My mom and dad divorced when I was young. Though we saw him consistently, every other weekend plus summer and holidays, the majority of my young life included a single mother raising her four children on an acreage in the middle of the country. She worked and went to school, which meant my older sister and brother had to step up and become caretakers while they were still children themselves.
For me as a younger sibling, I quickly began to look up to my sister and brother as parental figures. I still saw my mother as a mother and my father as my father but I had these two extra people taking care of me as a parent would. The moment you begin to realize that your parents aren't perfect, they are just two people who got it on and popped out some kids, is a huge milestone to the way we begin to see the world. When you begin to put the standard of parent onto an older sibling, who still has a lot of growing to do and is still making mistakes and learning life lessons, that process is swift. Watching the pedestal you've built for them crumble can be devastating but from the wreckage we are taught that nobody is perfect and that's an essential lesson to learn.
I was a very emotional child and one day I was a very upset and threw a temper tantrum. In doing so I hit my head on the concrete floor. Another time I would kick a wall and then one day I threw myself down the stairs. Later in life this began to manifest into the notion that when I feel very mad or sad and it is so much that kicking and screaming could not pacify me, a physical & painful shock to my system will give me relief. This was a not so good lesson to learn.
As we continue to age, things continue to form us. Things like visiting Dad in the summers and going to buy new clothes for school, something we didn't do with our mother who in turn did things like feed us, begins to plant seeds. Spending money on someone=love, feeding someone=love, food=comfort.
Even as adults, events in our lives confirm things that we thought may be true but didn't necessarily have validity at the time. I didn't have a boyfriend in high school, never had a date=not desirable. Met a boy, lost virginity, eventually got married but there was a severe lack of intimacy throughout the relationship=still not desirable. Discuss feelings several times but nothing changes=how I feel is not important. Go to counseling, husband cites that wife has an unrealistic view on what love is, he works too much to be intimate and there is a large age gap which creates a separation of interests= feelings of rejection, being wrong and naive. Marriage falls apart, find someone who gives intimacy and understanding=feelings of being wanted. New relationship has many issues but willing to overlook due to the inflated need of being wanted or needed is so overwhelming. Ex-husband changes self, begins doing things he wouldn't do with you, finds someone and they begin to have the relationship you begged for, who is 15 years his junior= I guess it wasn't any of those things, I just wasn't good enough. Feeling of not being good enough=willing to put up with a whole lot of shit for those moments of feeling good enough.
None of these events are any more or less responsible for an outcome than the others. They are all just building blocks. We could probably trace this back even further to a single mom, unable to give her undivided attention to each of her four children, which to an adult is easy to understand but in the eyes of a child it is translated to something else entirely. The need to be wanted, the need to be loved.
We will forever be changing due to influences within and beyond our control. Some people more than others but there is no exception to this rule. The best we can do is accept that and know that at any moment our lives could be completely different.
“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
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