It's A Hard Knock Life: Some Heads Need Harder Knocks

From a very young age I remember perceiving life as an emotional and spiritual evolution. I would go through various trials and tribulations in this lifetime, learning from each experience. As I aged I would advance to higher and higher states of being, attempting to chip away at my flaws. I planned on spending my adulthood in a sort of yogi-like understanding of myself and the world around me. But as the years passed, this plan proved much harder to implement. Many days are spent going two steps back instead of forward and progress is slow going.

I think nearly everyone has a time in their life where they become very jaded and disillusioned. I distinctly remember at age thirteen, becoming painfully aware that the adults in my life were fallible and that I could not fully trust anyone. I do not see this as bad, necessarily. There is not one perfect person walking this planet, that person died long ago. But somewhere between thirteen and my thirties that lesson faded into the background. The idealism came back and I trusted that the people close to me would always remain close to me, that as they aged they would strive, as I strove, to be a better human being.

Due to recent developments with family members, I am re-learning the lesson of trust. You can only trust God to be on your side. Not your spouse, your children, your sister, your brother, etc...I can add another lesson. That not everyone is on an upward trajectory in life. There are people who will continually seek and cause chaos. They will let it enter their life and the lives of those around them. These people use it as a method of control. If someone chooses to constantly play the role of the victim, they do this so that they never have to fully grow up and the people around them can be their caretakers. And then there are the bullies. The people holding the carrot at the end of the stick, trying to make you dance like a puppet. They do this through chaos manufacturing, creating mountains out of mole hills to get the desired reaction.

Now I am pushed through the canal again, seeing the people around me with new eyes, reassessing their place in my life. As a Christian, forgiveness is part of the walk. I have forgiven those who have hurt me many times over. But I too am only human, and I find a bitterness at these same people needing forgiveness once again. The family as fragmented now as it was decades ago. The same situations, only a different day. I find solace in knowing I can choose to evolve while others retread the same paths. I had hoped that by the time I had a child, old wounds would be healed and everyone could move forward. But I must take this as a reminder from God that we are all on very different paths and only once in a while do they converge in a harmonious conjunction.