The Family Girl Blogs (aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") Blog #53: A Summer Girl's Four Epiphanies To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs

Ma said during our last skype call a few days ago that it's forty-five degrees back home. Living in Manila for a while now, I am now more used to using Centigrade when measuring temperature, as opposed to Fahrenheit, and using kilometers instead of miles when measuring distance. So when she said forty-five degrees, I used my iPad and came up with 7.2 Centigrade. I told her it was 95 degrees here (which is 35 in centigrade-speak). It's so friggin' hot here! What I wouldn't give for a forty-five degree day.

For Moe, well sweetie doesn't want to leave the house much lately because of the heat, and she therefore misses out on all the nice sunshiney days, the warm breezes and the bright outside.

I tell her it's her chance for her to wear all the nice new summer outfits she has in her closet. If that doesn't get her to go out, I guess nothing will. But no... Ah, well I don't insist much anymore since a girl in her condition knows best (although it doesn't show yet) what's good and not good for her. It's the weather's fault, she sez. Still...

For me, I'm enjoying the weather here, and though I occasionally complain about the heat n humidity, I would prefer this over cold n dank n windy any day. N it's always a good excuse to wear my short n sassy summer outfits heehee. Guess I'm a Summer Girl at heart.

I just have to laugh when ma tante du Quebec, tells us stories over the phone/skype, about her being trapped in her house in Sillery, Quebec because of the cold. It's the weather's fault she sez.

Tante Berniece is one of Dad's sisters, and is one of our least favorite people. Although Moe-Moe doesn't like her much, she tries to be nice n polite to her out of deference to Kumadesu-san, which, is the Japanese thing to do. (Kumadesu is her pet name for Dad. Sometimes she calls him our Big Tediebea, and though he won't admit it, I think Dad likes being called that.)

I mentioned my aunt before, I believe. (http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/33131/family-girl-21-chri...)

I suppose Moe's being polite to Berniece backfired on us a bit, and though Tante Berniece isn't happy with me and my "condition" (which is the biiigest understatement of the century), she seems to have taken to us (more to Moe than to me, of course), and has been calling us regularly since early last year. Originally, she kept on calling collect. If you didn't know, Quebec-ers (ahem, i mean "Quebecois") have a reputation for being... ummm... thrifty. And lest I anger anyone, please know I am not generalizing - I'm just repeating what my Dad, a transplanted Quebecer himself, told me. I am sure it's not true except, of course, for Berniece heehee.

Anyway, when she finally noticed that we rarely accepted her collect calls (It's like sixteen pesos a minute, after all, and an average call from her is never less than thirty minutes), she discovered Skype... So there's no escapin' her now. Oh well...

Anyway... I began this blog talking about the temperature and how Moe-Moe and my aunt couldn't leave the house, blaming the weather for it.

This sort of brought to mind another conversation I recently had with a friend over the computer, too. She was telling me about a medical consdition of hers. I, being my usual caustic, acerbic self, cut to the chase and said that blaming what she ends up doing on something she has no control over is just a way of absolving one's self of responsibility for one's actions, as in, "I am doing this because of my condition," or "I have no choice because my condition..."

She sez that's not it at all - that she is actually saying that it is more like it's validating what she feels, and therefore what she is doing. Again, cutting to the chase, I sez it's still the same thing - that she is using something beyond her influence to justify, i.e. "validate" her actions.

I tell her that once she accepts responsibility, she will feel a kind of freedom that she hasn't felt before, and I speak from my own experience.

In one of the lowest points in my life, nothing seemed to be worth it, that it isn't worth comtinuing if all it means is that the black hole that was life would just be continued. Emptiness prolonged wasn't exactly a good thing. My girl left me, I was just this side of penniless, my family was not part of my life anymore, my coworkers make fun of me at every opportunity, and so on.

With the help of my therapist I came to a realization that remaining where I was, wallowing in self-pity wasn't really helping me, and it just made me pathetic. Disgusting, really. And that, more than anything, plus the idea that I was already at the bottom, that there wasn't really anything else to lose was what spurred me to try and better my life.

In the beginning, perhaps, I didn't really have much to motivate me except my self-image of how disgustingly pathetic I had become, and how I didn't want to be that way. And, also, I had my therapist's tough love to bully me into making me move forward. So I did, and I was scared. I was really scared. What will people think? What will happen to me? Will I be able to find a job & keep myself going? I was timid to the extreme, so wrapped up in feelings of worthlessness, always feeling I was, say, not supposed to be allowed to be in a store and buy clothes, or go to a theater and watch a movie, or go to a restaurant and have a meal. I became this deathly mousy, shy thing, and in her own way, aspathetic as the old me.

My second epiphany came. Why, I asked myself, am I behaving so? Why do I feel that way when I go into a store or a restaurant, or a public bathroom or a movie theater? Apparently, life wasn't really empty, wasn't really a black hole, coz there were still things to lose. "Wow," I thought to myself... Wow...

My inmer me then asked myself a question: Is whatever's left worth it to keep on forcing mdyself to "move forward," as my therapist sez. Well, me answered me, apparently they are, otherwise why would I be afraid of losing them? Wow again...

So, me asked myself again, what are these things, anyway? Let's "concretize" them, as my therapist would say. Let's list them down and see.

So. Wanting to go to a public bathroom and not feel like I'm not allowed to be in there. Wanting to walk the sidewalks and not feel like everyone's staring at me. Wanting to walk into a store and be able to buy whatever cute clothes I wanted (if I had the money, of course) and not wonder if I was worthy to even want such things. And as I inventoried the list, I started to see a pattern. So... Is this it, me asked myself again? That's not exactly a great list...

Ponder, ponder...

Then another Aha! moment. These weren't really the things. These were only things that I associated with something else. Hmmm... So what is it? What is this other big thing? Ponder, ponder... This needs lots of pondering. So... Ponder, ponder, ponder, ponder.... (lol joke!)

I came to the realization that what I want is to be the person I want to be, and with that came a lot of other "wants."

And my wanting to be this - would this be enough to want to push on? Confusing, huh? Just imagine what I was was thinking.

It was sort of a circular kind of argument, and it didn't make sense. Where is Sigmund Freud when you need him? But when I pondered it some more (Ponder again? really? lol), It did make a cockeyed kind of sense - it means that what I want wasn't one simple thing - that there are so many little, inconsequential things (some of them even petty) that make up the the big thing, the big goal that I wanted, and there are all of these many, myriad little thIngs that I had to do to reach that big goal, and therefore so many things that I can fail in... Maybe that's what's really scary.

And here's my last Aha! moment: regardless of my present situation, regardless of who or what was to blame for my situation, or even if these things just "validate" why I was this way - that doesn't really matter. These "causes" or "reasons" for who or what I am now - they are all beside the point. The point is, I have to take responsibility for what I have done, and what I will do. No more looking at causes, no more looking for blame, no more looking for validation, no more passing the responsibility - there are things to be done. and I have to own up to these things that need to be done. No more "waiting for tests" or "waiting for so-and-so to finish whatever." Coz that's passing the blame for postponing what I need to do, or confirming what needs to be done has to be be postponed yet again, or confirming, "ah, so the reason that I am like this is because blah-blah-blah so I am not responsible for it..."

Meanwhile, the things that need to be done gets... postponed yet again. I came to the realization that postponing means not doing it. And I know, deep within me, that not doing it means not facing up to the fear, or escaping what I fear - fear of failure, fear of ridicule, fear of rejection. Fear of whatever.

And postponing and postponing just means it will never get done.

So, me sez to me - "there it is, honey, in black and white. It's as clear as day. So, whatcha gonna do about it?" Do you know how I answered me?

Okay - switch the time machine to several years later, and here I am. I am still asking the question from time to time, but I think I have conquered some of those fears, and I am still here, happy for the most part. Definitely light years better than the old me of eight years ago. There are still lots more of those "things" to be done, but laying blame, laying responsibility, confirming why things are the way they are - these are beside the point. The important realization is that there are things that need to be done regardless.

My friend who I talked with over the net - I have posed the same question. I wonder how she will answer the question, and if she will remain true to her answer. Or will she just look for reasons again why something cannot be done, or why something needs to be postponed....

Gosh, listen to me - I must sound crazy, huh?

If I do - just ignore me. It's probably because of the hot weather... There I go again, blaming something....

Anyway, Summer Girl signing off. Sorry for the long blog. Seeya later!
  

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