I am the definition of contradiction, I am the Queen Mason and Patient Gardener, I am both and all at the same time.
From the age of naught, since the time I was but a spec on the imagination of my mother and possibly my fathers mind’s, I have been the Gardener in the people I meet’s lives. A wilting flower? No sweat I will water that sagging flower within you until it blooms once more in all its wonderful colour and array. That is who I am, that is how I have always been, that is how I will always be.
All the while I water your spiritual garden I neglect mine, instead of doing the required regular weed pulling, planting and watering I build walls. Walls around my spirit, my soul, who I really am, I hide. I am the expert in where these walls go, how they are built, how high they should go and what bricks to use. I am the Queen of Masonry.
I understand that in order for me to water your garden I have to do at least a bit of tending to my own, but not to the levels I should have. After all How much water can be thrown over a high wall? How easy is it planting a gorgeous orchid when you are balancing on the top of a wall the height of a skyscraper? Not easy, no. Perhaps my strength in tending to other peoples spiritual gardens is so strong for the fact that I have never really concentrated on my own. My gardening skills are unbalanced if you will.
When you are in a relationship, be it with a partner or with a friend, there are always three gardens to attend to much like the picture below - yours, mine and ours.
Firstly, on the left is your garden that you yourself need to tend to, look after, water, plant and weed.
Then on the right is your partners or friends garden, they to have to water, plant and weed making sure that it survives and grows.
Then finally we get the garden in the middle, our garden, this to needs to be watered, weeded and new plants planted every now and then.
If one of these three gardens is not being attended to then it becomes unbalanced, in discord and will start to resemble something much like a dead ant sucked dry by a leech, it can happen so fast, with a blink an eye, poof all dried out.
Look after your own garden too much and the other two get neglected, enough neglect and they slowly wither and die. The same is true when it comes to looking after the other two gardens more than your own, just this time yours is the one that withers.
All three gardens can be healthy and thriving, the balance perfect in the sense that all gardens are being weeded, watered and encouraged to grow but this takes hard work and practice. Just like anything else, like any garden, you can’t just put a garden together and expect it to grow. No, unfortunately you need to know which kind of plants work best under the different weather conditions, which plants need shade and which prefer full sunlight, how much to water them and what to plant next to them. Then on top of that “knowledge” you also need to think about the colours, sizes and fragrances of the plants you’re putting in your garden, do they compliment each other? Do they work well on the “whole”? and finally do they compliment the middle garden and in turn the third garden?
Now if you are a good mason such as I am, your garden will be filled with walls ranging from little hurdles through to impressive skyscrapers. How do you know where to plant the plants in your garden when you need to travel through an intricate maze first? Never mind knowing where to plant, how do you know what to plant because the sunlight falls differently depending on the day, month and season. The best yet is, how do you know what has already been planted if you can’t see over the walls in the first place?
With all that in mind how can we ever expect to know if someone else’s garden compliments ours if we don’t know what we have to begin with.
We are all masons in our own right, some of us are better with more experience, we all build walls. It is what we do with those walls that matters. Do we leave them up as permanent fixtures or do we instead break them down and use the remaining bricks in a water feature or paving the path in between the flower beds…. What we do is up to us.
I never knew what was in my garden, I was always busy watering others more than my own, the walls sky high, the sunlight very rarely filtered in. Ultimately, no matter what I did, I would never find the perfect partner or the friend that complimented my personality, my nature or my plants.
I still have many many walls to break down, 29 years worth of walls, all of them different sizes, densities and heights. I am retiring as the pro-mason now, I am handing in my wall making tools.
I was chatting to a friend tonight about something close/related to the contents of Influencing Kids and something that was said hit me really hard right between the eyes. Following this was a comment by SymbolicGodzilla about his friend who grew up in a house with zero parental guidance.
It really made me think about those cravings I had growing up. It is true what the therapists say about kids wanting guidance, wanting boundaries and rules. Without them you grow up never knowing where you stand in life, the world, with people around you and just everyday situations. Living with zero guidelines can cripple you as an adult, slow your progress and pretty much chop your legs off before you start to walk.
Having someone external from your immediate family nucleus take you under their wing, guide you and give you support is one of the biggest blessings you can have as a kid. Normally it is your mother or father but when they are just the sperm donors then an Aunt, Uncle, friends parent or older cousin really do help.
I’m not even talking about anything major, a simple smile or a nod used to boost me some days, a hug, a laugh, an offer of a lift, guidance, baking cookies, playing a bit of football outside, a quick chat about a boring adult topic, anything normal. I say anything normal because these kids lives are anything but normal and the fastest way to pull them back from the edge is to show them that normal exists. A simple act on your part can brighten the roughest of days, nights, weeks, months or even years.
There are so many kids going through rough times, kids who have parents like I had, who just don’t really care or take the responsibility for anyone or anything let alone their own children. There are so so so many!
Sad isn’t it…
What gives me hope are the people that care, people who go out of their way to do something as simple as checking on the kid or just giving them a hug. The simplest of things could get a child in dire circumstances through the day if not the week.
Sometimes the kids don’t even know what you do for them, sometimes they can not quantify the true value of having you in their lives for the fact that they have never experienced it without you. Sometimes words can’t explain that feeling of an inch less of hopelessness felt all because you phoned, you smiled, you hugged, you cared.
For each and everyone of you that try to help these kids I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I am not a mother, never have been and honestly don’t know if I ever will be for the main fact that I fear for anything I give birth to - imagine me as a mom! (poor souls). That said, Amber’s post “Where is the line” and Joy’s post “Partying in front of your kids” got me to thinking - has my life influenced me? Did the deeds of my parents influence me?…
Please be warned that my life is kind of PG18 - for some reason I needed to warn you, perhaps so that you aren’t too shocked? You are warned…
If you have been following my blog you would possibly know by now that I grew up with the permanent smell of alcohol, what you may not know (due to slight omission) is the fact that my mother was also an alcoholic. So all my mothers men and all the kings horses including herself used to party it up quite a bit, it was when I learnt to sleep through anything and everything - shan’t go into too many details.
Growing up, adults who are drunk tend to want to offload their problems, they get soppy and in need of “therapy” - you know that need to talk about matters on their hearts. I was local therapist from the age of about 7, if not younger, that is just the first time I can remember actually giving advice to an adult.
I’ve heard it all, from problems with sex “She won’t do me no more”, “she’s frigid”, “Vibrators are better than men” (For that one I was 11 and I invented a vibrator attached to a electric blanket - she got the best of both worlds).
Then came the complaints about the spouses drinking… “He dwinks too much” (????), “He’s always too drunk to get it up” (use rhino horn it apparently works well or borrow one of mothers blue movies), “She snores when sheee dwinks” (why can drunk people never say the word drink, its always dwinks).
Then came the cheating “I think he’s cheating on me” (but you slept with so and so only last week, you can’t complain), “She’s shagging so and so isn’t she, I just know it” (No I have never seen her with him promise), “God I could shag him but I’m sooo shy” (This is how I think you should approach it, give him a few drinks, he’s easy then)
Suppose its not hard to imagine then that my sex education was a porn shop (among other things), I knew all the different shapes of condoms by the age of 13. Porn movies? Hell I knew what they were from a younger age than that. Sex was no mystery nor was it linked to the heart - I was taught that from a really young age. This was normal. Is that bad?
Keeping all of that in mind, it wasn’t unusual when my mother took me clubbing at the age of 12, they were all impressed that I managed to drink 8 ciders and still be able to dance. That was the night I was dared to smoke by my mother, I declined and had another cider instead.
I only started smoking when I was 14 and much to everyone’s chagrin it was not out of peer pressure, but rather “payback”, it was my only “anger” outlet. Sure I partied, I got trashed many a night, often with the older kids when I went to go stay with them during the time I was homeless. Hey I wasn’t innocent, I could drink anyone under the table, finishing a bottle of whisky on my own while out with friends was no mean feat. At the age of 21 I smoked 60 a day… pretty impressive surely? bowing? Wait…
My mother always believed that if you want to try something, try it and do it in front of her then at least she could “control” it, if something went wrong then she could “deal” with it. This included drugs, if we wanted to smoke dope, by all means do it in front of her, drugs were talked about openly and the fact that my brother was in hospital because of it, she knows.
I have spoken to a few people through out my short life, you know how topics come up “So how did your parents given you the low down on sex”, they always seemed to be fascinated with my answer and said that it was so cool, that they wish their parents had done the same. You know the conversation about parents allowing you to drink, some said my mother was mad while others applauded her, same goes for the drugs. What do you think?
Have you noticed how sheltered kids always seem to end up rebelling to the point of becoming exactly what the parents didn’t want?
No amount of sheltering can protect anyone from everything… Is it not better to be open with kids?
Are open relationships such as this bad for kids? Was it bad for me?
I am who I am today because of all the stuff life threw at me, am I so bad?
I ask all these questions because I don’t know…
I am not an alcoholic, I am not a drug addict, my only vice was ever cigarettes (did you note the “was”?). My younger brother had it just as bad as me but perhaps in certain cases more sheltered and then in others worse. He’s been in hospital for drugs OD’s, he’s had drunken rages, he suffers. I am not better than him, we just chose differently.
Is it perhaps not more a persons choice of how they want to be at the end of the day that really counts?
Perhaps that is just it at the end of the day, each moment of our lives we get to choose who we want to be, how we want to be and what we want to be…
No I am not talking about the operating system, I am talking about an African saying that has been blown out by the Western world.
What is the real Ubuntu?
Pronounced as uu-Boon-too or uu-Bun-too.
Ubuntu, also known as Unhu in other parts of Africa, is an ethical philosophy held by many Africans and now Westerners (First World) that focuses on how we treat one another and the purpose there of, why we do. It’s a word describing an African world view, which translates as “I am because you are,” and which means that individuals need other people to be fulfilled. It is a way of living, it is how you treat your fellow man, it is how you respect them and understand that their beliefs help form the bigger picture, their situations are for purpose.
So many people try to explain it, put it into words, but often come undone with the mere fact that it is more a way of being, it is a feeling, a way of living, the way you are and not easily explained in the context of words. ArchbishopDesmond Tutu, in my books, gave the best description by far with his words
“It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are. The quality of Ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanise them.”
Another way of putting it is in the Zulu sentence “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” meaning a person is a person through other people.
Nelson Mandela describes Ubuntu as
“A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you be able to improve?“
The western explanation of Ubuntu I think is “one hand washes the other”.
In reality we can not survive without each other, we breathe, we live but all the while we only truly survive when we are helping each other. Ubuntu is the opposite of selfish, it is the opposite of envy and greed and the most beautiful thing about it? It isn’t linked to any religion, it is the heart beat of Africa.
All things in the world are as they are meant to be, it is all part of the bigger picture and no one man is better than the other, we are all equal.
Sadly not all Africans follow the ancient teachings of Ubuntu. As it is in any culture old traditions get forgotten and times change, it doesn’t mean it has to die.
We can not be one without the other, Ubuntu, it is the true spirit of Africa
Keep Ubuntu alive
I am African, I am Worldian, I follow Ubuntu how about you?
Post Note: Please take note that when I talk about Africans it may not be as the “world” sees it, I am not talking about race, the colour of the skin. No I am talking about anyone who is born on African soil, they are all Africans.
There is nothing better than lighting a nice fire in the middle of a cold winters evening. Walking down the street tonight I was assaulted by a wealth of woody smells of fireplaces alight in the homes, tufts of smoke making ribbons in the sky, each house a different style.
As I continued down my road it struck me how different our physical world is compared to our emotional one. I mean, here we hit winter, we freeze our butts off and when we do, we go and light a nice warm fire, put on the electric blanket, fill up the hot water bottles and get all nice and cosy.
What do we do when we hit winter in our emotional lives? Ten to one we just abandon ourselves to shiver and shake from the cold, we don’t throw a warm blanket over our shoulders nor do we light a warm fire to sit by. We just leave ourselves to suffer in the wet cold. Wrong or right?
So often when life’s winter’s hit us the last thing on our mind is the fact that we must spoil ourselves, the last thing from our minds is lighting that all important fire. Sure we go on binges, be they shopping or eating, we do odd weird fantastic things but none of which are “spoiling” ourselves, we can also have a tendency to focus on anything but ourselves.
Spoiling ourselves? What do you like the most, is it a long soak in the bath with a bottle of wine (sorry I mean glass), your most favourite food in the whole world, doing an activity that really puts a smile on your face (walking, running, climbing walls, cooking, etc). Add all your favourites together and you end up getting a nice warm fire going, doing them more regularly and the fire stays stronger for longer.
Before we know it Winter is Spring, Spring is Summer
Don’t forget to light the fire, it takes the chill out of winter…
A strange short story that perhaps I need to write more than you need to read.
A friend of mine, one of my chosen family, is horse mad. When I say horse mad I mean it literally. She used to compete as a show jumper, nationally she’d go around collecting the big rosettes and fancy shiny things, she was “wow” on a horse.
When she was 16 though she had a bad fall and the horse rolled on top of her breaking her neck. Thing is that when the accident happened a whole bunch of other traumatic things also took place all in the space of a few months, hectic does not describe the nightmare she found herself facing.
She didn’t let it stop her though, she fought to get her life back, she fought to be able to walk and function like she used to, she fought and got right back on the horse again.
She fell off and broke her neck but it didn’t stop her from trying again
So often we fall, we fear ever trying again to the point that we avoid it at all costs.
Takes courage to get back on that horse, takes courage to even try, but at least we’ve tried.
Ten to one your computer is called after you, yes? I mean your porfile is named after you?
Why?
Did we give it our names so that it can feel more connected to us?
So that we feel more connected to it?
I’ll have you know that mine is not my namesake instead, mine is called Gorgearse (translation: gorgeous).
I am not kidding!
Think about it for a moment….
Every time you “log” on it says “Hello Gorgearse” (if you spell like me, adding arse to everything these days… seriarse problem).
Hmmm, hang on, think I will just quickly log off so that it can say hi to me again
Better yet why leave it only on our systems, why not call ourselves by these cool names on online function sites… Everytime you log in it goes “Welcome Back Gorgeous”
So my poor sister got exactly that when I was asked to fill in some or other birthday thing (she has a really bad memory). I received the below in my inbox, something tells me that she really appreciates the way I spell …
Gorgearse Sister has entered his/her birthday for you.
Gorgearse‘s birthday is the 12th of September 1898.
1) What Happens Now?
Birthday Alarm will send you an email reminder of Gorgearse’s birthday each year. This reminder has a link which makes it simple for you to write and send Gorgearse a birthday greeting card using the Birthday Alarm website, if you wish to do so.
Perhaps a strange question but it is one that I ask myself every day. I am one of those types of people that just can’t stand asking for help of any kind, independence or pure stupidity, you choose, I don’t know.
I have always wanted to do the hard skills stuff by myself be it putting a bike together, fixing a light bulb or learning something new. It is not because I don’t trust the other person or their skill but rather the fact that I don’t want to depend on them nor do I want to rely on them for anything that I can do for myself. This can however get to the point whereby even though I can’t do something I will not ask for help. What if I put them out? What if I appear an absolute fool? I should know this stuff damnit!
Harsh? Stubborn? Proud? Cocky?
The time I slept on the streets? I couldn’t find anyone that I could stay with, I didn’t want to ask for help with just joe soap or a person I didn’t know well. I didn’t want them to know the full extent of my situation, I didn’t want them to castigate my mother anymore nor did I want to feel the shame anymore. Instead of asking for a room I slept in public toilets and the like.
Growing up without strong mentors or parents I tried to learn the basics the best way I could. I become strongly independent while making choices and felt that everyone else had just ditched me how could I possibly allow them to decide for me. I mean really! But it didn’t stop there, I tried to teach myself basic adult things like working with money, running a home, I watched the Jones’ when they weren’t looking and I learnt… I learnt perhaps the longer harder way because I didn’t have the courage to ask others. I didn’t want them to see my failures nor did I want them to have any inkling as to why I was so uneducated, I felt shame. No, I do not put the blame on the past, not for this example or the others, on the contrary I put it on myself… I didn’t ask anyone the all important “How”.
When I was 14 for the first 6 months after my mother left I had the use of our house on the weekends and holidays. I lived alone and learnt pretty quickly how to do the basic DIY etc. Problems however when you find yourself having to wire a plug for the first time without colour guides or instructions. Sounds odd I know but again I didn’t want to ask anyone in case they thought I couldn’t handle my situation, I was determined to prove to them that I was fine alone, perhaps more to prove to myself than anyone else. I was very unlucky and it took me all three tries to put the earth where it should go along with the other wires. Three tries does quite a bit to the angle your hair stands up, it also determines how long it stays like that… I don’t think I’ve ever recovered hence the hair-do.
Emotionally as well, we can be going through the roughest time filled with hopelessness and we don’t ask for help. I was useless on this front as well, I refused to ask anyone for help, I didn’t want to burden them with my pitiful woes nor did I want them to think that I wasn’t ok. Ironic? Being outwardly ok was the last thing that I possessed, it prevented sympathy and more so pity, my two pet dislikes. It took me right up till the day I almost killed myself to finally work up the courage to ask someone for help and even then it wasn’t someone I knew but rather a total stranger.
So with all my experience of not asking it seems I still have not learnt the lesson. I found myself in an absolute state the other night not being able to get something right for the last 3 months on a software program (it includes coding ok shush) to no avail. Normally I learn quick when it comes to hardware and software but this program literally cut me down to size. So three months of daily torment learning and trying to work it out (am not the sharpest button in the world ok) and eventually I am broken into a million different shards scattered on the floor. I had allowed it to get to the point of me being so broken, why? Why hadn’t I just opened my mouth and said “I can’t figure this out will you check it out for me?”
Sitting head in my hands I finally worked up the courage to open my mouth and asked someone to check my code and see where I had gone wrong. Why did I wait three months? Because I felt incredible shame that I couldn’t get it right, I felt determined to do it, not to rely on anyone, to not put anyone out, to just do it like Nike. Add to that the fact that I didn’t want to put anyone out, I didn’t want to waste their time.
No one is to blame but me
Why do we go through life trying to protect ourselves from others views of us? Are we so scared that, by asking a question, we prove our stupidity? Do we not ask because we feel our questions are not valid? Do we really believe that, if everyone else knows how to do it, surely I must then know how? If they are our friends or people that love us then surely they won’t be put out by us asking a question? Our friends won’t think of it as time wasting? Why would they think of us as stupid if they have also had to learn the same thing we are learning?
Sometimes we just need to open our mouths and ask
It could be the difference between life and death
It could be the difference between losing a limb and keeping it
It could be the difference of an intensely stressful life and one of peaceful bliss
A song that is closely linked to my post Self Beatings and their Purpose, it is for all of you that don’t think they’re good enough, who treat others better than they do themselves, for those who don’t love themselves and those who don’t believe in themselves. This song is for you.
For those who believe in me, for those I bribe to be nice to me (joking) a small thank you for taking my bribes (joking) and being who you are (for real)
To all of you…
You are perfect in every way and yes, there really is NO Ugly - that word should be deleted from all languages!
You are perfect as you are …
No I am not pulling your chain, lying to you or anything else…
You really are perfect!
Scratch that…
You are amazingly perfect just as you are
Got it?
You said that I wasn’t pretty
So I just believed you
And you said that I wasn’t special
So I lived that way
With critical gazes and brutal amazement
And how my reflection could be so imperfect
With all of my blemishes, how could somebody want me?
[Chorus]
But God loves ugly
He doesn’t see the way I see
Oh god takes ugly
And turns it into to something that is beautiful
Apparently I’m beautiful
Cause you love me
Whoa, oh
I tried to clean up the outside
All shiny and new
Worked over time to thin up and look right
But inside I knew
That deep in the bottom were secrets I thought I could try to ignore
Old ghosts in my corridors
Never get tired of haunting the past that’s in me
[Chorus]
But God loves ugly
He doesn’t see the way I see
Oh god takes ugly
And turns it into to something that is beautiful
Apparently I’m beautiful
Cause you love me
Help me believe why you love me
When I know you see
You see everything
Help me believe why you love me
When I know you see
Inside and you still say I’m beautiful
You’re telling me I’m beautiful
Your screaming out I’m beautiful
And I’m finding out I’m beautiful
You’re making me so beautiful
And I can I’m beautiful
Cause you love me
Whoa, oh
What is the purpose of beating yourself, really? No, I am serious, what is the purpose? I ask myself this on a daily basis and I always get to the answer “No point”. If one looks at it deeply, looks at it for what it is, you’ll see that in reality it is just cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Why do I say that? Well from experience, of which I have a lot in this realm, you just break yourself down, you lead yourself willingly down the path of no return. What’s the point?
We encourage others when they make mistakes, we encourage them to try again, to not give up, ironically we even tell them not to beat themselves up. We try and boost them and show them that they are perfect just the way they are, mistakes and all, better still we tell them that mistakes are only opportunities to learn, to grow, to evolve.
Ironically I used the encouraging vs beat up method in the work place as well. I had 20+ people that I managed at one stage and a number of them weren’t the easiest characters around. One of the greatest things that I noticed was the fact that when a person is degraded constantly, verbally discouraged and unappreciated they can either become more difficult or they can become uninterested, depressed and uninspired. When a person becomes discouraged they don’t do their work starts to slide, work output and the quality of the work starts a gradual decline.
Take those same people and encourage, respect, show appreciation and understanding they start to shine, they work harder and the quality of the work surpasses what was previously deemed as average. They become more loyal than ever before and greater assets to both themselves and the company.
It’s ironic that we do this to other people but don’t do it to ourselves, some how we skip that equation, we skip the “love yourself” part.
I’ve been the one thing I can’t stand, I have been a hypocrite and I am not happy with this fact. I am not happy at all… but I am not going to beat myself up about it because the realisation of this fact means that I am learning, that I have come to this point and now can learn from it and move forward.
I can tell you that I am not going to be a hypocrite anymore but that would be a lie. By saying that I will try it takes the pressure off from being outright just doing it - that only leads to that self beating pressure. What I am going to tell you is that I am going to try treat myself as I treat others, treat myself with love, compassion, understanding, encouragement and respect. I’m going to try.
What’s the point of beating ourselves up all the time?
No point…
For those who know me, here is my horoscope for today, I thought you may enjoy it and have a good chuckle. Message is home and I am keeping it close company in my heart with a smile on my face… Even the stars are telling me! Shocking really!
“Stop beating yourself up so much, SF. You set extraordinarily high standards for yourself, and can’t bear it when you don’t meet them. Take a moment to look objectively at your achievements versus those around you. You have done a lot, and will doubtless go on to even bigger and better accomplishments. Don’t fret about the little setbacks that are bound to occur along the way.”
Perfection is a deception, never attainable for we look for it in the wrong places, it is in fact the mistakes we make, the things we learn.
