Respect your Elders

I am of strong belief that respect is earned, not simply handed out. I particularly disagree with the notion that elders should automatically receive respect due solely to their age. In my opinion, that's ridiculous. Some of the 'elders' I know are the most ignorant, pompous, insolent, ornery, and downright unrespectable people I know.

One man, who will remain unnamed, is an elder within my fiance's family. All the younger brothers/ cousins look up to him. He knows this, and takes pride in it. When his three daughters got married, he boasted the fact that he dropped a couple hundred grand on their wedding. In turn, he places immense pressure of what the sons of his brothers/ cousins (one of these sons being my fiance) do.

Now of these three daughters, the first broke off her arranged marriage, and married for love. She has two children and has an extremely successful life. The next daughter is married, also with two children, living in a one bedroom rental apartment. The third daughter lives in her in-laws basement. Why not cough up that money and help your children settle into their marriage, forget the wedding. But somehow the wedding is the most important aspect. Showing off to the family. Is this respectable?

In turn, mine and my fiance's smaller, more intimate, and conservative wedding has sparked some comments on the "cheapness" of our families. Meanwhile, my fiance and I are on our way to purchase our 2nd home, and moving up in quite a nice manner given our young age. Yet, his cousin and my fiance's father continue to feel that perhaps we are lacking behind the family, and continuously takes the negative comments regarding our refusal to spend copious amounts of money on the wedding. His father will not say anything back regarding the fact that his future daughter in law and his son at the ages of 20 and 22 bought their first condo, and now at 23 and 25 will be purchasing a home, in a sought after community on the beach in Central America.

Why? because he is an elder!

I do not respect him, as he never respected me. I will make no notion to show respect. I really don't care.

Some Explanations

Why I feel the need to explain myself, I don’t know... but the urge has come. I realize this is two postings in a day versus my norm of 2 a month... but I feel compelled. After perusing through a blog of my friends and the subsequent blogs she followed, I realized that mine is morbid in comparison. I’m using this blog as a form of therapy, if you will. Many many wonderful things happen to me on a daily basis and I’m actually quite a fortunate girl... but these you will hear from me in person over and over again. I don’t want to bore and depress people with my dark thoughts on a daily basis. Everyone has them... some continually express them (can think of a few right off the top of my head), some bottle them up (something I normally do) and some achieve a healthy balance- which is what I strive for.

Believe it or not, (although if you read this blog you’d probably believe it), I tried out therapy for a bit last summer. It was alright, I guess, but very similar to this blog, it was simply me talking about my past and daily somewhat 'woe is me' thoughts. This seems like a must cheaper alternative.

So those of you (if any) that think this may be a dark and depressing concept of a blog, I apologize, but it’s my way of ensuring my anger does not get out of hand (which, by the way, was the trigger for me seeking therapy) and allows me a bit of release from everyday life without depressing those around me :).

Being alone.

I had an interesting revelation today. I hate to be alone. Now this I have known my entire live. I have an intense fear of being alone. But my revelation went beyond that. I’m uncomfortable by myself. I’m restless. I don’t know what to do. Being at home, and my fiancé is at work for the past 6 months has been an eye opener. The first 4 months not so much, as I had class 4 days a week, and he tends to work from home on Fridays, so I had some form of human interaction. These past 2 months however have been brutal. I kept thinking to myself, I have full days to kill... I do have 6 distance education (read: 0 interaction) courses, so I figured I can spend my morning doing some school work, and then get some wedding planning, cleaning, gym-ing, cooking... out of the way. School goes by fine, it provides me with focus for the first 3 to 4 hours of my day. And then I crash. I just cannot do it alone. If my fiancé was home, even sitting on the couch watching TV, I’d be above and beyond active- cleaning, making invitations, doing essays, cooking. It’s the company I crave. I don’t have the drive to do it alone.

Today, during a break from my school work, I sat by the window and looked onto the construction. I took note that all the construction workers are paired up at the very least, if not put into groups. I felt a pang of jealousy. What I loved most about my previous job was the interactions with [some] people, whether it be through our cubicle, in the lunchroom, or just on the instant messaging on the computers. It actually made me more productive. My desire, passion, efficiency, and productivity went down the tube (knowingly) when a new manager came in and pulled back on the reins on our normally sociable group. Suddenly 5 minute chats between cubes were frowned upon, and even a quick hello was done in the sneakiest manner. It became miserable. My colleagues and I became experts at the act of looking busy, as we tried to talk and catch up on one another’s lives. Not once, when we were a cohesive sociable group, did we fall behind on work, have a bad audit, and receive complaints. When our only source of release for the day was taken away, our work ethic went with it. Luckily I left before this became apparent. Anyways, I digress.

I’ve realized in life, I need to... must... be doing something where I have interaction with people. This doesn’t mean customer services. Not strangers... a culture where interaction, partnership, and cohesiveness are important. This is strange as I consider myself very shy and can feel lonely in the biggest of group... but I fear being alone. I can’t do it alone.

Recently, my fiancé and I had a conversation about police officers. He said they must always drive with a partner. Isn’t that wonderful? I thought it was. Even when in silence and while concentrating on the hardest of work, just the sheer thought that you have someone next to you is comforting. In my opinion.

This probably makes me a very lonely person.

Bloodline

I don't know if it's my culture, whether it's plain old fashioned thinking, or whether it's a 'quirk' within certain people, but it seems that unless you share the same blood, you are not family. Being adopted from one side never seemed to fall into the category of being adopted. I never considered myself as an adopted child. I did however feel the disconnect between my step father's family and myself. I may have been a child, but children know more that you may think.

Recently, with the wedding planning, this fact has hit further close to home. It has become apparent that my marriage is not a priority to the step-paternal side of the family. It seems everything from money to health to school to plain bad timing has caused everyone from my step- grandmother to my step- aunt to have a reason to miss out unless my dad (step) can cough up the cash for the ticket or the hotel or the something or other. The fact that it's my wedding seems to have fallen to the way side. It's been said before (children hear/ pick up on more than you think)... I am not a true [insert last name here]; I don't carry the blood. I'm just a casualty of someone's past life.

It's funny how major life events bring out the truth in a lot of people. You find out who really cares and who really doesn't. Unfortunately, from my side, it has been more a function of finding out I really don't matter. For a while, and when it concerned my so- called friends, I partially blamed myself and my apparent inability to maintain a friendship... but in light of recent developments regarding my supposed 'family', I'm not sure where the blame lies?

Burden... yes, burden was the right word it seems.

A burden?

When my mother met my step-father, he began to stay over our house and spend a lot of time with us. I guess this is expected of a new boyfriend. He was and still is a great guy, and spent all kinds of time with me.

On an aside, I remember when me and my mom once went to pick him up from his apartment, we needed to take the elevator up. I went in, thinking my mom was behind me. I don't know where she was. I ended up in the elevator alone going up to who knows where. All I remember is thinking this is it. I will never see my mom again. I don't know why I was so irrational. Little things always translated into the end... no middle, just the end.

Anyways, back to my original thought. I can't help but think what a burden I must have been. Here my mom has met a wonderful new man, and she's got to break the news that I am her daughter. Even further, I was just always around. I know they must not have actually thought 'wow, she is a burden', but I know. Know. that at some point it was wished that I wasn't born or around. How much easier it would have made life for them. That makes me sad.

Was I Different?

A recent conversation I had with my aunt brought many questions and a bit of sadness to my mind. She said to me " you were such a sweet kid... you still are... but you were different them"... when I supplied "yea, but I was so shy", she corrected me "you became shy... you were very outgoing, loved talking to everyone... really fun- loving!" What?!?! This astonishes me... and saddens me. My biggest area of concern regarding myself has always been my personality. I tend to clam up around a lot of people and am just plain shy (although often mistaken for snobbiness).

A major flaw I have (to add to the many) is I tend to place blame on others. My personality, and my shyness, was always one thing I couldn't blame anyone for. I've been like this since birth. But now... maybe I haven't. The divorce affected me in ways I couldn't even fathom. I know I shouldn't dwell on the past, but my subconscious is doing a good job for me.

Sleepwalking through Life

From what I remember, I spent a lot of my time sleeping. I had... have... an uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere under any types of conditions. This probably stems from my time in Atlanta. My mom, newly single, and not employable, picked up a job as a bartender/ waitress. She also decided to go to school, perhaps community college, although I'm not sure. During this time I grew accustomed to sleeping in the back of the car, in the booth at the restaurant, and even outside of the classroom in the hall.

The school I particularily remember. I would sit in the hallway, and my mom and her... friends, presumably... would take turns coming out to check on me. They'd buy me lunch, or was it dinner? in the cafetaria, and I'd sit outside the classroom with a beige tray on my lap. I don't remember the food, although I imagine it not to be dissimilar from hospital food. This again brings me to the thought... what did the women who used to check on me think? Those who walked by me in the hall? Was there pity? Did they find it odd? Did they think my mother was unfit?

Oddly enough, I did have a fear of sleeping alone in my room at night. This lasted me well into my teens, I will admit. More often than not, I would wander to my mother's room, and snuggle in the bed with her. I'm not sure what the fear was, but I remember sitting wide awake in my room, staring at the hallway light bulb, and truly believing it was flashing on and off. I'd scare myself with these visions and sometimes sprint to the other room. It was irrational. I was 4.