially, disappointment. But in true egotistical self-preservation, I started to explain it to myself.

Being a hopeless romantic is so irritating, but when the fantasy comes even remotely true, it’s the most wonderful feeling. I have spent a bunch of time unpacking the failures with love thus far. How could I have affected a different outcome? What did I take away from the failure? What will I do differently when I’m given the chance to have that again, if ever? All of those types of questions have been captured in various journal entries. But answering the question about how I’ve lied to myself about what my personal definition is of love, I was faced with something very true.

I redefine love, ie., compromise, to fit the type of love that I am receiving. Instead of having a standard or expectation, I let the person “loving” me take the lead and define what I need for me. It’s so grossly passive that I sort of got irritated with myself. Yet, here I sit at nearly 43 years old and I have identified the lie I’ve been allowing myself to believe has literally been the very reason the failures have occurred. Because I didn’t set my standard and then STICK TO IT, my standards become more suggestion as opposed to supporting the overall outcome I am yearning for. The more I thought about it, the more the ego fought. “But…but…you didn’t really know what you wanted, so whatever you got could have been good enough.” This started making me question whether or not it was a genuine lie to myself versus maybe still actually figuring it out. I hate that wisdom is only achieved through experience (or more commonly referred to as ‘mistakes.’).

Moving forward with this keener sense of my definition forces me to also actually elaborate. Guess what that did? It created way cool new boundaries! Instead of looking for red flags and things I know that I don’t want, I am looking more intently on the details of what I DO want. The combination of those markers has opened my eyes to not just setting an actual standard but have the boundaries to aide me in sustaining it. When I finished jotting down the specifics for myself in the prompt journal, I had to step back and kind of find pride in the fact that I’m truly still growing and seeking the growth.

Crazy side effect of self-awareness, I’m a ton more peaceful and capable of maneuvering through challenges. I don’t know that I would ever consider myself a “gentle parent.” I am a loud mom. I do however, try to stay in a non-confrontation posture longer than before. These little men I’m responsible for need to see what their mother looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc. when she’s in varying states of emotion. The absence of feeling loved the way I want to be has severely impacted things for me both mentally and emotionally. It without question indirectly/directly impacts these boys. As my oldest boy encroaches his teenage years, I am feeling more and more equipped to not just be a good mom for him but also teach him how to be a good man from the perspective of a single mother.

I read once that if a mother has a daughter first, she needed to learn how to love. If she has a son first, she needed to learn how to be loved. It’s likely we can find truths in that depending on the lens you apply to your relationship to your children. I can definitively say, my boys have absolutely been teaching me how to be loved. The combination of their little hearts and my own going through such major adjustments this past year, I am convinced the theory has validity. Alex and Ben open the door for me. They pick wildflowers for me. They snuggle me often (and I’m not a super huggy momma). We are teaching each other constantly and there aren’t any better people in this existence that could have done it better than they do.

Boundaries are cool and not a deterrent, but an attraction put off like a beacon to help find the right match. Energy speaks louder than we give it credit. My boundaries are helping my energy promote the exact type of energy I need to really have this all come full circle. I’m pretty damned excited to see where this new found knowledge will take me. Something tells me, it’s not far from being fully realized. Life is so freakin’ good and my heart is full of gratitude and thank God, comfortable optimism.