Adulthood: What it taught me about my parents.
As a kid I believed without a shadow of a doubt that my parents had all the answers to any questions I could have about life.
As a kid I believed without a shadow of a doubt that my parents had all the answers to any questions I could have about life.
I can say with absolute certainty that even when things changed after my parents split that they knew what they were doing because they're the grown ups. I am 29 now and only within the last couple of years have I started to surrender to the reality that I barely know what I'm doing.
I have been living away from home for just about all of my twenties, and after all of that time I have found that like me there are many people out here in the middle of the ocean adrift, clinging to their rafts that are barely buoyant enough to keep their heads above water.
One of the most heart breaking realities I awoke to one day was that I know more about how the world works than my parents do, and yet I feel like I'm running to catch up constantly.
I entered adulthood, not knowing anything about credit, car insurance, health care, mental health, dental care, savings, financial responsibility, relationships, I could go all day.
I genuinely entered the adult world knowing that if I want my own things I should have a job, I should have a car, I should have insurance for that car, I shouldn't lie to people, don’t let people push you around, and basic human survival instincts.
That's about it. So I have spent all of my twenties figuring out that when it comes to adulthood, I'm flying solo.
There is no one coming to my rescue.
For context I have 4 older siblings and 1 younger.
Right now I find myself in a very daunting yet motivating position.
As I have pieced together that all of us are effectively looking around aimlessly for direction, I have worked throughout adulthood to find an anchor point from which I could lift myself (and hopefully others one day) out of the water, so that we can focus on living and not just surviving.
As I started addressing generational trauma within myself and in turn traced it back to its source I came to the realization that the strength required to take this on was more than I was currently capable of managing on my own.
I started working on myself in therapy, and to this day I am still working with my therapist 3 years later to create a version of me that can overcome the obstacles that have kept my family locked in this miserable cycle of resentment and lack of self worth.
Suddenly I find myself as the second youngest being looked at by some of my family members and friends for direction.
While I would be honored to be a beacon of light for people, the weight of that responsibility sometimes feels overwhelming.
I am constantly working not to put too much weight on my shoulders, but I also understand that we don't have forever to be lost.
We need hope, badly.
So, I am working as hard as I can to learn what my parents didn't learn, so I can pass that on to the people around me in the hopes they can use that knowledge to create a reality for themselves that they enjoy.
If nothing else, hopefully I can create an environment in which the kid within me finally feels safe to roam free in.
It’s the least I deserve after what that kid had to endure.
What a lovely hopeful post. 💓