When Google notified me that my blog access would be shut down (I hadn't really thought about it in years), I was compelled to pop in to see what I had written.
It has been quite educational.
I am not the woman who once wrote this blog - she still resides in me, but she is not me. For that, I'm totally grateful. I'm not PollyAnna anymore, and I don't relate to her. PollyAnna isn't just an optimist - I'm still an optimist - she is someone who refuses to see anything but the good, even when the good isn't that good. She served me well when it was a struggle for me to get through the day to day, but now I want so much more for myself than what she asked for. PollyAnna is focused on merely surviving. She looks for the good in the garbage, because she's surrounded by garbage. Thank the Universe that my life is better than that now, but I want so much more than just the best parts of the garbage, and I'm no longer trying to create a life out of the worst of the leftovers. I don't want 'goody - two shoes!' I want 'goody - cute shoes!'.
(For what it's worth, I'm also not Wonder Woman. I used to say she was my alter-ego, but now I find that concept exhausting. I'm also not Elsa from Frozen, even though I related to her for a while. While I do work on letting it go, I have no desire to live far from others in an ice palace.)
I read a passage in this blog that I had forgotten about, pushing it out of my memory, about a time when my father offered me a gift but then told me that I'd have to grovel to get it.
I re-read that passage over and over again, thinking, "What kind of father does that?" and wondering about my life. I told a friend about it, laughing darkly about how over-the-top it was that a father would say such a thing to his daughter, and my dear friend said, "PollyAnna, it isn't funny. It's horrible, and I am so sorry, and there are no excuses..." and I laughed again and said, "It sounds like a comic supervillain and that's funny!" and she said firmly, "No. It's not. It's disgusting."
I keep thinking about that exchange, because she's right. While I had come far enough in my journey to realize that his behavior was wrong and I refused to grovel, I was too deep in it to see how little I thought of myself, and how many excuses I offered to my emotionally stunted father for his treatment of me. I was proud of myself for walking away without groveling, but I couldn't see that the relationship was so flawed as to be painful even when it was disguised as generosity. (Any gift that comes with a demand to grovel is a horrible, horrible gift.)
In 2016, my family and I had a falling out, and I haven't been in a room with them since. The details are unimportant at this point, and I don't want to rehash them here, but it became painfully clear that I could not be in relationship with the anymore unless some boundaries were agreed to. My boundaries, stated in writing and over the phone, were "No yelling, no belittling, and no name calling." They neither heeded the boundaries nor agreed to them, but my boundary hasn't changed, and honestly, it seems like such a ridiculously low bar that there is a part of me now, these seven years later, that is glad that they didn't accept, because my bar actually involves kindness, reciprocal listening, honoring of boundaries, etc. and those are not ways in which they know how to act or respond.
PollyAnna came by her life the best way she could. When a man demanded that she grovel, she found ways to tell herself that at least he wanted to offer something in return, or at least she was strong enough and capable enough to avoid groveling, and that was enough for her. She could make jokes about supervillains. (Oh, wait. That last bit is me now. I'm working on it.) But she never dreamed that there was a world in which she could find kindness in every encounter, and where she could chase her dreams, and where she could dream big dreams that didn't involve self sacrifice and pain and didn't require her to be a superhero or an ice princess to achieve those dreams.
But here I am.
I found my way back to my beloved teaching career, and I teach 150 students a year, and I love it. We analyze literature, and I help them to grow as writers and thinkers and speakers, and I get to work with words all day every day. I'm surrounded by wonderful staff who care about the things I do. I make a living wage, and I've been able to care for my life in ways that seemed a million years away when I was writing this blog before.
Bryan? He's still around, and I mostly just feel sad when I see him. He still comes for the holidays, and his life looks small and unsatisfying to me, but I don't pay him much mind, I only pay attention to the joy that Katherine has for having both of her parents together so that she needn't choose.
And my beloved daughter? She is so well that it makes my heart sing. She graduated high school (oh, the Covid online school was horrible....!) and she she's a junior in college, living a few hours away in an apartment, but coming home regularly. She's had a boyfriend for a couple of years, and he treats her well. She has dreams for herself, and I am so bursting with pride for the woman that she has become... I can't believe she will soon be 21!
Best of all, she and I are close. We watch Gilmore girls reruns, we go to plays, we have picnics, we travel. We even went to Italy, and the entire time I felt like it was a dream filled with magic - a joy I could barely comprehend. She helps out when she's home, and she still spends her breaks with me. I enjoy my time with her in school - I'm so free! - but love it when she comes home, too. It's still home to her, she says.
Right now I'm working on my dreams. Some dreams have come true already: a retirement plan and good healthcare, a living wage (finally!), a daughter in college, a job I love. The same friends as before, but a few new ones, too. I live a life that a decade ago seemed unimaginable. I have a closet full of cute shoes - I'm not a 'goody, two shoes!' anymore at all. I'm dreaming bigger than I ever have.
But reading those old words on this blog it really hit me like a thunderbolt - I was in relationships with people who said things like "you need to grovel" and to this day I'm still processing how dysfunctional that was, and how it shaped me.
I don't grovel. So at least I've made it that far. And I'm not PollyAnna, or Wonder Woman, or Elsa. So that's good.
I'm dreaming, and I believe I can put those dreams into reality. And I want so much more than not groveling.
Stay tuned for more. :-)
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