My Two Grandmothers

I'm here to tell you about my two Grandmothers, Grandma C my Dad's mom and Grandma D my Mom's mom.

Grandma C was an upstanding career woman. She was the head operator for Mountain Bell before her retirement. She helped to form the Orem Womens Club and served as club president several times. She always had perfectly coifed hair, well maintained nails and dressed in a classic style that was timeless. She smelled of Chanel and always had a Tic Tac in her pocket for a kiss on the cheek. She raised two boys who were 10 years apart in age due to the fact that my Grandpa served during WWII. He took a bullet on D-Day recovered in France then went back out, only to get hit again and sent home. Grandma came from a good family, she lived with her parents during the war and took care of her mother. She took care of her Young Women when she was a leader, made them all quilts. I strive to be like my elegant, caring, well organized Grandma C.

However she's not the only Grandma that I knew. I knew Grandma D for 4 years, she was hit by a drunk driver while on a walk with my mom the day after my fourth birthday. My Grandma D was a strong lady, she raised 9 kids by herself after Grandpa D left. They were poor, so poor that my mom talks about sewing her own clothes and remaking others for herself. They all lived in the red house in Provo. Garden out back, unfinished basement. My grandmother used to sew as well. She made me a Raggedy Ann doll, she made them for all of us girls. She made other kinds of dolls and clothing for us grand-kids. I had a beautiful, multi-colored yarn blankie that she made me with a silky yellow edge. She made one for my dolly as well. We lived with Grandma D, I loved her and thought of her as my only Grandma... Until she passed away. Then I was confused, I kept hoping to see her again, but she never came. We moved to a new place and I was daydreaming outside with my blankie as company but when I was called in suddenly and I forgot it, I forgot about it all night. The next morning I woke up in a  panic and flew to the backyard to look for my blankie but it was gone. I was inconsolable! First my Grandmother and then my blankie! I was told that my Grandmother was going to take me to the store to buy a new one. But it was Grandma C and not D that came through the door to take me, who was this impostor!? I reluctantly went with her but we couldn't find a multi-colored blankie with a silky yellow edge... We found a yellow one with a yellow edge and that had to do.

These are my two grandmothers. I admire both of them, both strong, beautiful and gracious women.

SG

Molly Mormon No More

For most of my life I have wanted a nice home and a happy family. I was the puritanical "Molly Mormon" doing everything I could to learn skills that would come in handy during the impending doomsday. I learned how to grind wheat, make bread, can and pickle... Cook all sorts of things. I wanted to home school my kids, teach them the way to be. Hold Family Home Evening every Monday, go to church on Sunday... Do my visiting teaching, have the visiting teachers over. All of the Mormon puritanical ethos I embraced. Pure in deed, thought and modest in dress. All of my beautiful, idealistic beliefs went 'POOF!' when I had to question everything about how I was eating (asking why I was sick from a perfectly normal diet) and then in that questioning everything mode I questioned every belief that I had previously held. Aggravating to my faith was the continual push that I felt to stay with an abusive, manipulative husband that I should have left many times over. Then I got pushed out into the cruel and unforgiving workforce when I decided to be strong and divorce my husband. I wasn't prepared, smart and educated, yes, practical experience, no. It's been a long road.... Tonight I am going out with my friend Rita to a place that plays live music... Can you believe that I have never had a friend to go out with like this? I have had cousins but not friends. This is new for me, infinitely different from the "Molly Mormon" that I once was... Yet still deep down I miss that ideal...

SG

Value and Trust

I believe that we place a value on ourselves based on several things, our family, our social economic status, our education and I think in many ways our self value is helped or hurt by the things that happen to us.

I feel like I have been racing my whole life to catch up, always a bit behind the class so I was put into what they called 'resource.' This was an embarrassing program to be put into, the perception among the kids in the school is that there was something wrong with you if you were in resource.

I am not sure why I've always been a bit behind... I think though that it has to do with perfectionism. I've always thought deeply about things and while I was off thinking deeply the other kids had moved onto other things.

This trend has plagued me, on through every aspect of my life. I've felt under prepared as a mother (of course I was since I started young). I felt under prepared for college... I was, I had to start with my elementary school math book in order to get up to speed with math. It's still a difficult subject for me. I was under prepared for graduate school... Under prepared for the workplace (terribly). All of this has left a mark on me, the feeling that I am not as good as others. That if I could only learn enough about important things like math and the workplace then I will be accepted.

Well that aspect of my life is a big part of under valuing myself.

The next big thing that makes me under value myself is my social economic status, not rich.

Then... Being rejected by the one person I chose to be with.

There is a part of me burning to fix all of my perceived short comings, so that I can prove that I am worth more than what I perceive my value to be at.

It's this desire that has me frustrated over being rejected. It's like someone recognized my shortcomings and decided that I wasn't worth being with. It's not like I logically don't know that being with someone who cannot talk through things and forgive me for my shortcomings is to be in a bad situation... I know that being out of and away from that is better for me. But it is the rejection, the sheer, utter rejection that is eating me up inside. I thought I had found 'the one' but that beautiful feeling of being close to someone slipped through my fingers into the sands of time.

So I've taken a good look at my motivations for wanting to be friends with my ex. The motivation has been a hope that in some small way he would acknowledge that I am someone he is sorry to have lost. Thus mitigating in a way the rejection. 

I realized that I can't live my life going forward trying to get that acknowledgement from him. I realized that he doesn't value me as a person and I don't need to be waiting for him to do so. I just need to let it go. With that clarity I took to Facebook to un-friend him and most of his family (except the one sister-in-law who loves and supports me). I'm not sure if having a conversation with him about this decision is just another way I would be seeking acknowledgment or not so I'm leaving that decision to another day.

It has been a waste of time and created a misinterpretation of my motives trying to gain that acknowledgement to prove myself worthwhile. But I was persistent because I was trying to get a reaction from him that I expected but wasn't getting.

Something that is becoming clearer is how untrustworthy he was. Trust is built through revealing some of yourself to the other and being vulnerable, you can't trust someone who doesn't reveal anything about what they are thinking, feeling and/or doing.

Anyway it's getting late. Good night internet land.

SG

How a nice girl can turn mean

I've always striven to be nice, or lets say I have always wanted to be well liked and I thought that being nice was the way to achieve that. I feel what I perceive others are feeling pretty deeply and that's always put me in the position of trying to see things from other peoples point of view.

On the other hand I get overwhelmed by other people at times and disconnect from them a lot. I used to have the habit of getting wrapped up in the outcome of other peoples choices and I guess in a way my best intentions of love and concern for them were also wrapped up in a bit of judgment that they were not doing things, life I guess, the way I thought they should. My happiness was so wrapped up in other people that I resented them and their mistakes vs. Loving them despite their mistakes.

All that being said, I over analyze, myself and others motivations and intentions. So although I am trying to be nice and a good person I fall short sometimes... Often.

I think that human beings can get so wrapped up in keeping score that we can get caught in a cycle of pettiness. Doing little things to even the balance on the score card. We feel resentful for doing so much and not being appreciated that we will do little things to take back some of the good things that we feel that we contributed to the relationship. Or get back at the other person for the hurts that they have dealt us.

At least in some ways I think that is what has happened in these final stages of my relationship with my ex-husband. I felt resentful in the hurts I was dealt, the mistrust I was shown, in a way fulfilling his perception of me as someone to not trust. I left our pictures in the bedroom of the condo we shared together, and other mementos because I wanted him to feel some of the pain that he had inflicted on me. I also insulted his hobby of doing a radio show because I thought he was talking badly about me. I feel bad about being petty and I feel bad for trying to get more of a reaction from him. Perhaps I was a bit more blatant because I know that he doesn't show his reactions and I just wanted to see something of the pain I've been feeling...  Not nice, I truly know it.

I want to be genuinely kind and that is hard to do when lashing out in pain. How have you overcome this problem? Or have you? Let me know in the comments.

SG

Foolish Sunday

Again I've had to learn the lesson that it's sometimes better not to know what other people are thinking about you.

It's a bizarre world that we live in. Our sense of self, our self identity, is developed through our interactions with others. Yet if we allow our identities to be developed entirely upon what other people think of us then we could end up with a very distorted sense of who we are. Some people really like us, some do not. Some think we are proud, others humble. Some think we are attractive, others do not. Really in this world there is so much subjectivity that if the determination or agreement upon every matter of opinion had to be reached then we should just live in a world of all is null and void. No opinion matters and nothing matters.

But we live in this world where there has to be a balance of identification with others points of view and our own, a reconciliation of the facts so to speak. When one side of the equation becomes unbalanced then all sorts of grievous errors in judgement can take place.

There also has to be a balance between what we let other people know about us, what we tell the world, reveal and what is kept hidden. If all were laid bare then the thought is that other people could then make a fair judgement of who we are and their opinion of us would be valid. In point of fact though it is impossible to outline and relay all that there is to know about our lives, our past, our motivations. In some sense we can find that while one person understands what we are relating, another person does not and that has a lot to do with their background, familial and experiential.

The process of forming relationships is tenuous, especially when you tend to overthink things like I do. It is extremely upsetting to get wrapped up in a misinterpretation of someone else's words and motivations, especially third hand.

I spent a rather foolish day crying and being upset on Sunday. I'm not proud of the way I handled the perception that someone I cared about thinks of me as a manipulative know it all. I don't even know if that's true. What is true is that I don't have any idea what other people truly think about me, and I probably am better off not knowing.

SG

Focusing Lens

I have been lost to myself for a while now. Disconnected from the people and things that make me happy.

Today I spent quite a lot of time with my Dad, brother and son. We didn't sit and talk but our time was spent in action, getting the materials to finish up the dance studio/audio recording studio. It was a relief to have them around, I have been isolating myself from other people... mostly because I've been trying to get so much done at the house and everyone tends to gravitate to my parents house.

Another thing that's made me feel disconnected is having so many things in a state of disarray. Things that make up pieces of my character have been in boxes and bags in disorder. I took the time to unpack my books today, I love my books, old books, popular, historical, informative (subjects like Excel, sql, EFT trading etc.), cook books, health books, exercise books... unpacking them made me realize how I like to collect information.

I keep coming back to the same interests and themes in life and I am hopeful that with this fresh start I will be able to pull the pieces of myself together.

No wonder I've been feeling so disconnected and lost. It feels like a lens has been placed in front of my eyes and I can see all that has been wrong for me and what is right for me.

Have a good night internet land.

~SG

A bitty, unedited update

This weeks soup was slightly burned, a bit watery (didn't add enough salt) and there wasn't enough of it. All due to the blah, blech not enough and poor quality sleep that I've gotten over the week before that AND from my dear Dad keeping me up until 1:30 AM to work on my amazing work in progress of an audio recording studio.

All of that last bit of writing is probably painful to read but at the moment I couldn't give a darn... ;)

I am dating a guy who I honestly know is not interested in a long term commitment but wants a steady thing... and so do I. I was getting quite worn out from the on-line dating, thing. I know, and he knows that this is a limited sort of relationship. He has a life plan that he's putting all of his energy into and what we've got going on is a mutually beneficial relationship where I'm helping him out in certain ways and he's helping me out. He's helping me to learn more about voice acting, it's something that I'm really excited about. Plus he's teaching me (indirectly) about working with people and business.

What it also gives me is time, I need some recovery time. I've been sobbing off and on about my ex-husband. Bastardo! Ironic that he jokingly gave me the perfect expression to say when I think about the way he left me.

Life has had a way lately of taking the things that I thought I wanted and making them into some sort of trial of patience. It doesn't make sense what happened with him, he loved me, I know he did... I loved him... we didn't fight, all I remember of being with him was pretty much happy times. But it ended, just like that. Wham!

BUT enough, I cried and cried my eyes out while finishing off the last of our honeymoon jam yesterday and having a stilted conversation with him about that fact and how sad I was and he suggested I drink the wine we got for our wedding and eat dark chocolate, I suggested that I would rather dress up in my gorgeous new shoes and little black dress and go out with someone (picture included). He suggested I do that, and I stopped snipping back because I wasn't really in the mood to snip back. But there you go.

I set up my jewelry frames set up, organized my closet. I have a new idea that I want to be more fashionable, so I've been sorting my closet out and buying some new clothes, doing research. I've never paid much attention to fashion per se... my theory has always been that if you buy higher quality clothes then you wont have to bother with buying clothing all the time, so that's my goal, buying higher quality clothing. I did research on that on Monday, "Timeless' clothing. Should be an interesting project. So far I've got a few timeless pieces, the rest of my clothing is ill advised, fast fashion that's worn out and I dislike that immensely.

Well, this is my update.

SG