No hell, no dignity

It is as interesting to me how anyone deals with bad days, bad people, bad situations as much as their good counterparts. After a suuuper nice convo with my Dad while I was at a baseball game after he had a bad day (read: not super, not nice) and then visiting there yesterday I realized that there definitely was a time in my life where I actually could not accept any bad OR good things that would happen. Most of the best things to happen for me were either those I didn't care too much about, those I could have taken or left it, and those that were mildly nice, un-intrusively sweet on a small scale and non-conclusive so that I could think about them later on.

If it seems like that is a lot of work for something nice happening to you, that is because the bad days defied rational explanation. I was not sexually abused, kidnapped, drugged, sold into slavery or anything else that I am sure has happened or is currently happening and totally dismembered someone else's life with paralyzing fear. There were only crazy emotional outbursts from my parents to which there was absolutely no attempt of masking my involvement, and sometimes someone got stabbed with a knife, or hurtful words thrown as well as objects, t-shirts were ripped, or the wheels spinning out on the car. Sometimes it involved talking to someone who bought you candy you like and then went into the many conspiracies being thrust upon our lives by doctors, but let's not go into that lest we lose my point in there somewhere. Crazy just blends everything together and sucks it all up with a straw, doesn't it? At least I think so.

"Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard."

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

It was not a case of those kids who thought everything was their fault, and I don't know what is worse in comparison: the thoughts and responsibility you feel to fix it while secretly knowing it's all going down or actually being physically put in the middle and told to tell the other parent they were killing the other and that I fucking hate them for doing so. And if I didn't, of course, I was ungrateful and they might as well leave since they were only there for my benefit. We can honestly only know our own experiences and that is why unless I can imagine from experience what someone is going through I tend not to give my opinion because I find that a little bold.

My point is though that you kind of can't accept good things after that and I guess it's a difference in my life now that I enjoy. I am ok with great things happening, and some pretty great things are happening right now :) I have a different focus and I think that's really helped see the bad days, bad people, and bad situations as what they are which is limited.. not important.. and fixable.

"It takes two to love. It takes liberty. It takes the right to reject. If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity.”

Flannery O'Connor, 1959