Painful Catharsis
I remember when I was 15, I thought that when I turned 18, and officially became an adult, that acne would no longer be an issue. Like, it would magically disappear from my life forever. I say this as I sit here wondering what I should do about the acne that has been consistently on my forehead for the past week. I'm 33.
At some point, in the middle of that naive phase of my life, I'm pretty confident I also thought that the trivialities of teenage years, and all of its dumb drama, would eventually fade into the memories of my life. I didn't think they'd be something I'd still have to occasionally face down going into my adult years.
But it still happens. All of it. The drama and the zits. Isn't that so fun?
My husband and I have been making more of an effort in the past year to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, and make friends. Real friends. Not passing friendly acquaintances, but people we can have over for game night or dinner parties or call at 2 AM because there's an emergency we need help with.
We're in kind of a weird place here, in the Mormon community where we live. We've lived here for pretty much our entire marriage, with the exception of the 2 (not back to back) years that we left the area while he was doing military things. We moved in as newlyweds, and befriended other newlyweds that we had known before getting married. But then they moved, or they had kids. Whether you want to admit it or not, having kids changes the dynamic of your relationship with your friends who don't have kids. So then, for awhile, we were the lone newlyweds who slowly transitioned into being not newlyweds but also not having kids so we were just a couple of married people. It's kind of rare to find "just a couple of married people" in a Mormon community. I'm not trying to throw blankets of labels over people, but really, for the most part (I can't emphasize enough, FOR THE MOST PART), you've got newlyweds, and you've got newlyweds who are also newly parents, and then there's the families that have been families for what seems since the beginning of time. When we were reaching the phase of no longer being newlyweds, we also weren't newly parents. And that was weird. At least from a social standpoint. We didn't really fit into a box that people were used to putting people in. With the exception of two families (who we both still love to this day, and who we both feel are our friends forever and ever despite the distance that might be between us), no one really reached out to us in real, deep friendship. I want to point out here that no one shut us out either. We're SURROUNDED by a lot of really really good people. They have always been nice and reached out to us in other ways, but in terms of building a friendship and hanging out, not really. I guess you could argue that we could've reached out to someone else in friendship, but it is weird to do that when you don't have kids and other people do. You don't know what their schedule is like, what they're able to do in terms of double dating or game nights or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Also, I hate it, HATE. IT., when people act like they're superior to me because their life is different than mine, and sometimes people with kids come across that way to people without kids (I know there are people agreeing with me on this) (I can see my cousin nodding her head vigorously).
Anyway. Eventually, we move back into the area after Mike finished in Afghanistan, and we bought a house (we were starting to fit into some sort of pre-determined "marriage mold"). And then we got pregnant ("family mold" next! Let's give these two an award!). And then I found myself wishing I had friends, mom friends. But everyone who was in the phase of life that I was in had been in that phase of life for longer than I had, and they already had solid, established friendships with other people.
It left me feeling kind of....on the outside looking in? So I started making an effort. If I wanted friends, I WAS GOING TO GET THEM, DANG IT. I attended activities, girls nights, celebrated birthdays when the invitation was put out there for anyone who wanted to come, and etc. I started making friends. Not necessarily ones that I would feel comfortable calling at 2 AM (the thing about making friends as a married couple is that you have to make sure there's compatibility for you AND your spouse. There are plenty of women that I could really dive into friendship with, but my husband has lukewarm feelings towards their husbands so, it's just meh. Right? Are you following?), but women that I became close to and shared parts of my life with. Deep, meaningful, life changing parts of who I am. I started to feel like I had something of a sisterhood around me.
Let's go back to those teenage years, for a moment.
At the age of 17, I learned a very, VERY hard lesson about gossiping. If life really was like "Inside Out," that memory would be one of the biggest core memories in my brain. And it would be a magnificent, heartbreaking shade of blue and purple. I will never forget it. I did something so wrong. I shared very private information that was not my business to share, and as a result I hurt people that didn't deserve to get hurt. It affected an entire family. An ENTIRE FAMILY was hurt. All because I couldn't stop running my mouth.
I wish I could say I've perfectly avoided gossip in the 16 years since, but I haven't. What I CAN say is that I have tried to not be flippant in my discussing of others. More often than not, when the conversation around me starts in the direction of talking about other people in a gossipy way, I will quietly recede into the background and wait for the conversation to turn down more favorable avenues. It's a habit that I have been grateful, over and over and over again, I developed at a relatively young age. Despite the circumstances under which I learned that lesson.
Since that hard lesson, I have never seen the point of talking behind someone else's back. If someone has an issue with me, or doesn't like something about me, and it bothers them enough that they feel the need to talk about it with someone else, then I'd rather they just tell me to my face. That's what I would do. Except, I hate confrontation. I will run as far away from it as I can, IF I can. However, as much as I hate confrontation, I believe even more strongly in owning up to who you are and what you do.
It is an interesting thing to realize you've been the topic of discussion behind your back. To realize that something you said, on your own social media account no less, is being twisted and used in a way that affects your real, actual life. Not just your digital one.
My sisterhood is cracking, and I'm not sure who I can trust to help me patch it back up again. I don't even know if I WANT to patch it back up. Receding back into my world of just my husband and daughter sounds like heaven right now.
At some point, in the middle of that naive phase of my life, I'm pretty confident I also thought that the trivialities of teenage years, and all of its dumb drama, would eventually fade into the memories of my life. I didn't think they'd be something I'd still have to occasionally face down going into my adult years.
But it still happens. All of it. The drama and the zits. Isn't that so fun?
My husband and I have been making more of an effort in the past year to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, and make friends. Real friends. Not passing friendly acquaintances, but people we can have over for game night or dinner parties or call at 2 AM because there's an emergency we need help with.
We're in kind of a weird place here, in the Mormon community where we live. We've lived here for pretty much our entire marriage, with the exception of the 2 (not back to back) years that we left the area while he was doing military things. We moved in as newlyweds, and befriended other newlyweds that we had known before getting married. But then they moved, or they had kids. Whether you want to admit it or not, having kids changes the dynamic of your relationship with your friends who don't have kids. So then, for awhile, we were the lone newlyweds who slowly transitioned into being not newlyweds but also not having kids so we were just a couple of married people. It's kind of rare to find "just a couple of married people" in a Mormon community. I'm not trying to throw blankets of labels over people, but really, for the most part (I can't emphasize enough, FOR THE MOST PART), you've got newlyweds, and you've got newlyweds who are also newly parents, and then there's the families that have been families for what seems since the beginning of time. When we were reaching the phase of no longer being newlyweds, we also weren't newly parents. And that was weird. At least from a social standpoint. We didn't really fit into a box that people were used to putting people in. With the exception of two families (who we both still love to this day, and who we both feel are our friends forever and ever despite the distance that might be between us), no one really reached out to us in real, deep friendship. I want to point out here that no one shut us out either. We're SURROUNDED by a lot of really really good people. They have always been nice and reached out to us in other ways, but in terms of building a friendship and hanging out, not really. I guess you could argue that we could've reached out to someone else in friendship, but it is weird to do that when you don't have kids and other people do. You don't know what their schedule is like, what they're able to do in terms of double dating or game nights or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Also, I hate it, HATE. IT., when people act like they're superior to me because their life is different than mine, and sometimes people with kids come across that way to people without kids (I know there are people agreeing with me on this) (I can see my cousin nodding her head vigorously).
Anyway. Eventually, we move back into the area after Mike finished in Afghanistan, and we bought a house (we were starting to fit into some sort of pre-determined "marriage mold"). And then we got pregnant ("family mold" next! Let's give these two an award!). And then I found myself wishing I had friends, mom friends. But everyone who was in the phase of life that I was in had been in that phase of life for longer than I had, and they already had solid, established friendships with other people.
It left me feeling kind of....on the outside looking in? So I started making an effort. If I wanted friends, I WAS GOING TO GET THEM, DANG IT. I attended activities, girls nights, celebrated birthdays when the invitation was put out there for anyone who wanted to come, and etc. I started making friends. Not necessarily ones that I would feel comfortable calling at 2 AM (the thing about making friends as a married couple is that you have to make sure there's compatibility for you AND your spouse. There are plenty of women that I could really dive into friendship with, but my husband has lukewarm feelings towards their husbands so, it's just meh. Right? Are you following?), but women that I became close to and shared parts of my life with. Deep, meaningful, life changing parts of who I am. I started to feel like I had something of a sisterhood around me.
Let's go back to those teenage years, for a moment.
At the age of 17, I learned a very, VERY hard lesson about gossiping. If life really was like "Inside Out," that memory would be one of the biggest core memories in my brain. And it would be a magnificent, heartbreaking shade of blue and purple. I will never forget it. I did something so wrong. I shared very private information that was not my business to share, and as a result I hurt people that didn't deserve to get hurt. It affected an entire family. An ENTIRE FAMILY was hurt. All because I couldn't stop running my mouth.
I wish I could say I've perfectly avoided gossip in the 16 years since, but I haven't. What I CAN say is that I have tried to not be flippant in my discussing of others. More often than not, when the conversation around me starts in the direction of talking about other people in a gossipy way, I will quietly recede into the background and wait for the conversation to turn down more favorable avenues. It's a habit that I have been grateful, over and over and over again, I developed at a relatively young age. Despite the circumstances under which I learned that lesson.
Since that hard lesson, I have never seen the point of talking behind someone else's back. If someone has an issue with me, or doesn't like something about me, and it bothers them enough that they feel the need to talk about it with someone else, then I'd rather they just tell me to my face. That's what I would do. Except, I hate confrontation. I will run as far away from it as I can, IF I can. However, as much as I hate confrontation, I believe even more strongly in owning up to who you are and what you do.
It is an interesting thing to realize you've been the topic of discussion behind your back. To realize that something you said, on your own social media account no less, is being twisted and used in a way that affects your real, actual life. Not just your digital one.
My sisterhood is cracking, and I'm not sure who I can trust to help me patch it back up again. I don't even know if I WANT to patch it back up. Receding back into my world of just my husband and daughter sounds like heaven right now.
So, my challenge to you is this: don't be a coward.
If you have an issue with someone, talk to them about it. Or, BETTER YET!!!!, ask yourself "is this actually an issue, or is my pride blinding me from what really matters here?" The answer, in most cases of my own experience, is usually the latter. Pride has a funny way of making us feel like we're entitled for things to be a certain way, or that we should be allowed to do or say a certain thing. Pride also has a fantastic way of making us think that because someone does things differently than us, then we should let that rankle us and drive a wedge between us and the other person.
If you have an issue with someone, talk to them about it. Or, BETTER YET!!!!, ask yourself "is this actually an issue, or is my pride blinding me from what really matters here?" The answer, in most cases of my own experience, is usually the latter. Pride has a funny way of making us feel like we're entitled for things to be a certain way, or that we should be allowed to do or say a certain thing. Pride also has a fantastic way of making us think that because someone does things differently than us, then we should let that rankle us and drive a wedge between us and the other person.
I had an epiphany as I wrote that last sentence. My heart hurts right now. A lot. A lot a lot. But if someone else's pride, or whatever it was, contributed to the hurt in my heart, I can't let my own pride turn me into a bitter thing. Hold people at arms length, yes (Jesus said love everyone, not to be a doormat). Become bitter and unpleasant, no.
I'm 33. These kinds of things were supposed to disappear over a decade ago. Insert eye roll emoji here.
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