My Dear Hard Drive

Posts Tagged ‘life lessons’

When I was a kid, I remember fondly that my mother never kept secrets from us, me and my brother. She always sat us down when there was something serious going on, and begun the talk by: “I’m going to tell you something that you should keep to yourself but it’s best you know what’s going on if people start talking about it…” She always let us know that it wasn’t common for kids our age to be informed of such matters, but that she trusted us to know what things we should be discreet about – and we did. I felt appreciated and respected, and safe – I knew nothing bad would happen behind my back.

Most often parents keep secrets from their kids in order to protect them from the world, to save their innocence I suppose. This leads to a lot of misunderstanding in so many different areas of life, that I cannot even begin to phantom what I would be like if I hadn’t been told everything my mom told me. I knew that my great grand father left his wife to go to America, and that my great grand mother started hating men for it. I knew one of my relatives wasn’t a blood relative but adopted. I knew, at the age of 12, that my best friends parents were getting a divorce because her father cheated on her mother and he had decided to move together with the “new woman”. I knew my other good friends father had been cheating on her, and that they were thinking about getting a divorce, and I also knew that my friend got an excessive amount of Barbie -stuff from both parents because they were trying to let her know they both still loved her and that I shouldn’t be jealous of those toys. I also knew, that her mother went into the bedroom of the other woman, told her husband to get his stuff and get his ass home and told the other woman that their affair is now officially over and she’s taking her husband back starting right now. He never went back to the other woman. I felt tremendous pride of my friends mother,  I thought she was a heroine, and her husband the luckiest man in the world.

I knew when my fathers friend killed himself and I knew why. I knew of mental illness in the family. I knew there was one guy in the (extended) family lighting his house on fire every now and then to get insurance money for crying out loud. I knew that there was alcoholics in the family, and I knew my father didn’t drink because he was worried he might become one too. I never drank because I was worried I might not be able to handle booze. My parents helped me to see around corners and to know that things like that HAPPEN all the time, to people we know, and nothing is more abnormal than normality. I learned early on never to judge people, or myself, for their failures or their flaws, or their mistakes, because we all make them. I learned not to be ashamed of my own thoughts and feelings and “weirdness” because if I’m that way, the chances are there’s someone just like me being that weird, and if there’s someone else that weird, it must not be that weird in the first place.

I understood, that even though there are things you might want to be discreet about, those things are never quite as bad as they might seem at first. (Monsters live in the dark.) And I learned that what ever happens, people survive and live through their difficulties, life goes on even thought it looks scary and impossible at times. And even the thought that my parents might get a divorce didn’t really sound that scary any more. Me and my brother sat down with one of our aunties, who we had mutually agreed to be the best choice, and said; “Auntie, if something would happen to our parents, will you take care of us, please?” She said: “Oh dear darlings, of course I will.” I forgot about this, until my auntie brought it up years later, but to us, it was probably enough to know she would be there if we needed her one terrible day.

I don’t know about my brother, but instead of feeling scared by the grown up’s world, I felt informed, and therefore like I was in control of my world, and that if something would happen, I would be heard and my opinion would have been taken into account. I was being treated like a person, with valid points of view. And I felt trusted and respected. And I also felt it was safe for me to grow up into the world, because I knew what to expect from it – no fairy tales, but real life. Not many things would completely blind sight me. That is by far the best thing my mother ever did for me, and sadly, it is a thing that most parents shy away from, have always done.

Thanks mom for being straight with me.

Although I am not planning to have children in the near future, if ever, I often find myself talking to one of my own, in my imagination. Today, I have one of those life lessons to share with all of you.

I was born with talent. Lots of talent, in lots of different things. I’m talented in writing, singing, designing, modelling, arts and even sports as I am very limber and very coordinated. In sports, although nobody would believe this, I have been actually asked to try out to represent my nation Read the rest of this entry »