braintissue

Over the course of time we learn things about ourselves through others. Though it is painful, we all grow out of relationships, and sometimes this does not mean that we grow out of them and abandon them, but that we grow out of what they have grown into. It is up to us to step back and take a long look at what was important and what has become important to us and how those things can help us understand the deeper meaning of the thing that happened to us and to our loved ones.

It was never supposed to get as big and ugly as it did. My sister and I had always been very close friends. She was like one of my own kids and I was the mom she could depend on for things that were not what our mother deemed as being socially or spiritually correct according to her own venture in raising the two of us. There is 17 years which splits our age groups, and in that division of time there are marked differences between us that I knew would one day be the thing that being the demise of us as we knew ourselves to be.

The point of no return

I think that when speaking of relationships in general, there is a point where once you get there, there is no turning back. My sister and I are just one example of how when we start to no longer understand one another it is not that we have grown to hate one another but rather that we have come to that point in the road of life where we have become who we would at this point in our lives and that there is nothing that anyone can say or do that will forge in us the idea that we need to change for anyone.

What bothers us most is that we stay back in that place called “Yesterday,” where life was nice and those whom we deem as our loved ones remain in that perfect little glass case where we keep our memories of not only who they used to be, but also who we used to be. We want that little piece of our own perfect universe to remain that way because it gives us cause and pause to smile. We LOVE our memories, yes, even the bad ones because when we remember things and events we can go back to where it was that that version of love is and bask in it.

The problem with this is that we have not yet, or maybe do not realize it, decided to look at that time as a stepping stone to now. We are so busy trying to numb our “now” by thinking only of our “then” that it becomes painful emotionally and sometimes spiritually for us to accept things this way. I do it, have done it, will probably still do it - we all do it. We hang on to not only our happy memories but also our painful ones. We hang onto these things because without realizing it, these are some of the only things that we can lay claim to as being “ours.”

LET IT GO…and then grow, grow, grow!

For two days now I have been in a funk, and it is not because I may have reverted to the “old me,” where instead of allowing things to flow I allowed that lower energy to replace what it is that I have worked so hard to cultivate. It did not occur to me until I sat here, trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to write about today, and then it hit me - the reason that I have been fighting with my kid sister all this time is not only because of her, but also because of me. She has yet to figure out who she is, and she operates from the lower levels of consciousness all the time. This is because unlike me, she has not yet experienced enough loss in her life to prompt her to HAVE TO learn to depend on her spirit and her soul, only her physical self. It took me some time to get to the place where I am now, and I suspect that it will take her as long, if not longer, to realize that things do not remain the way they are and the way they appear to be.

She is not always going to be this bratty, mouthy, full-of-someone-else’s-attitude person she thinks she is. One day, when the strong winds blow, when the sky is dark and the only light seen is that of the stars and the Moon, it will dawn on her, just like it dawned on me, and like I assume it has dawned on many, many of us. One day, the fact that she is not the center of the Universe will suddenly occur to her and what it is that I am sure she thinks I have put her through will become all the more clearer to her, and this will happen when she needs to know it and will be at that crux in time when it seems that her life is perfect. It will be afterwards that the thing that she is learning now (hopefully it is humility) will come in handy. She will reflect back on all the times that I reminded her of just how finite we all are in relation to the whole universe, and she will recall that more times than not, and not because I am smarter than she is, but because I am far older than she is, she will know what I meant all those times that I was gritting my teeth and cursing her very existence.

One day, when she has grown into her soul, she will understand what it was that I was saying all this time. Sure, she thinks she knows what I am talking about, but she cannot fully realize it all until she has to experience tragedy in her own private life, where our parents are not aware of things that happen, where not even I have the slightest clue of what is going on. It will be in that time and that one unique moment where she has to make a crucial, critical decision that will affect her life in ways that no one can manipulate, not even her.

This is where the growth comes in. This is where everything we learned and everyone we ever learned it from comes into play and in that same, simple moment when it dawns on us that though we may have been right in believing that how we felt was more important than much anything else, when what we wanted and what we believed mattered more to us than saving someone else the hurt of our truths.

…but what if we were supposed to hear those words and go through those dramas?

Ahhh…the lessons which we are supposed to learn ! This is the place in time where we are supposed to be able to discern our trials and tribulations into those growth patterns which give us reason to continue on in our lives. Though I may not agree with my sister’s seemfully selfish behavior, I can say truly that there is nothing in the world that I can do to make her see the hurt she has caused because I am too busy knowing that I am in pain. However, there is nothing saying that I have not also caused her pain.

The pain, folks, is in the learning.

I have said it before, and I will say it again… I HATE STATISTICS !

“How does that fit into your writing today, you nutball?” you may be asking. I am using it as an example. Recently I found out that I have to retake Statistics. It is the most confusing, most infuriating, most tear producing bunch of crap mathematics that I have ever had the displeasure of having as a requirement for a college degree. I HATE statistics, but I have to learn it, because without it I will not receive my Bachelors Degree and will not be able to advance on to my Masters program.

All the same can be said for everything that we go through with the people in our lives. I will admit to not allowing my kid sister to grow beyond what it is that I have always held her as in my thoughts. I never thought for a moment that she would turn on me like she has and I never thought in a million years that I would make it my mission for the moment to no longer talk to her until she has learned the lessons that she so badly needs to learn. We all need to learn our lessons, and some of us need to catch up on some. Thankfully we all eventually learn and we even grow beyond what it is who we think we are. This is the problem. We have, throughout the course of our lives, allowed what others have said about us to direct who we really are and to turn us into these people we are more willing to make excuses for instead of seeing as an example to what we should not be.

Some people might read this and think that I am just outing my sister’s sins, but that is not the truth. I am not someone who shrinks away from her own sins, but that was something that I had to learn and it was not a grouping of easy or fast lessons that I had to learn. Everyday I have to live with those horrible things that I have said and done in the past, and everyday I learn from those things. It is an unfortunate truth that sometimes we are given the same lessons over and over in life, and we are likened to think that somehow, God hates us. The truth is that God Loves Us enough to bring back into our lives those instances of sanity when we finally have an “AH HA” moment.

Our Rock Star Moments cannot be until we are ready to live up to our AH HA! moments. The two go hand in hand.

We live for our moments in the spotlight, but what we are not willing to do is wait for the right and the ability that we have worked toward having. We cannot have ANY Rock Star moments until and unless we are ready and willing to learn from those moments of discernment which make us see who we really are. It is not until we have learned from our pains that we can bask in the glory that is Wisdom. Myself , I have come a very long way in a short time, and it is not because I wanted to learn these lessons but because of two things - I needed to learn them because (and here is number two) I LIKE having my Rock Star Moments.

Rock Star moments are those moments in time where for a split second we are the very best at what we do and who we are and it is that singular moment when we KNOW that at that time there is no one on the planet or even in the Universe who is anywhere near as cool or as good at what we do as we are right in that very unique moment. These are those times when we passed the test without studying, made the entire Thanksgiving meal and didn’t burn the house down, created the perfect this or that, or maybe…wrote the perfect posting that is in and of itself a lesson unto its own.

We live for those moments when we know that all we have been through in life led up to that moment of realization and recognition where who we are and what we do is not as important as the recognition for those things that we give our own selves. Those moments, like when you hit the ball and in your head you see the green and the ball rolling into it on one and you get there and surely enough, it made it. You made a hole in one, and it is great and grand and there is no other moment like it, because it was meant solely and only for you as a reminder from the Creator and Our Guides that this is what we do and who we are and this is the proof.

But you cannot stop there, because learning is forever

I am still very angry, very hurt, and I am still prone to telling people these things. Yet I am not interested in telling the story of what happened or why, but rather, am telling people what I have learned thus far. I am not needful of a pat on the back, of a “there, there now, dear,” not interested in anything more than the lesson at hand. People tend to sulk about their pride being hurt, while others glorify in being able to tell the story from their point of view. I am sure that the story of what happened the other day has been told, over and over and over again, and at this point, whatever was said and to whom is irrelevant because what is one person’s truth is certainly and by no means another’s. What my sister says to others about the happenings of the day will not be the same as what I say happened, and the fun part of it all is that both versions are true, but only true to what each of us discerned it all to be.

Learning is forever, and the one thing that I learned and have been learning is that daily I have grown out of the relationship with my sister as it was, and it is hard to see her as an adult, especially when there have also been times that she has behaved so not like one. Yet the lesson is not that I will continue to be mad, but that I will one day be able to look at her and pat her on the back and tell her that I was waiting for her to grow into her soul and not just into her body. Telling her this right now is pointless, because again it will be viewed as just another stab at her character.

Apparently, these people do not know me very well, do they?

To wait, or not to wait…that is the quandary and the quagmire…

Perplexing as it seems, these such situations are like double edged swords, being both a quandary and a quagmire. We find ourselves in difficult situations that we are not sure how these things ended up being this way, and then we are perplexed as to the way that it all played out and ended up being the thing that it is. I have always had issues with family, and I am sure that it has much to do with the First Born Daughter thing in Hawaiian spiritual culture, as much as it has to do with my personality. There is so much to one situation that is served up to us that to take it all in at once would be akin to being a hungry person at a buffet - we want it all, and we want to try it all, so we dive into it all and before we can get a taste of all of it, we find ourselves full of the crap that was not the main course. We find ourselves full on side dishes (gossip) and not entrees (truth).

We sooner accept the gossip as the truth because in the gossip there are similarities with others. We do not like to do anything alone, and we were not created to do things alone but with each other. Yet when it comes to doing things together we cannot because we are so busy allowing our egos to take control that we forget about the soul. When we forget about the soul, we forget about our very essence and we allow the ego to be who we are just so that we can win.

I want you to recall the last time that you felt like you had to hurt someone in order to feel better about who you are, and recall what it was that you felt like after the fact. Then ask yourself one very important question.

In light of it all, and how much you had to do in order to get to where you are now, and knowing that you caused a lot of pain and a lot of hurt that you know the other person will not ever, ever forget, how do you feel now?

Let me ask you, do you feel like a winner now?

Something to ponder isn’t it?

For now I will just let it all go, including my sister. This is not to say that there will not come a day when I will be able to look at her again, smile and laugh about what just transpired. I just cannot hurt anymore, and it is a choice that I did not come by quickly, but over the course of a year. It took time for us to get here, and it will take time for us to get to someplace where there is a better understanding of one another.

I need to realize that she is not a child, and she needs to realize that I am not impressed by her antics.

Let’s see how this all plays out, shall we?

I LOVE YOU ALL

MAPU

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