Believe

Due to recent concerns over elderly parent issues I find it necessary to make the trip home several times a month.  When I go back to my hometown, I look at my old neighborhood which was once a place of tree lined streets and middle class homes.  The area is now just a neighborhood of old houses, some of which are remodeled into their former beauty, but my mother’s home is not one of these. She is an old woman who insisted on staying in a home she could no longer maintain which meant that the house deteriorated faster than she could complete the repairs.  For me, the current view is both nostalgic and disheartening.  Miranda Lambert’s song “The House That Built Me” has a line in it that says “they say you can’t go home again.”   I can go home, and the memories are still there, but home is not the same. Time waits for no one, houses deteriorate, people age, and most people change as they mature.

 

However, some things still have not changed.  This crisis with my mother made it necessary to reconnect with one particular person who has the ability to deliver an insult with such a sweet voice it almost dilutes the fact that she is actually being mean. It is as though this person has perfected the art of communicating cruel comments so skillfully that it takes a moment before most people pick up on the fact that there is poison in her words. There was no difference this time and I quickly realized that she had not changed.  She was still hurling honey covered insults.  The difference is that her words now lack the power to hurt  like they once did. I found myself seeing her through new eyes and wondered why she ever had the ability to make an impact on me in the first place.  Perhaps I see things differently because life has taught me that those who belittle others do so because they feel small or worthless themselves.

Some of the most merciless behavior ever perpetrated looks very nice. The sweeter a lie sounds, the meaner it really is.  Meanness emerges when we believe that we have no power, that we’re passive receptors of life’s vagaries. Inner peace follows when we begin responding to cruelty—our own and other people’s—with the authority we’ve possessed all along. " Martha Beck"

 

Looking at this person I now realize that if I met this person outside of the family circle, she is not someone I would ever choose as a friend.  She is certainly not someone I admire.  For a brief moment I wondered; did she change or did I? 

 

“No one can make you a victim without your consent.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

 

I have matured into the person I am because of the people, good and bad, who have touched my life over the years.  As an older and wiser version of myself I now know that I am the one who is ultimately responsible for the person I have become and, since I like the person I am, I refuse to define my value through the comments of others. As a result, I found that it was the change in my own attitude which rendered this person powerless to hurt me.  I also know that because of my mother’s failing health, and the family dynamics, I will be need to see her from time to time. However, she is now a mere detail that I am forced to deal with because the old feeling of intimidation is no longer there.  I refuse to engage in a war of words that will only encourage and empower her.  Some people live in a state of conflict and do not understand any other way.  My response is to just shrug my shoulders and say "Well, you and I are different people." Then I walk away.  Although this person remains unchanged, I now know that I have changed.  

 

                    

I believe that either you control your attitude or it controls you.

 I believe that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are but we are responsible for who we become.

"I Believe" Author unknown.

 

I believe that every experience has its purpose. Bad things happen and we are all faced with someone who attempts to destroy the confidence we have in ourselves at some point in our lives.  There are situations that we cannot always control. However,we do have choices which will either give or relinquish the power we have over ourselves.  Our power comes from the choices we make.  We can choose how we respond and we can choose how we move forward.