I don’t remember my fall from the tree.
From how my life is looking, I’m confident my fall from the tree embarrassed gravity for not working hard enough.
There’s a day where you wake up and realize that you are just like your parent. You grow up in denial with the fairy tale of thinking you’ll be different, you’ll do this, this, and this, which your parent never did; therefore, you’ve got to be the exception to the “like-mother-like-daughter” and “like-father-like-son” majority. The realization innocently starts… with a subtle notice of your face scrunching up the same way as your mother’s or when you look at the mirror and see your smile favors your father’s in every way. Gradually, you start noticing behavioral similarities, such as how you always laugh to avoid conflict, or how you always expect the worst from others.
When you finally come to grips that becoming your parent is an inevitable part of life, you rationalize that it’s not so bad as long as the negative traits you acquired don’t affect your well being.
Then…you spend your Friday night staring at the bottom of your mason jar, refilling it with some orange juice and Hennessy, tears cascading down your face, because your worst fear is your reality.
You are your parent.
Constant pattern that I’ve noticed of myself is that I always default to assuming the worst. I either think no one loves me, or I think my friends really don’t care about me, they have ulterior motives so that’s the only reason they tolerate me. Or if today was a really good day, something fucked up is definitely about to happen soon.
It’s a nagging pain that I go through on a consistent basis, but I was stopped in my tracks the other day when I finally connected the origin of this behavior to my mother.
Mild and Free 