Rarely do I ever wish I still had an active Live Journal. Tonight is one of those nights though.
Once I turned 10, I struggled with the thought “Is this normal?” What is normal? What is my life supposed to be like? Is this right? Am I doing life right? Do other people feel like I do? Does everyone else go through these things? Am I making the right decision? Did I just make a mistake? Should I regret doing that? Is it normal to think all these thoughts?
For so many years, basically until 2008, I second guessed a lot of my life choices. Once I met Michelle, a lot of those thoughts subsided. I mean, everyone has times when they second guess themselves or a decision. That is perfectly normal. It is just not normal to think that way about everything. Nevertheless, once I met Michelle, I felt like I slowly began to get my life on track.
No matter what happened in our lives, we had each other. I stopped thinking about regrets or mistakes I made prior to meeting her. For all those years, I relied on the hurt, the pain and the rage inside to fuel myself through life. Once I met Michelle, I stopped that. I relied on a solid foundation of love, trust and partnership to get through life.
Sadly, despite our boundless love and support for each other, there have been too many times over the last ten years where we have had to bond together and battle family drama. There is this constant struggle where we are concentrating on these endless conflicts that never get resolved. The sad reality is that most, if not all, of these conflicts are usually just reactions to reactions. So many pent-up emotions just continue to layer upon themselves until we get to the point where no one even truly knows why they are mad. Not to mention, simple conflicts are magnified and blown up a thousand times bigger than they need to be.
One thing I pride myself on is conflict resolution. For years I tried to fight the battles head-on. I would call, talk to people, and try to put out the fires as they came. It was an effective way to deal with problems, especially when it involved family members who avoided conflict and just internalized everything.
I think it was right around when Fiona was born where I began to feel more and more apathetic. I stopped being proactive with arguments or conflicts. I was tired of constantly playing the role of mediator. Once I had a child of my own, I became more protective and defensive. Quite frankly, the world could burn around me, and I did not care as long as Michelle and Fiona were okay.
Naturally, when you play the role of mediator or peacemaker for so long, and then stop, something is bound to happen. And it did. Blowup after blowup happened, and I just stopped caring.
It wasn’t until the family drama finally crossed into my daughter’s birthday plans for her third birthday that I woke back up. After months of hating myself for not being more proactive, and just watching from the sidelines, I stood up and started addressing the issues. A lot of good came from that, even though it was a tough journey.
However, again, as time goes on, you start to get fed up with managing so many personalities. I have a wife and kid. That should be my main priority, and is. And when people hurt your daughter or wife, intentionally or not, you get mad. You get even more mad when you know you have done everything feasible to try to make things work out, and they don’t.
Oh, and by the way I am a human too. I have feelings. When people you love and care for suddenly disappear, and do not tell you what is wrong, you are left to your own thoughts. When you reach out and get rejected or ignored, what else can you do?
You become cold. You start to pull back from those people who pulled back from you. You start reacting to things, and they start reacting to your reactions, and then no one is happy. And then you try to get everyone else on the same page, and that doesn’t work.
Not enough yet? How about you make major family decisions during all of this? We moved to another house. I got a promotion at my job. Michelle is starting a new job. And on and on and on. Life, etc.
And while this is all going on from your perspective, everyone else has their perspective. Even if they are wrong, and still think they are right, perception is reality.
Months and years go by, and everyone is just mad, tired and frustrated. Everyone puts up walls because they are tired of getting hurt. And worst of all, we have a kid who has never done a damn thing to anyone in her family. Does she deserve any of this? No.
I can’t help those who won’t speak frankly or honestly with me. I can’t fix the issues unless I know what they are. Also, my number one priority will forever be Michelle and Fiona. I have a job, social life, hobbies and a family. I can’t use up my reserve energy fighting about the same dumb things for years and years. Especially when I don’t see anyone else trying to fix it. You have to want to fix it to even try.
We have lulled ourselves into security, only to be drawn back into an argument or disagreement time and time again. No one ever thinks they are wrong. Everyone wants to be the victim.
What I would love to tell everyone is “Hey gang, everyone is wrong because instead of communicating, everyone isolated themselves, and now everyone is on a different page, and when someone tries to do right, they get burned and get mad all over again and the cycle continues!”
As cliché as it is, life is way too precious to be spending so much time being distracted by this stuff. Look, Michelle, Fiona and I have done so many great things while all of this arguing has gone on. The last few years have been some of the most rewarding I will ever go through in my life. It is a shame that some of my time and energy has gone into this senseless fighting.
Things will never be the same. That is just life. However things can be “normal,” or better yet, things can be nice, peaceful, happy, joyful, fun, fulfilling and enjoyable. All those years I wasted wondering “Is this normal?” Normal is an illusion. Life is just life, and you go through it, and you should make sure you have the best life possible. I don’t want to be stuck on auto-pilot and just coast through life and have a few highs and lows along the way.
My conscience is clear. I know how things went down. However, I stopped caring about being right or wrong a long time ago. I also haven’t cared if I am “liked” since like ninth grade. As Kevin Nash pointed out once, “When the boys realize you don’t care if you win or lose a match, they can’t do anything to mess with you.” If others want to still argue about right or wrong, let them. I don’t care.
I am at a point where I want to have a rewarding, fulfilling and meaningful live. Drama, of any kind, does not fit in with that goal. I will always be open to putting it all back together, but that is a joint effort that can only work if everyone truly wants it to happen. And you can’t fake that.
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