Self Reliance is overrated

Hi,

My name is Holley and it has been about 80 days since my last confession....drink....no BLOG! For the three of you who read it, I would say I'm sorry but that would be a lie. You see I've just not been in a blogging mood.

Life on the hamster wheel has been continuing on at break-neck, squeaky speedy and I've not been able to get off and smell the roses or rather I've not been wanting to allow myself the luxury of smelling the roses.

It's not that I'm doing penance for anything but rather that there was nothing really happening that I wanted to blog about. A person can only complain so much about their teenage children. The fact of the matter is that Thing 1 and Thing 2 are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are flying the coop and forging their own way in the world whether I like it or not. When I realized that no amount of complaining was going to stop this from happening, I just sort of retreated into my life to do some self actualizing and analyzing. Trying to figure out how at age 42 I could be most of the way through my child rearing years.

For a Mormon girl who grew up in a large family, that's not been an easy thing to come to terms with. I always thought I would have at least 4, preferably 6 children to keep me occupied. But it's true what they say; life is what happens when you're busy making plans. Alas, more than two children were not in the cards for me due to health reasons and as it turns out financial reasons as well.

 Now I must figure out what I want to be when I grow-up and grow-up I must. I don't remember ever really having an identity of my own. I went from being Holley the daughter/sister to Holley the wife and mother when I was very young. I never really took the time to know myself. To be brutally honest I didn't really want to know myself. In fact, I didn't even like myself.

When I was very young I experienced some things in life that catapulted me into an adult awareness that I was not ready for and for the next 20 years I did everything in my power to get away from that and be a completely different person. A person who was smart and funny and pretty and all the things that I thought I wasn't.  A fictitious person.

In the years since I got married and had a family, I put everything I could into being a good wife and mother. I wanted my children to fully experience an untainted childhood. And for the most part I succeeded which is why they now have the tools to go out into the world and find their place. They will make mistakes, but those mistakes are theirs to make. Nothing I can do will keep them from experiencing life on their own terms. All I can do now is be there to love them and support them as they finish their evolution from child to adult. It's just like a butterfly struggling to break free from their cocoon. If you help them, their wings won't be strong enough to support them in flight. But it is heart wrenching to watch the struggle.

This is something I never really did myself. I was so busy running away from myself that I never made it out of my cocoon. I just sort of carried it around pretending it wasn't there. Making a sort of alternate reality for myself.

Now I've come full circle and I find that I must struggle to break free from the cocoon of baggage I've been carrying around with me. I don't quite know what I want to do with it. I thought about writing a book. Writing about the baggage I've been carrying around. For all of one day I was really excited about this idea of this book I wanted to write. As I started to do some research I found out that someone had already written that book. I've also been struggling to write some children's books. However I find that I don't quite have the inspiration to write or the mental fortitude for all of the rejection that accompanies that sort attempt.

Maybe I should write it anyway. My problem is that I am too egotistical when it comes to writing. I want to be flattered. Maybe not flattered so much as just relevant and READ. However I don't trust that I have anything to say that anyone really wants to hear. I'm not an expert of anything except how to avoid knowing who you are. I'm also an expert of knowing how to feel lost when your superimposed identity is stripped away or in my case just semi-fulfilled.

I realize that I haven't lost anything. Just because my boys are semi-adults doesn't mean I'm not their mother. It doesn't mean that they don't need me. But I do have a lot of time on my hands that I didn't have before.

I know that  I should appreciate it and as soon as I can figure out what to do with it, I'll get around to appreciating it. Also Julie and Kelly...I'm not depressed. This is not about depression. This truly is about growing-up and growing into the person I'm supposed to be. And as soon as I figure that out...I'll let you know.

I started out writing this post about an observational experience I had recently because y'all (That's North Carolinian for You All) know how I love the people watching. The title correlates to my observation from a few days ago. And if I haven't totally lost your attention you might enjoy this.

The other day I was out running errands and I had to stop and put gas in my car.  Filling the tank with gas is not my favorite task, but I’m an independent modern girl and I put gas in my own car.  But honestly?  I’d rather not and am happy to get out of doing it whenever I can. I don’t know why. It just seems to me that the men folk should have to pump the gas, take out the trash, remove the dead geckos from the shower and other duties as assigned. When it comes down to it, I’m old-fashioned. I enjoy having the door held open for me.

I see that all the pumping stations are occupied, so I pull up behind my favorite pump and wait for it to become available.  Gas pumps are like bathroom stalls – you have your favorite one, you know you do and why it is your favorite defies explanation, but it is the one you go to when need arises.

So then…

I’m sitting in my car waiting for my pump to become available and I’m taking note of all the stories going on at the gas station this morning.  In particular, I notice this elderly couple get out of their car and make their way around to the pump.  As is sometimes said, if they were moving any slower they woulda been going backwards.

The little Mrs. was apparently the driver.  She is the first to get out of the car. She is dressed very crisply in her lavender stretch pants, matching blouse and never-committed-even-a-venial-sin bright white Keds.  She weighs all of 98-pounds.  I am guessing by the scarf she is wearing tied under her chin that she has recently been to what she would probably term the “beauty parlor” where the “beauty operator” washed and set her hair.  Just so.  I also suppose that her beauty operator is named Velma and has been doing hair since 1949.

At any rate, the elderly lady gets out of her car, makes her way around to the other side of the car where she opens the door and helps an elderly gentleman out of the car. I assume he is her husband. She manages to maneuver him into his walker, the kind with the tennis balls on the front, and together they work their way around the car to the pump.  Together with great time and effort, he puts gas in her car. Because by cracky, as long as that man has breath in his lungs, she will not pump the gas.  Whether it is she who will not pump the gas or he who will have not have his wife pumping gas I can’t quite tell, but I can tell that’s how it is for them.

It was almost painful to watch and part of me wanted to jump out of my car and pump their gas, but I didn’t.  I could have done that small thing for them – easily – but it seemed an intrusion of sorts and in this day and age, they would have probably found it more frightening than helpful. So I sat and watched.

Later, I stopped in at one of my favorite stores and purchased a small gift for a shower I will be attending this week.  The sales clerk, who appeared to be the same age as my mother, was very kind and helpful. As I was standing there I saw a flashlight in the aisle and I was looking it over. I’m working on our emergency supplies and I was mentally calculating if I needed to buy another flashlight. The sales lady pointed out that the flashlight was a very good one and already came with batteries, but that I would need to take it home and have my husband help me install the batteries. I laughed to myself and decided that I would have him do that as soon as he gets back from putting gas in my car.