Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Running Away My Imagination; Parental Relationships; Quotes

Today's blog...

Blog City – Day 112 - June 23

Tell us about a time you ran away from something or someone.

Running away from something or someone. I do not really remember doing that. At least not from something real. As a child the dark scared me (it still does) and I often found myself running out of or away from dark areas. Running up the basement steps when my Dad reached the top and flipped out the light switch. Running through a darkened hall to the bathroom to hit the light switch and kill the beast whose eyes glowed in the metal of the bathroom's toilet roll holder. Back then I had to run and leap to get that switch. I would also run and dive for my bed from the hallway so that the monsters underneath could not get me. I guess you could say I was running from my imagination.

To this day I will run up the stairs after the light is turned off and I don't venture into the backyard close to the forest after dark. I can turn the lights off at night without leaving the TV on as a night light if my husband is somewhere in the house. I tell him that the 'monsters' will try to get him first and he will kick the shit out of them so we are all good.

Call me crazy if you will, I don't mind. I have a friend who does much the same thing so I know I am not alone in this.

This is the main reason I do not watch scary movies, there is already a fertile imagination in this mind of mine, I do not need other images to catch a hold.

I really don't believe there are monsters but the anxiety that grips me holds me so bound that you would think, they were really real. Intellectually I know it is nutty, physically... we are not so sure.

Welcome To My Reality - Week Twenty - Seven

2. Have you enjoyed the adult relationship that you now have with your parents? What has changed from when you lived at home and what has stayed the same?

The relationship I have with my mother now is a pretty good relationship. As a teenager, she was not my most favourite person. It was not until she began to date again and my protective instincts kicked in that things started to improve.

As a child, I often felt that I was the one with the level head. Sure my mother had a good government job, but she had a lot of anxieties too. Living in northern Ontario my mother did not get her depression addressed and it made her unpleasant at times. She had a short fuse and though I only remember getting slapped across the face once, her anger scared me. She was not consistent in the things that bothered her and she often erupted at a level that was disproportionate to my wrong - doing - or as a child, that is how I felt. She did often apologize for her outbursts, but I still gave her a wide berth when I sensed her temper. Being sensitive to her moods helped.

When we moved to southern Ontario, she was able to get medication for her depression and regulate her synaptic responses in her brain. This also regulated her mood making her more predictable. We jokingly call her medication her 'happy pills'.

I still find when we go back up north to visit friends, she does tend to pick up a dark cloud over her around North Bay. Being older, I can now stand up to her. One time she was getting edgy and was starting to get riled up and I jumped out of bed, looked down on her and said "What bee got in your bonnet?" The oddity of the phrase and the fact that I had confronted her alerted her to the fact that she was 'spinning' again, she apologized and settled down.

I find my relationship with my mother has developed into a friendship. With her second marriage to a faithful, loving man, my mother thrived and I was able to give up feeling so responible for her. We have many interests in common and she is an interesting person. I am the writer, she is the artist. We often used to venture out with sketch pads and pencils to the forested areas and sketch together - I love it when we do that. We also do a yearly shopping day to Stratford each summer. We used to do the shopping trip, have dinner and see a play at the Stratford Festival in one day but now that mom is older we go twice - once to shop and once for a play and dinner.

Mom lives close to me - a five minute drive or 30 minute walk. I do not go over as often as I should or call her as much as I should but then I don't socialize that much beyond work. I am hoping if the writing goes well today I may venture over to see her and her new kitten, Annie.

As for my Father, he died when I was 12. My parents separated when I was eight. He had been unfaithful. My mother had moved out. I knew a family 'friend' had come between them, but I did not know details until a year or so ago. All I knew was that this friend had taken pleasure in breaking up several marriages within their social circle. My mom blamed her more than my Dad - and still does, in retrospect, but I have lost some of my respect for my dad. I used to put my Dad on a pedestal, but now that I know things I have a different view of both my parents. My mother did very well to assert herself and move on. For that I give her kudos. She moved us to where we could flourish - northern Ontario would have killed her or made her too miserable to deal with.

7. Visit http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_motivational.html or think of a quote you already know. What quote(s) resonate with you? What quotes inspire you? What quote so you like, that you have never heard before to share with us.
I love this site, thank you. The motivational quotes are wonderful. I have favourited the page so that I can check back whenever I need the inspiration.

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.
Ken Venturi

This quote resonates with me because I remember when I was a child someone told me each and everyone of us is better at something than someone else. But I did not understand that. My small child mind could not wrap itself around that concept. As I got older, I realized it was not necessarily one thing better than all people, it was that I might by better at math than Sally, but Joyce might be better at math than I was, but that with Joyce, I was better at writing. Does that make any sense? The something was relative to who you were comparing yourself too.

But this quote follows more along the lines of what I have come to learn and believe - we are not to compete against others necessarily, but to truly become better we are to improve from within ourselves. I reach a level of proficiency in something and then I stretch myself to improve on that new level - in doing so, I become better than I thought I could be - one little step and advancement at a time. That is the way we learn and grow. That is the way we make the world a better place.

30 Day Blogging Challenge

Prompt to follow? Well it is almost the end of the day and there is no prompt for the day. I can handle that, I suppose. My preference is to do my blog early in the day that way my mind is fresh. Coming to this at night when I am yawning is not the best - my creativity is ebbing. I have spend the day writing my section of a campfire story and a good portion of my Nano novel. I went for a walk this morning and manage to walk my way into the next direction of my Nano novel - I had been a little stuck knowing where to go in a general sense but not exactly. The walk shook things free and I was able to come back and write. I did over 4,000 words today alone. Now I am sitting at 35,000 words. Yeah, me.
Have a good night, everyone.