Minor Details

Let's not get tripped up on family drama, it's relative in everyone's life. It's bound to happen when you put that many people under one roof and let life happen naturally. Needless to say, I think it is safe to assume that, when you are 18, you are NOT prepared for life as you know it, it just feels like you are. I was not only longing to see myself become something greater but to have total support around me. Who doesn't want that???!!! I think if we are honest we all want total support but that's not just something you find near the ketchup bottle in the morning. I know they had no idea this was going to go the way it did, but who are we fooling, we didn't tell anybody or consult anyone for help on the matter. Who's to say that wanting to move out is wrong, and who's to say that staying home with your parents is right??? Isn't that the age old question that all parents want answered?! It was a sheer surprise that my brother was able to get my father to go ahead with using the truck to move my 3 bedroom items. Oh yeah baby! I was leaving home with a bed and 2 dressers........oh and a night stand. I thought the world of my new place. It didn't matter to me that I didn't have living room furniture, or a table and chairs. Who needed them anyway? I was always at work! Now I will always be downstairs in the salon and just come upstairs to sleep and shower basically! It sounded perfect. I was so excited for the Saturday afternoons when I needed a nap so badly and could crawl into bed and not have to listen to the rest of the family finally emerging from their bedrooms for a late brunch. I was soooooooo structured and loved going to work. I couldn't understand how anyone could sleep til 1 pm and not feel like half the day was gone! We were all so different. Have you ever wondered how you could come out of the same womb as all of your other siblings but have no idea from what side of the uterus they drew from???? Come on! I know I'm not the only one! I am not gonna lie here, it was weird moving into a completely new place with only 4 items and my clothing. I was determined to make it work, and so I did. No one is ever more scared of making money than you are the moment you move out on your own. I didn't even have a credit card then, just cash. Cold hard cash money. I believe, in retrospect, that my boss was my mother hen, and knew I would be all right. I had this drive inside of me, pushing me. Once you put a challenge in front of me I am golden. I have thanked her over the years multiple times for teaching me the ins and outs of everyday life. She put it in a way that I could see she expected even greater for me, and took the time to share what she knew. I think that is key right there. Who's to say that my parents did or didn't know these things. I don't remember talking about it around the dinner table as a distant goal to relish in the successes of one another. How could we know what that looked like????? NO one around us did it!!!! How do you plan on imitating something you've never seen before??? YOU DON"T. I am no Debbie downer here, but it just wasn't going to happen unless you had betrothed us all before the age of 18, found us jobs within a conservative value system and began to watch as we build our own stairs towards Heaven where Jesus would usher us in with open arms. No SERIOUSLY! It was as if the undertone of this thing called life was a spiritual climb towards Heaven with no blips or mistakes along the way. Parents don't lie, you have your kids lives mapped out before they turn 3 and when it doesn't pan out the way you thought it would, there isn't a whole lot of info out there on how NOT to lose your mind. I am sure parents think they are doing their best, but you tell me how that is possible when we don't even know how to deal with ourselves let along another human being that we can easily put expectations on?! No matter, I moved. I was in my very own place. It had begun, the journey to adulthood had officially started with each new step I took from there. And so marks the time period in my life where all things pertaining to my career and personal life started to merge. You get to a point in life where you begin to look back and it all seems to fade together or rather melt together like an abstract painting. As long as all the pieces are there it all comes together to create the art of your life. My 20's were just around the corner and if it was anything like what I was feeling right now, I welcomed it with open arms. This next phase in my life of living alone had come so fast for all of us, I think we were all in shock for the first few weeks. I can remember beaming from ear to ear as I came into work and was able to tell my clients I had moved upstairs in the building to apartment #6. I was so proud I could hardly contain myself. I was always so eager to get off work and head out to the gym where I could hang around the energy flying around inside those doors. I wanted so badly to become a badazz woman with that fearless and sexy vibe (I was sure I would eventually find it somewhere lying around the floor in the ladies locker room). Ha! Let's remember I was young and sheltered. I knew it would take time, but I would find her, I would embody her. It isn't wrong to love yourself, unless you're the only one in the house feeling that!!! Then you're talking drama. Now I didn't have to put up with that negativity and I wasn't going to let anything stop me from getting this chubby butt in shape. It is no understatement that the control gloves had not yet come off once I moved out. How silly to think that we, as people, should put up boundaries on control or passive-aggressive tone of voice to allow others the opportunity to live their own life. Now wait just a minute! Before you jump down my neck...I didn't say never give advice or guidance. I said control or passive-aggressive speak to manipulate an outcome that you want versus the individual. IN OTHER WORDS, MIND GAMES....STOP THE MIND GAMES, PEOPLE. If I was old enough to be on my own, those years leading up to jumping free of the nest would have been the time to instruct young minds on how to be. If you weren't capable of fitting said info into those 18 years you're out of luck and honestly need to be fired. Being a young mind and making mistakes because of immaturity is par for the course. Like any other day of the week when I was done at work I headed straight to the mall to see my boyfriend or straight to the gym to work on finding the awesome girl that lived inside of me that I was just dying to meet! I thought I had it made until my phone rang and who is crazily stalking my apartment door? None other than my mother who wanted to know why I wasn't answering the door. I remember looking down at the screen on my phone like where has this woman been? This is the REASON I WAS KICKED OUT, FOR BEING AT THE GYM AFTER CURFEW! I said I am not home, I'm never home at this time, I am at the gym working out. Why, may I ask, are you at my place? I didn't have any plans for you to come over. She was not real keen on giving me a full honest answer (most likely it was sadness or a trying to stay connected issue). She began to tell me that I needed to get home, I had work in the morning, and I needed to be home at a decent hour. I tried really hard not to slam my phone shut. I was over the edge at that point, I knew this was another phase in pulling back the onion peels of dysfunction that was our family dynamics. I was so glad that I had made the right choice for me and took control of my outcome so long ago. I was going to be okay. She would eventually stop showing up unexpectedly and I wouldn't need to screen my calls. It would take years but this painful journey of wanting to cuss like a trucker when she drove me nuts would eventually shed light on so much more of a deeper issue. One I hadn't even been born for. I began to spread my wings and it was great. The longer I was on my own, the weirder it felt to go home and visit. Walking through the front door wasn't like it used to be and that was a good thing. I didn't sense the feeling of belonging inside those walls when I had lived there, why would I feel it now. The saddest part about that was, where was I to go if it wasn't there. I mean that is family, right? Oh no folks, there's a whole lot to that word that has nothing to do with blood. I should clarify not human blood, but Christ's. If we had truly understood what he had done for us on the cross and how he came to relate to the lost and how he wanted total communication with all of us to create this amazing relationship for our spirit and to save our soul, I believe we would have handled everything differently. That is such a simple sentence to type but it is not easily felt or understood. That is my goal as we move forward in this blog. That we begin to come from one place, one understanding that we are created with a purpose and for that to happen we must understand our value in the Lord and to learn to communicate fully what we are feeling and thinking. This will allow plugging into a community of many people focused on loving one another in spite of what our age or gender is. It's a long shot, I know. I believe we can change the world one person at a time if we start with ourselves and we're honest down to the last fiber of our being about what we are feeling and needing in those moments that are truly who we are. Whether selfish or doubtful or just plain frivolous sharing it with someone who can listen and understand. Most importantly to let you know your not alone, I've been there before...........