what matters and why

values

3/18/02
12:18pm

Just when I think I’m getting closer, everything is far away again. I thought I was doing better when organizing my thoughts, and now I’m only here. My brain is somewhere else. I feel like I only blend in with what’s around me and don’t make any effort to do anything or be anyone special. There are no great expectations that I have to live up to. I just have to live my life, raise my child. The most important job I could ever have. Why then do I feel so unappreciated and unimportant? I’m doing all the things I love, have all the time I need. It’s never good enough. I am overlooked in so many situations because of my inability to communicate the way I need to. It makes me constantly second guess myself. I don’t know that I will ever be good at what I want to do. When put in difficult situations, I always fail. For every good conversation that I carry on, there are three bad where I said the wrong thing or didn’t say anything at all. It’s easy for me to look at someone else and envy their ease in dealing with social situations. I look back for accomplishment and see nothing. I see someone whose character was flawed, who only considered one person when making decisions. I can’t seem to define myself in this life. Regrets of that past personality haunt me constantly. So much so that I want no connection to that life. I want no reminder of who I was.

Time away this past week made me think about where I came from and why I think the way I do. Amazing what an effect parents have on a child in forming their beliefs, their values and what they will carry on to the next generation. Who is to say what’s right when most are so similar yet they cause such great conflict. Would I have made a different decision if I’d been brought up in a different environment all those years ago? I felt so defensive of his family’s casual values when it was brought up in conversation with my mother’s family. They were so judgmental, so obvious in how they felt about his liberal views. I felt my face turning red, now knowing what to say to defend and just how to go about it. I rarely saw my mother stick up for what she thought was right, but I always knew what she was thinking. Seeing that side of her family brought up a whole new concept for me. Though I don’t agree with some of the decisions made over there, it is not my place to judge. It makes me wonder what was said four and a half years ago when I was in the situation that I was. What would have been their decision had that been their own daughter? Or are they so high and mighty that it would just never happen in their world, or no one would ever know. It was such a disappointment to see someone in that light that I had grown up admiring. She was always laughing, always quick to compliment someone on their talents. Growing up, she was always my favorite. Maturity allows one to see things they may not see without. What I saw in her was judgment, and she didn’t try and hide it. I know why I think the way I do. I know where it came from. I need to know if I should question my knowledge. I’ve seen two sides and neither appeal to me. Seems to me that someone with decent morals and values should present acceptance and not disdain. I don’t believe that the one side is necessarily better than the other. It’s just different, and what is accepted in one culture may not be in another, but what makes one so much better than the other? Normally I would consider myself conservative, believing in the importance of the family, and traditional values. Yet this side of my family projects an image of conservatism that I saw as being irrational. Is there a middle ground?