The right way

 

There is a time while we are children that the adults in our lives rule! We believe they know. They really know! And so we love them and honor them and try to emulate them in every way. We believe this is the right way. The best way. Maybe even the only way.

Growing into young adulthood we branch out, go off to school, or move away to live among other people and most of us gradually discover that other people often have other beliefs and they are as adamant about them being right as we are ours.

But over time we grow. We discover other ways of being and some of those are just as good or better than those things we grew up with. And sometimes we discover that the things we took for granted as normal were not so normal, or even so good.

Not everyone comes to these decisions or has these thoughts. There are people who never really grow up. They just continue to parrot the ways and words of their families as gospel. Some people discover their families were not as odd as they might have felt they were and some people find that the things their parents or families did were not always as good and kind as they believed.

These discoveries can create mental blocks, or even anger, but they are learning situations and important in our growth as whole human beings.

We can forgive our families for many things. Most of the time they were truly doing the best they knew how even if it hurt and most of the time they would be crushed to know that they hurt us the way they did.

It creates a strange dichotomy of feelings. Love and anger, resentment and nostalgia. It is the road to wisdom when we realize we can accept these things for what they were and move on along our own road to try and do better.

It is true, I am what I am. But it is also true that I have the power to be stronger, wiser, kinder, more open to learning and understanding. If I am still trying to do everything Mom's way when I am an adult I have failed to mature into myself.