Growing Up

 One of the most fascinating things about being a grown-up is coming to the realization that the world did grow up the same as you did. It took me years to realize that everyone's life was so different and personal to them. 

Yes, I understood growing up that people in different parts of the country and different ethnic backgrounds grew up differently but I didn't understand that someone just right down the road grew up completely different than I did. 

I had the pleasure of growing up with my grandparents. They took my sister and me to their home when our birth parents decided that their lives were more important and spectacular than the lives of their children. This may sound aggressive but it is in fact true, my father was a drunk and my mother is selfish. I was blessed to have loving grandparents who halted their lives to raise two little girls who were not their responsibility. 

I grew up in the country on what used to be a farm. We had several unused barns, lots of wooded acres and a few fields good for growing. We had a pond for fishing and swimming, trees to climb and one big hill to sled down in the winter. 

I attended a small school in a town of under 600 residents and then moved a larger high school in a nearby town. During my time in elementary and jr high I had a group of friends that I knew since we were four. Our families were from all walks of life. My two best friends both had parents who were married to each other and both parents worked. They had siblings, pets, and loving family relationships. I loved spending weekends with them and just being around their families. I pretended when I was with them, I pretended that my life was just as great as theirs and that we shared the same relationships with family. I pretended because I was afraid to let people know that my life was less desirable. I had no idea that so many others within my community were hurting like me. 

I have three kids and I have tried to raise them with their truth. If you don't feel good tell me, if you hate something tell me, if someone is giving you hell tell me, if you are giving someone else hell, tell me. These are things I would have never done. I put a shade over everything, I didn't feel things and I didn't share things. 

A few years into my first daughter's life I started to see that so many people in my community were struggling. I saw the drunk dads like mine, I saw the absent moms, I saw the grandparents raising their grandkids. As a child I didn't see this, I didn't even try and notice I just went through life with my blinders on. I really didn't think I was normal, that my life was normal. 

Its a good feeling to realize that my life growing up was normal and not unordinary. It's sad to think that it was but I am grateful now to not have blinders up and realize that my life growing up was pretty close to everyone else's.