As you may have seen from yesterday, I am using the book “All are Free to Write” by Sheila Allee to help me to feel inspired and to write. The first prompt was about intentions for the next year and giving permission to do things. I made a list of 5 different things I want to give myself permission to do this year. I know I am technically starting this book in the month of February, but I think I can still work towards utilizing it appropriately.
The first INTENTION on my list is:
Going out to events in the world, like library events
While I am largely an introverted individual, I want to be able to be out in public and socialize more than I am currently. This is important because I am in a field that is very social in nature, but also because there is a large part of me that wants to now be in the world. I want to have support systems, I want to have other people around me. I also enjoy going to events where it is being around other people, but there is still a way to be a bit by yourself. I find that library events allow for some of this, but also allows you to interact on your own level.
In the past, I didn’t get to go to a lot of events. I was raised by my grandmother. I was often the one that stayed home with her. In many ways, I became her best friend growing up. There were 3 other kids when I was growing up and they often did not fully get to go out that often either. Grandmother would often yell about us not having cleaned the house enough and we were not doing enough to deserve to go anywhere. She would become physically upset at times. She would yell and scream. I can recall a time where there was a school dance that I had told her about, sweetheart dance, where friends came over to pick me up and she started screaming about how bad I was and that she didn’t know why anyone would want to be my friend. I recall this all the time. She did this to all four of us kids at different times. She prevented us from having any semblance of a normal existence. I also remember often she would leave on Wednesday nights to go bowling. It was a night of respite from her. The issue was I still stayed home away from the world because I had to be the one that came up with cover stories for the other 3 kids when they were out in the world. I became a quasi-protector. To this day, I protect other people above myself. I want to be clear, I do not state any of this to be disparaging against the memory of my grandmother, but this is the truth. I made a pact for 2023 to be transparent about my life and that includes the realities of my childhood. It is not to be dramatic or put dirty laundry out there, even if it does feel like it is dirty laundry. We often are afraid to share the realities of life because we are told not to do so. We are told that we should keep those things secret, but we shouldn’t. We should discuss them openly and honestly with each other. It becomes easier to cope with life when you feel connected to other people and you are honest about where you have been in life. It allows you to find other people that have lived similar experiences and are looking for real connections with other people, but feel like me that they are weird or strange or different from most people. It allows us to better be humans together.
I can recall that she did let me out a handful of times, which largely was for one school club she allowed me to be in. This was FCCLA (FHA formerly). I tried to push often to get more time out due to this club, since for some reason it seemed to disconnect for her from the way that she treated me. I used to sit around and play cards with her and while I cherish those memories with her, I can say that it did not equip me for a life of socialization. It did the opposite, which is that often I want to be left alone by myself. Due to not getting to go to a lot of events in the past, now I have a desire to become more social.
My entire life has felt like I struggled to connect with other people. When I have been in work environments, I have never struggled to connect with my patients, but man do I struggle with co-workers. I find it hard to connect with them. This links back to the lack of socialization that occurred in my childhood. If I was able to attend events, like I am intending, it would mean that I could connect better because I was out with people in the world. In order to get better at something, in my opinion, you have to go out and do it. You have to challenge yourself to experience life to change previous life experiences. I believe that being able to go out to public events would allow me also to feel internally better. I often feel disconnected from the world because in many ways I am. I avoid the news for the large part. I do utilize social media, but I use this sparingly. I understand we live in an age of COVID, but I also believe that if we live scared all the time then we are missing out on possibilities. The things that could happen in life, will never happen. I want to experience life to the fullest and part of this is giving myself permission to live in the world. I want to not let the past and those experiences of not getting to socialize hinder my future and where I want to be. For me to live my best life, it means to be a part of the world. I do not believe I will ever fully want to be out every single day, but I do believe that going out once a week is a possibility and that I would feel a better overall connection with the world around me and maybe even my community that I am new to in Fort Wayne.
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