This is a personal study on codependence, addictive, behavior and human nature in general. Please follow me and feel free to share your experiences and ideas. Please feel free to visit my sponsors if you like what I write. While I'm not in it for the money, it would be nice one day to transition to full-time writing.
Recently I watched Days of the Future Past. It was a very intriguing X-Men movie with humankind and mutants fighting for their very survival against an Sentinels determined to wipe them out. One of the mutants is able to project the mind of a mutant into their body in the past. This would allow the mutant whose mind was projected into the past to effectively alter the past. The idea was to project a mutant mind's back fifty years before the Sentinel program started. Effectively, knowing what the future held, that mutant would try to halt the program in its tracks. The Wolverine got projected around fifty years into the past into the body of a younger Wolverine. In trying to change the past, The Wolverine needs to help from other mutants. One of the mutants he needs is Quicksilver. As you might guess has name implies that he can move at superspeed. They need this power to get past security at the Pentagon where they were breaking out Magneto to help them on their quest. During the rescue, the mutants are confronted by armed security who fire on them. Quicksilver uses his superspeed to outrun the bullets and knock them away harmlessly and to disable the security. This scene was played to "Time In A Bottle" by Jim Croce.
Later I looked up the song on YouTube and was looking at the comments. One of the posters said the song made him "Nostalgic for the good time I never had." That first struck me as funny, but then kind of bittersweet and tragic in a way. I thought about it a bit more and realized what he might have meant. The poster probably misses the 'old days'. Not because they were perfect, but because he had his future ahead of him. In other words, though the old days had their dysfunction there was a sense that there also opportunities, there were chances. In other words, the future lay ahead of him. What I hear in an echo of his words was a regret that things didn't turn out like they could (or should) have. So, he's nostalgic for when he felt like his whole life lay ahead of him. Mix that in with a little conflict that perhaps that maybe within the middle of the dysfunction, there were some good times in the distant past.
Future (looking forward from the past)
Is uncertain but there is plenty of opportunity.
Is something that we can look forward to hopefully when the present isn't satisfying.
Is limited only by our ability to dream.
Past (looking backwards from the present)
Is something we grade based on what we thought we should have done or accomplished.
Is how things actually turned out rather than how we hoped they would.
Is limited by our inability to see good even when it appears none existed.
I think it's important to remember a few things about nostalgia. Things weren't as good or bad as we remember them. There may be good that we failed to see because we were focused on the hard times. Alternatively, we may have failed to see that things may have turned out as good as (or even better than they should have). You can speculate on what is the proper path, but you speculation is only as good as the information you have. Similarly, you can speculate on what obstacles you may have to overcome, but life has a funny way of throwing you unexpected curveballs. Just like at 2020 so far... So, it is best to look for the hidden positives when looking back. Similarly, it is best making the best decisions that you can with what you know and turn it over to your Higher Power. With additional information that makes itself evident over time, you may realize there was a better way. However, it is pointless to focus on it after the fact. Beyond that, decisions and events don't happen in a vacuum. Even if you could choose the other seemingly better path, there is no guarantee that the new path will not have new and harder obstacles. For example, the car wreck you avoided might now be the car wreck you get into due to timing.
So, like everything else, nostalgia can be a good thing, just don't live in it.
Recently I stumbled upon the song "Welcome Back" when searching for another show's theme song. Now I've heard this song literally probably one hundred times, but when I heard it, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia. Longing for the memories of times I never had--hat tip to a sarcastic comment to a YouTube commenter about Time In a Bottle. But I digress. At that time, as imperfect as it was, my nuclear family was together. My parents and my second oldest brother were still alive. I still had my whole future ahead of me, even as troubled, uncertain and not secure as it was at the time.
I had spent so much time trying to escape the shadow of my childhood and my early adulthood. I don't necessarily blame anyone for it (as dysfunction often or usually has generational roots), but I was raised in a very dysfunctional family. My dad was an alcoholic and my mom struggled with esteem issues. With each parent, the issues had a generational root. This dysfunction hurt my socialization and hindered my ability to fit in. Furthermore, due to the times and issues my own parents faced, I was subjected to childhood sexual abuse by a "church camp counselor" and someone else whom I similarly held trust for. Furthermore, my parents divorced when I was 15, leading me to effectively be the second parent in the household. If that wasn't bad enough, I had a severe generalized anxiety disorder take hold when I was 17. What could have been a time for me to savor, learn, and thrive was instead mostly a time to 'survive'. The good times I held on tight to as I know they were a reprieve from the dysfunction. As the good times came to a close, I dreaded and then mourned their passing. Though I'd always had a firm set of beliefs, I didn't truly start to find myself until I was in my mid to late 20s and began the process of healing at that point. It wasn't truly healing so much as effectively covering the wounds from being exposed. Though I remembered my childhood, in some ways, I pushed it and my early twenties away as a time to forget. I got married in the middle of this process and completed a process of starting a new life. Though I remembered my childhood, I continued to push it away.
You can only escape your past and roots for so long before you have to come to terms or peace with them. As long as I had my 'new life' up and running, it was easy to just ignore my roots. But, just like lunch and recess end in grade school and you have to get back to class, life has a way forcing you to 'get back to class'. For me, my 'get back to class' moment started in 2011 with my divorce & all that went with it, my job loss and my brother's suicide. I started to really process backwards at that point, but was I was still fighting to survive until 2013. In 2013, my divorce was finalized and my job situation stabilized. This allowed me to shift more towards process mode. I had my "Welcome Back" moment on flight out to Salt Lake City for training. I was all alone heading towards a city I didn't know anyone in with only my iPod to keep me company. I had started to listen to the music of my childhood and my early adulthood leading up to my marriage. As I was listening I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia and sadness. I was literally remembering where I was and what I was doing during at the time that I embraced each song. I had built a new life starting in my mid-twenties and had largely pushed aside my old life, without having effectively processed it. I wasn't that my new life was a fraud so much as it was a new chapter in a story, where the old chapters were not completed or built up properly (processed). But, it was just me, a plane full of strangers and my music. This was a very bittersweet moment. I could have put away the music, but I knew that wasn't the answer. So, I continued the search. I realized that the 'old days' though not perfect had their moments too and that they shouldn't be shunned. Really, it was like another turning point. I was in the beginning the long road to learning to embrace the past without the weight of the hurt. I had been able to move forward much earlier with some level of healing, but some or much of deep healing wasn't there yet.
After my divorce, I'd moved back to my hometown and though it had changed a lot, the memories were still there. Shortly afterwards, it became clear that dad was no longer in a position to take stay at home, even with help. He kept falling and no one could be there 24/7 to help him. After his final fall at home, the staff a the hospital and I encouraged him to move to a nursing home. But what to do with his place, my birth home? He would pass away within the next two years, but in the meantime, it need a caretaker. I eventually moved back there to watch over it, manage it and his affairs in the last year of his life. I had literally moved in the room of my teens. As a teen, my education was my 'ticket out', but 25-30 years later I can come face to face with the place of childhood and specifically. Once again, bittersweet, but it gave my time to see the place (and maybe my childhood and teens) in a different way.
In Welcome Back, Kotter, the man character, Kotter, was a remedial student in a group called the "Sweathogs". Life had brought him full circle and now he was a teacher at his high school. Ironically enough, he was teaching a new group of "Sweathogs". But, instead of being a troubled teen, he was now a man who had learned from and could now impart knowledge and hope from experience to the same type of kids he used to be. Just like Kotter, I saw the old 'hangout' from a different perspective. I didn't 100% embrace it like Kotter, but I was able to look at it more objectively. It's been 5 years since my dad passed away and since that moment ended. But, I still look at it as learning experience.
So, what can we learn?
Embracing the Past, finding your inner Kotter
Realizing that the 'old days', even as rough as they may have been, still had there moments. (Jewels in the Darkness).
Realizing that you can push back on processing the hard times, but eventually it is healthiest if you face them. You don't have to face them on their terms. As an adult, with life experiences, we don't have to see things as we used to. The bully of your childhood might have been a jerk, but he may have been dealing with his own inner demons at home, for example. Time and wisdom can grant you that clarity.
Realize that that was a different time and place and you faced hard times as best as you knew how at the time. Sure we can look back and think, I should have reacted differently, protected myself better, etc. But, that's looking at things from an 'adult' perspective.
Realizing hard experiences you faced early on have
Given you the confidence or strength to face adversity throughout life.
Given you the ability to pass on hard-earned wisdom.
Aspects of the past or your roots may not be pleasant to face. But, instead of avoiding them or pretending them it is best if you are able to welcome them back and consider them part of who you are. You don't have to live in that place, but you it is best if you are able to mentally able to 'visit' it without living in the hurt. Just because the roots were imperfect doesn't mean they can or should be ignored. Just as with a tree, treating or addressing damaged roots, can improve our long term health (physical, emotional and spiritual). So, just like Kotter, welcome your roots back.
Sometimes, I wonder if I am impacting anyone by my thoughts, my musings about human nature?I'd like to think that one day someone will say, yeah, this did help me out. But, in the meantime, I will write for that time... So, last Saturday (May 27, 2017), I went to a family wedding without my daughter. It had a nice outdoor area that was very kid friendly. Family relatives of her age were playing there. I couldn't help but to think that she would have loved to play too. My wife felt the same thing too. While I enjoyed the wedding and am happy for the couple, there was a bittersweet nature to the situation without my daughter there.
Anyone who has the short end of a custody agreement can related to this: Short of a close death in the family, one of the hardest things I've had to face is limited time with my daughter and giving her up when I feel like I just got her again. There's been times in which I've had to go the better part of a week or more without seeing her due to the custody schedule. Holidays/vacation when she's not with me can be rough too. I think to myself, she should be there enjoying that time with us. In some ways, it's bittersweet knowing that I have her now (when I have her), but tomorrow or in a day or two, I'll have to give her back to Mom. When I drop her off for the better part of a week or so, my mood sometimes tanks. I have forced myself to cry at that point by putting on the most melancholy music I know. Doing so to me feels like I am bloodletting from a blood blister or removing the poison from my system. I guess the overarching feeling is that I feel like I'm missing out on huge parts of her fleeting childhood.
Through her time with me, my wife indicated to me, she has a little bit better understanding of what parents who have lessor custody go through in that regard. She said that she used to view all guys who walked away from their kid(s) as heartless, but now she believes that at least in some cases, it is a matter of the bittersweet nature of secondary custody being too hard on some. I said to her, yeah, it's hard, but she--my daughter--needs me, so I have to deal.
Which brings me to a point. In AA or Alcoholics Anonymous, people literally hide their alcohol or places that they get it from. They call this "hidden bottles". In other words, it is a secret place where they can get their fix without another knowing (or at least so they think). How this applies to my situation with my daughter is this: I fought hard for my rights with her and I've been told I did well in that regard, but even so, I feel cheated out by the system. So, there is a part of me that actively contemplates how to see her more. This is not necessarily a bad thing, except that I focus too much on not having her and pondering 'my options for getting her more' rather than appreciating the time I do have with her. While it isn't a bad thing to consider how I can maximize my time with her, I know I shouldn't let it consume me. I shouldn't let dread of 'losing her again' (for days at a time) interfere with my time with her. On the outside, I 'accept' the current limitation, but like a hidden bottle in my mind, I reach for how can I change things or for indulging my dread in "losing her again".
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(Mental) hidden bottles can be in their extreme, magical thinking. I call them mental hidden bottles, because we know if we openly hold out hope or indulge them, we are likely to be judged and told that they are absurd. To illustrate, I will give a few examples and comment a bit more:
Believing you still have a chance to be with someone who broke up with you--especially if it wasn't a good breakup--if you just let them know how much you mean to them.
Showing up unannounced for example aka ambushing them.
Getting them elaborate an expensive gifts, etc.
Having a close loved one pass away and waking up day after day, expecting to see them again in this life, though outwardly expressing to others you know they are gone.
A kid expecting to see a lost sibling, parent, aunt/uncle.
A grown-up expecting to see their late spouse.
Believing that you if you buy hundreds of ticket after tickets, you will hit the right number. Believing that if you keep dumping in dollar after dollar, the right slot machine will reward us with a big payout. Believing that if you wait long enough, the right rich distant (and likely unknown) relative who passes away, will leave you enough money that your troubles will go away.
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I'd venture to guess by the time we are into adulthood, we've given up most if not all of the truly magical thinking. I don't mean that we give up on our dreams or goals, but we give up on the things that are truly impossible or that which is so near to it (and destructive to focus on). Anyway, we come to realize that reality doesn't change just because we don't like it. Our late loved ones just don't come back to life after seeing them deceased. While we may not believe in "magic", I think sometimes, we still indulge in holding onto our mental hidden bottles. That is thoughts, feelings and desired outcomes which get in the way of our living with the current reality.
In the case of missing my daughter, it's a fact that short of tragedy or bad circumstances, I will never see her everyday. (At least until she is old enough to decide at the end of her childhood). I don't like it, but I can't quietly focus on that like a mental hidden bottle. I see there is room for me and her mom to split time a little more evenly (and we have), but I can't focus on my feelings of getting 'cheated' by the system. The fact is that there are some parents who are (unfairly) kept from their kids though manipulation from vindictive ex-partner.
I guess my takeaway from this is not to give up on goals, hopes, dreams or justice, but to keep things in perspective. That is to say, do you what you can and should but at the end of the day realize that sometimes you have to turn it over the Almighty and trust that He will work towards what is best for you. As this is a sinful, fallen world, we may not get what we want, but maybe we need to understand that the Almighty works for the best for those who follow Him.
I struggle with faith in matters of this sort, but I know that when I've tried to play God in my own life, I have fallen way short and need to learn better to let go. I guess the advice that I'd give for others is to realize that while our Higher Power wants us to participate in the betterment of us and our situation, that He also wants us to lean on him and not just our own ways and understanding.
