I spend a lot of my time trying to avoid being adult and responsible. Yet I carry deep-set feelings of responisbility for several things I experienced as a child, even though I was in no way to blame. Things like sexual abuse, never measuring up enough to be wanted, my parents' divorce, that kind of thing.
I'm learning to take responsibility for all the little and big things I should. But maybe I need to let go of the guilt and responsibility that I have left over from my childhood.
Maybe I try to avoid more responsibility because of the feelings I associate with it.
I know now that I was a bright, trusting, and lovable child that most people would have loved to have as their own. A lot of trust was broken, I felt terribly unlovable, and I took refuge in being bright but never really developed it as I should have. My emotional growth stopped when I was very young. My intellectual growth stopped as a teenager. I've come very far in getting them further down the pipeline. But I wonder if I hadn't had some of the experiences I had--if I'd been encouraged and nurtured, and most of all, not harmed, what kind of person I would be.
I don't know, maybe we grow and evolve more in the presence of adversity. But we also grow when nurtured. I can't ever get the nurturing I could have had, but I can nurture myself. So that's two ways to grow. So now it's time to plant some roots and flourish, don't you think?
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