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Musing Moment 128: LFTIO – Story 1

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DSS Leadership – Assignment 6.1
Book – “Leadership from the Inside Out”





For the 2-3 most impactful and formative experiences and / or relationships, tell the entire story here:

Story 1 – The Makeup Kit

As hard as it may be to believe, I was once a little girl dressed in pink culotte outfits with twine braids in my hair, fairly carefree and for all accounts, happy. My parents were together. I didn’t question if there would be dinner that night. I played outside and when my clothes were dirty the laundry fairy magically washed them and put them away for me.

It was during this period of care-free, naive, and childish thinking that I had what has been a lasting and significant experience. I had a birthday around the age of six or seven. On this birthday I received a makeup kit as a gift. It was one of those cheap kits where the lipstick is more wax than anything and the eye shadow is much too glittery and the picture of the girl on the box is nothing like the makeup inside the package could ever hope to make you look like, but I loved it. It was my first “makeup” anything. My first “big girl” gift and as a little girl, I thought it was the coolest gift ever.

Since it had so many pieces in it, my dad had told me not to open it until all of our company had left. I always listened to my dad. He was my Superman. My hero. My knight in shining armor. As a child, I adored him and making him happy was always the most important thing, especially because I knew there were consequences if I did something I had been told was wrong.

That particular year, we had family visiting from out of town. I couldn’t remember everyone’s name. They were pretty much strangers to me, though I was told they were family and that they loved me. There was one cousin, an older girl, who really wanted me to open the makeup kit.

“My dad said not to open it. I’m going to get in trouble if I do.” I kept repeating that. Over and over each time she told me to open the package.

“Here. I’ll open it for you. Tell your dad I did it and then you won’t get in trouble.” She said as she took the package from me and proceeded to open it while I stood there. Looking back at it, there are all sorts of things I could have done. I could have gone and gotten an adult. I could have tried harder to stop her. As a small child, confronted with an older, wiser, more adult relative, I stood there instead, hoping that she would be right and that my dad would understand and listen to me and believe me when I explained why the package was already open. She was family after all. She wouldn’t do anything to get me in trouble. So if she said it was ok, then it would be ok, right?

That’s not what happened, though. When my dad saw the package was already opened later in the evening he asked me what had happened. I explained that the older girl had opened it. When he asked me what her name was I couldn’t remember it. He said it wasn’t ok to lie to him. I remember he was furious with me for disobeying him; for disrespecting him. And I, for my part, was crushed because even though I was telling the truth, that I hadn’t been the one to open the package, my knight in shiny armor didn’t believe me. My dad took my birthday present away from me and I never got it back. Ever. I cried myself to sleep that night.

How could my dad not believe me? How could my cousin have done something to get me into trouble? Why was I the one being punished for something I didn’t do? Why would no one believe me?

I know what it’s like to tell the truth and to have it not matter. I know what it’s like to face consequences for someone else’s actions that you tried to stop. It sucks. I feel a lot of my situation had to do with my age at the time. Had I been older would my dad have believed me more? Would he have thought of me less as a child trying to get out of trouble and more like a logical, rational human having a hard time articulating information?

From a very young age, I learned that people are going to believe what they want to believe and that judgment can be clouded by pre-conceived notions. I also learned that while it may not be your fault, you can still be held responsible to other people’s actions.

I try to keep this experience in mind when I personally feel wronged or disrespected or lied to. I try to stop and actually listen to the information being presented to me objectively. I ask questions and I try to get the full story. Not everyone is merely a little kid trying to worm their way out of getting into trouble. Sometimes we’re really telling the truth.

Daily Post 102: Day Two in Vegas

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Second day in a row. Go me.

I fell asleep pretty early last night. I fell asleep without saying goodnight to anyone, without taking my contacts out, which thankfully I’m far away in Vegas and cannot be represented by Ox for. At least not yet. Hugs and kisses, Ox. : D

I feel a little guilty for that; for falling asleep without saying goodnight, not for the contacts though I should because I know Ox dislikes it when I fall asleep with them in. Saying goodnight is important to me. What if you never wake up in the morning? What if you never get to say your last “I love you”?

There’s not a way to go back to last night and to make myself get up after my phone call with Ox, though. I can’t replace that missing “goodnight” to my brother and sister in law. All I can do is move forward with today and so far it’s been a nice day.

I wasn’t given shit for falling asleep. All of the guilt I have felt has been purely my own. So that has made the morning easier.

Jason and I went out for hibachi last night. It was a decent meal, though I don’t feel it was worth the expense. I’ve had better for cheaper so I feel bad that he spent that much money. But then I have an issue with people spending money on me regardless of how much it is. It was still nice to get out, just the two of us. There wasn’t super deep or heavy conversation. We haven’t talked about mom at all, not that I was expecting or hoping to. We’ve talked a lot of about Jace and how things have gone for the past year and a half. We talked a bit about Lio and her plans for the next little bit. We’ve talked about my move and how work has gone and what I’ve been up to / would like to do in the near-ish future.

It’s been… nice… though I’m not sure if that’s the right word. It hasn’t been negative. It’s made me realize how much has happened to me, for me, in such a short amount of time. It’s made me realize how well I have been doing on my own, which was part of the point of moving away from Orlando. To prove to myself that I could do it. That I could relocate and stand on my own and figure out the problems I was faced with and etch out a spot for myself in the world.

At at the same time, I realize I didn’t do it on my own. Ox helped researching moving companies and prices. He drove with me to Nebraska so I wouldn’t have to make the trip alone. He and his parents have given me a place to stay and have let me have the freedom to make the choices I’ve wanted to in regards to my work, my hobbies, my time, my money. They’ve been supportive and accepting and helped make the move and transition to this new chapter, this new venture, possible.

Talking about my life with my sister in law and brother makes me realize I’m grateful and humbled and that no man is an island.

I read a bedtime story to Jace last night. He asked to me. I was prepared for my mother’s picture on his dresser this time. I read the whole book without having to fit back tears. I tucked him in and gave him a hug and kiss goodnight. We also played the Zombicide tutorial quest. It was fun and I think as we continue to play it more and get used to the game mechanics that we’ll have more fun with it.

Jon is having a hell of a time getting here. His flight out of Daytona was delayed so he wasn’t able to get to Charlette in time to make his connecting flight. He has had to hang out in the airport for nine hours since that would be the earliest flight for him to get to Vegas. It sucks that he wasn’t able to be here last night, at the same time, because he wasn’t supposed to get in until super late we’re really not missing much time as far as hanging out goes. We would have come home and gone to sleep. No games, no family dinner. The situation sucks, especially for him, but it could be a lot worse.

He should be here in a few hours. I’m going to the airport with Jason. Maybe we’ll get lunch after we pick Jon up.

The morning has been quiet so far. It was Jace’s first day of school. I was awake before anyone else. I started the morning with a can of Bang since Lio was kind enough to get some for me while she was at the store, along with eggs so I could make breakfast for myself. I had an egg sandwich, toasting bread to go with it and not really caring about the whole carb thing. It’s early enough in the day that I’m “allowed” to have them. And I’m aware that figuring out my health / food / training thing is something I should spend a bit of time thinking on, but right now I don’t feel like tackling those topics.

Jace work up shortly after I did. I made him breakfast and sat with him while we both ate. We talked for a little bit, as much as you can with a five and a half-year-old. I asked him if he was looking forward to going to school to which he fearlessly answered yes.

My sister in law woke up not long after. I guess today is sort of hard for her. The whole “first day of school” and “growing up so fast” thing. Those are things that I haven’t, and most likely won’t, experience. I don’t have a child of my own. At the moment I don’t think I ever will. Those emotions and experiences aren’t things I have gone through so I can’t really empathize. I don’t know what it’s like. I can suspect and guess at what the emotions would be like, but I don’t know.

Maybe it’s a little detached of me, but it’s interesting to be on the outside, watching. It makes me wonder what it’s like to be a parent, a mother. It makes me wonder what it was like for my mom. It makes me wonder if I would be good at parenthood. It just sucks that shortly after that thought is the thought that mom wouldn’t be here to help me learn to be a mother. It makes it hard to want to actually go through the experience myself. I have a hard enough time figuring out my own schedule and paying my own bills. These past six months are the first months where I’ve felt financially responsible and like I’m actually making progress on my goals. I’m almost 30. If it’s taken me this long to get my life halfway sort of figured out, am I really responsible enough to be entrusted with raising a child to be a decent, respectable member of society instead of a fuck-up?

It’s interesting, having the time and space to ponder through questions like that. It’s comforting being able to sit and write through the different pros and cons and to actually figure out my thoughts rather than pushing them back due to more pressing matters needing attention first.

Do I want kids? I don’t know. Not really. At least I don’t think so. I think there are things I would enjoy about it. I think on some levels I would be good at it. At the same time, I like my freedom. I like not having that burden and stress in addition to what I already contend with. I also recognize that there are experiences and emotions that I can’t identify with because I haven’t gone through those trials personally. There are things that I will never be able to relate because I’ve never experienced them firsthand.

Ox will always have a different perspective than me in certain areas because he is a parent. He has been married. He’s been divorced. Our lives have been different. I wonder if I ever seem petty to him; closed-minded or small in my views because his experiences give him a sense of a bigger picture that I can’t comprehend.

That came up a little during one of our conversations before I left for my vacation. I asked if he ever got tired of me complaining about work. He does construction outside in the heat all day while I stay inside. Is it ever annoying to hear me whine about my day when his can be so much more physically intense than anything I remotely do?

He said no. Our work is different. He deals with things and stuff. I deal with people and lives. They’re different types of hard, neither better or worse than the other.

Maybe I worry too much about silly things, but I don’t know how to worry. I don’t know if has anything to do with being an INFJ, but I don’t know how to not think about how my actions or choices make another person feel or how they might be perceiving me or how something might affect them. It’s draining. It takes energy. All that thought and awareness of others. It’s why I enjoy the quietness of solitude so much. There’s no worry about others. There’s not additional input to process.

There’s just me, and for the most part, I understand myself, so it’s easy.

I know what I want to eat. I know what I want to wear. I know, mostly, the things I want to do and the things I need to do. I know when things need to get done. I know the scents I like. I know where I want things placed and how I want them organized.

There isn’t the balancing act of accounting for others along with myself and finding compromise for everything.

I feel like I’m rambling with no real direction. It’s the first time I feel I’ve been able to pick a single thread of thought and to let it flow to its completion, untangling it from the rat’s nest of a ball that has become my core. Maybe there wasn’t a real point to the thread other than having a better understanding of why I have craved solitude so much recently. Why it’s important to my sense of stress relief.

I feel like something within myself has been organized and finally put away where it belongs. The inside landscape of my mind slightly less cluttered.

It’s a small step I think, but a step that I’m happy I took. There are other threads, longer threads, more tangled and complicated threads, but I took take of this one single one, so I can eventually, with time, take care of the others, too. I can still figure myself out, and that’s reassuring.

I suppose, for now, I should go. It’s about two hours until Jon lands. I’m showered and fed. There’s not much else to do other than wait but I think I’m done with writing. I’m ok with ending here.