Togetherness

The boys have decided they’re buddies. It’s taken a while and it’s partly a product of the little guy finally being interactive enough to get into playing, but they love doing stuff together.

It’s not perfect. The older one often doesn’t want to share…sometimes doesn’t want to share mom. But then there are the good times:
- They climb up the stairs and go rolling down…laughing the whole way.
- They have crawling races.
- If one is doing something, the other has to try it too. Including the older one making whatever noises the little guy makes and trying whatever food he gets to eat.
- The older one gives the little guy hugs.
- They love playing in the bath together.

Sprinkled through the difficulties are lots of good times where I sit back and smile. I’m happy that my boys like each other (most of the time!).

blessed be your name

I’m definitely still on the fence about a lot of things spiritually lately. I’m finding that right now I’m ok having lots of doubts and lots of questions…possibly that don’t have answers. I think it’s ok to wonder without pinning something down right now.

So, I was listening to Matt Redman’s song the other day “Blessed Be Your Name”:
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

And I’m sitting thinking about it a little more… We always want to assign responsibility somewhere. “Well, if something good happened it’s God and if something bad happened… God still ‘allowed’ it.” Somehow God is responsible either way. (Unless you’ve got a sin and then it’s your fault, obviously!)

What if it’s a little different then that. What if God is just slightly less personal than the “involved in every aspect of your life” way. What if a song or a verse of the Bible about that (“Blessed Be Your Name”) is more like: God is still the same when good things are happening or bad things are happening. We might feel differently towards ourselves or towards God during those times, but God’s still the same. Not even really mentioning whether God’s involved with the circumstance or not, because it’s us trying to place responsibility somewhere.

I honestly don’t know if God is involved or not with my everyday life. He certainly hasn’t answered lots of my prayers in the past (don’t even get me started on the “God must have said no”). Right now, I don’t even know if I can say I find comfort in difficult circumstances because God is there…I just don’t know.

But maybe that’s the point: God is still God no matter what we’re going through or what we’re feeling. And somehow we find that God is different from us and God just IS…no matter what. We may never be able to describe it or pin it down, but maybe even in that doubt and uncertainty it can still transform us.

Of my two boys

I’ve got two great boys. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that. I’ve got a newly crawling, pulling up on everything baby and an almost 3-1/2 year old. I feel so exhausted and guilty most of the time. Exhausted because I’m not getting enough sleep: the baby wakes up 3+ times a night and the 3 year old has been waking up 2 times a night too. And everyone wants to play all day (i.e. have me keep them occupied). Guilty because I just can’t spend enough time with each of them. I need some time for me, I need time for each of them individually and it feels like there’s always someone feeling left out with not enough time from me.

My heart breaks every night while DH takes the baby to rock him to sleep as he screams for me to hold him. The 3 year old gets cranky and nasty that I’m not playing with him enough. Right now it feels like no one wins. I get irritated that I could be comforting the one that wants to be with me and let someone else deal with the one that’s cranky…but I don’t. I know the cranky one needs me just as much and needs to know that I still care. As much as it pains me, I hope the little one is ok without me during that time, because I know it’s still important.

But we’re all growing up. Soon I’ll have a 1 year old and an almost 4 year old. We’re trying out co-op preschool this year. we’re going to have snow on the ground soon. I’ll have two children walking soon. I’ll have two children not napping soon (as opposed to the one not napping right now). I’ll have bigger decisions to make in the future.

I’m enjoying my kids, but life is still tough. Maybe it’ll always be tough. Maybe there’ll be a day where we all get taken care of enough too. Maybe there’ll be a night where I get to sleep all the way through.

Today we went shopping, watched Dinosaur Train, got dinner in the crockpot, had a picnic, painted, got frozen yogurt, tried to find a Halloween costume, read books, and just played (plus all of the routine stuff). Most days include painting or stickers or playdough or bike riding or chalk or who knows what else. I’m looking forward to the day when the little guy can understand “no you can’t eat it” instead of me having to pull him away from whatever his older brother is working on.

Today the baby tried frozen yogurt too and the face was “why would you eat this stuff?!?!”. The motion was “give me more now”. Of course, he also tried Chocolate Almond drink today and was just chugging it!

Pregnancy, children and hope

So, I now have two children. I’m glad to not be pregnant anymore. This pregnancy was pretty rough for me. I always envisioned myself having three children, but then Attachment Parenting number one and being pregnant with number two (and now taking care of number two as well), I just can’t see how I’d manage with three.

My two year old still needs lots of hands-on attention. It can be very draining while pregnant and with a newborn. There’s quite a lot of time that I end up sandwiched between two kids at night.

I started thinking about things just after I got pregnant with number two and figured out that part of the reason I always saw myself with three children was just a desire to “prove myself better” than all those people who only have two. Not a very good reason to add an extra child into the mix. In fact, just after I determined this I told my husband “I think two’s it for us” and it was like a huge weight being lifted off of me. I feel very content with the thought of not being pregnant again, not having a baby again…just raising our two children. I think it’ll work really well for all of us. I don’t do overly well as a pregnant person and it’s pretty hard to fight off the depression sometimes while pregnant and I’m excited to be able to give my kids 100% again and be able to have something for me too.

Now even though I’m exhausted most of the time, not getting much sleep and still trying to recover from being pregnant/giving birth, I have a certain amount of hope each day that things are getting better. The hope started about a week or so after the baby was born – when my older son first came over and gave me a hug even when I was holding the baby still. It’s taken time for him to adjust to all of this as well. Now I’m excited for the days when life will feel “normal”. It took about 18 months with my first, I’m hoping for a year or less with the next one. Here’s to a year filled with hope!

Fertility Awareness

Now that my second child has been born, it’s time to start thinking about birth control again. For the last 5+ years I’ve been practicing Fertility Awareness. I am not anti-birth control. But for me, I will not take anything hormonal (had a bad reaction) and I also don’t want to do something that might simply prevent implantation of an already fertilized egg. On top of the birth control/pregnancy attempts that Fertility Awareness grants you, it really is pretty amazing to see what your body does. I would recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility to everybody. I personally think these sorts of things should be taught to girls entering puberty. I think it’s important to know what your body is doing and you see things like sex and pregnancy in a totally different light.
For birth control, this is different than NFP (calendar method). You’re not looking at a day of your cycle, you’re watching your body for signs that you are fertile. Even while breastfeeding, I had no problem noticing when I was fertile again. And in fact, talked to my husband one night and said “if we have sex tonight, there’s a good chance I’ll get pregnant”. Nine months later, we have a second child.
Of course, even with this knowledge there’s still a God-factor to all of this. Even knowing when I was fertile, it took us 2-1/2 years to get pregnant with our first child. But now that we have two, I think that’s probably it for us.
Fertility Awareness is still important for birth control as well as pregnancy achievement. Since I began taking notice of my fertility signs, there’s never been a time when my period just “snuck up” on me or when it was specifically late (without me being pregnant). I can usually predict my period within a day or two, usually about 12 days ahead of time. Think about how empowering this would be for young girls. No more having to get upset about “I can’t believe my period started TODAY”. It doesn’t mean it’s an enjoyable thing necessarily, but you can plan for it a little better. It’s so nice to know that God made our bodies in a specific way and there’s so much more to our “cycles” than just bleeding.

Announcing Baby #2

Baby #2 was born at home on December 20th after 6-1/2 hours of labor.  He weighed 8lbs 9oz.  We’re all adjusting to the new little person (including big brother).  I’m starting to feel more like myself after a week and hopefully the new year will bring a nice calm time for all of us.

The purpose of church and the question of music

I’ve somewhat agonized over the question of church for quite a few years now.  I grew up going to church every Sunday pretty much no matter what, because that’s what you’re supposed to do.  But in my married life I’ve stayed away from church probably about half of the time.  I think one of my biggest issues is: What is the purpose of church?  There are lots of good answers, but somehow either the answer doesn’t play out in church or everyone else’s answer is so different from mine that I don’t know what to think.  Maybe some of it is the modern/post-modern difference, maybe some of it is just me.

Some background (ok, a really LONG background)…  I grew up in an 80’s white affluent church.  At the time, they didn’t have a word like mega-church and even if they did, there were lots of churches like ours in the area I grew up.  A couple thousand people, three services on Sunday, the service was broadcast on TV, professional looking singers, Sunday School for every age, Bible Studies during the week, church sports league, etc.  You could pretty much spend all of your time in a church sponsored activity and never have to interact with anyone outside the church.  My family was very involved and for us children (being homeschooled too) we pretty much didn’t have contact with non-Christians (except for extended family because well, you’re supposed to be a witness to them anyway).  I wouldn’t say I had friends at church – through various circumstances I was always different than the other kids, but after so many years at the church you do generally feel a part of things.  At that time, my parents belief was that right doctrine was most important in church.  At some point (around nine years old) I stopped going to Sunday School and sat in the main service and it didn’t matter if it was boring or if I truly understood it; I was being inundated with right doctrine and that was the important thing.

Then it came out that the pastor was having an affair.  The church split, got a new pastor and our family left that church soon after.  For my parents, right doctrine was still most important but they didn’t truly trust that church anymore.

Then came the wandering years.  We tried most of the churches in the area, never stayed for more than a year or so.  My parents were still looking for right doctrine/good preaching, but came home complaining every week about something in each church.  Even finding a good preacher, they could complain about the music, the people, the atmosphere or whatever else disturbed them that week.  During this time, I didn’t really interact with the kids at church my own age (it was mostly discouraged by my parents and when you don’t stay anywhere for long you don’t really have a chance to be a part of a community).  I’d watch my parents at church – my dad sitting stoically listening and my mom with her sunglasses on and eyes closed and wonder what the point was.  I was gaining knowledge I guess, but was that really making me closer to God?

Around 15, I was in college and was around outside influences for the first time.  I made a Christian friend at college and started going to the college Bible Study they went to.  Wow!  My first experience with a college band and people closer to my thoughts.  I was going without my parents too – except when my mom insisted on going to check it out; make sure the teaching is right and everything (yeah, 15 with your mom at a college bible study makes you feel really different than everyone else).  They even started an alternative worship service (candles and everything) and I loved it.  It felt holy, sacred and real…and I didn’t have my parents tearing it apart after each meeting.  Of course, being that my parents were so isolated, very fundamentalist and somewhat not right anyway it started being a struggle to keep going.  I’d get yelled at for going, told I wasn’t being a good Christian or a good daughter (all those “bad Christians” at the college group influencing me) and even pushed to distance myself from any friends I tried to make there.  Finally, everything fell apart – not only the church who didn’t think the alternative service was a good idea anymore but my friends and family situation was too bad to continue.

Eventually I found a pre-emergent, post-modern church that I was going to on my own and by that time my parents were so convinced I was a heathen or something that they were happy I was still going to church – life was difficult with them, but I didn’t have any friends at church anyway, so they didn’t complain too much about the church situation.  Obviously without friends or anything, I can’t say I was a part of a community at church, but for that church I felt like a member of the team.  That was the important part – we were all a team together.  Church worked because everyone had a part.  It was a pretty big church with probably an 80% “ministry” population because hey, even if you don’t have much time, just spend a few minutes after church helping to stack chairs so this thing called church can work.  At the time, I loved it.  They had great music, I felt spiritual there and like it was a sacred space – even if I sat by myself.  They didn’t preach the “normal” verse-by-verse that my parents thought was right, but it didn’t matter so much to me and I was a part of something.

When I started bringing my boyfriend/fiance, it started to fall apart a little bit.  Once again I had someone with me who would leave the service picking apart all of the things they didn’t like (the people, the message, the song, whatever).  When it became too complicated to have one of the pastors marry us (full time college, part time work, regular church, plus 2 or more times a week of “marriage preparation classes”) I agreed to leave and go to the church where the pastor we picked to marry us preached.  Once again I was in the right doctrine type of church.  Didn’t mean there weren’t things to pick apart, but somehow it wasn’t as holy to me – it was just more knowledge.  Once the picking apart got bad enough, we just started staying home and studying on our own.  With a good commentary at your fingertips, what’s the point of sitting somewhere you don’t like when you’re not a part of the community anyway.

After a big move, we tried some churches again and settled on a Calvary Chapel.  Same thing for me once again.  Right doctrine was most important and even serving in the children’s department didn’t leave me as part of the community.  After having a child and finding that I could stay in a little room with screaming kids or sit in the hallway trying to listen (but have people constantly walk by telling me I should go to the nursery), it became an exercise in going out not even being able to sit in the service and hear what the pastor had to say.  I wasn’t a part of the community and there was no feeling of holiness/sacredness, so it didn’t make sense to keep going.

Now it’s been two and a half years.  I’ve looked into Emergent and said “yes, that’s exactly it”.  I’ve looked into house churches and said “sounds great”.  But there’s nothing like that near where I live right now and besides that, there’s still the question, what is the purpose of church?  I know my husband would still be along the lines of right doctrine/knowledge, but why do I feel empty when I leave that sort of church?  If the purpose is community, why haven’t I found that in all my years of searching?  I think there’s something broken with me in that regard.  Maybe a house church would work with something like that, but since there isn’t one here I don’t have much of an option.  What about holiness/sacredness?  On the one hand, I love the idea of that.  But on the other (like when I read Frank Viola), shouldn’t that be a part of all of life?  Does the idea of “worship” at church leave us with the feeling that music/singing is the only thing that worships God and that you have to do it in church, on Sunday (even if the music leaders suck)?

For a while, I even stopped listening to Christian music because I wasn’t sure: what if I don’t believe the doctrine that they’re singing?  Is it now wrong to sing the song (especially if right doctrine is most important)?  What if the spiritual/holy feeling I get from listening to music is just an illusion that I need to purge from myself in order to have a holy/sacred life instead of a once a week “fill-up”?

A few weeks ago I started listening again.  I even turned on one of my old CDs while I was at home for a while.  And do you know what I found?  Music reaches me.  Music for me makes me feel more fully human, more fully expressive.  I think when you get down to it, that’s a part of my makeup.  I liked the church and the places with passionate, talented music – not because I’m a snob and you shouldn’t be playing if you’re not any good, but because that’s how God reaches you sometimes.  I think there must be other people like me who aren’t reached just by sitting and listening to a “good sermon”.  Maybe the community stuff will happen at some point, but for now maybe I can let God pull me out of myself and reach me through the music.  Not necessarily the words expressed, but even just the feeling and sacredness behind the music.  Now, finding a church that believes that – especially in the small area I live in – probably not going to happen anytime soon.  But maybe I can still find a certain sacredness in the music apart from that and while most people may not understand it (where’s the good doctrine or the community?) maybe it’s still ok.  Maybe that’s what makes me me instead of someone else and maybe that’s a part of being true to myself and the person God made me instead of caving to what everyone else says is right and true.  Maybe God truly does reach each of us in different ways and maybe this way is ok too.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism

My blogging time has been pretty limited lately, but I’ve had a bunch of things rolling around in my head for a while now.  I finished reading Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong a few weeks ago and I was left with quite a few different impressions of the book.
I was pretty excited when I started reading it. 

The title itself gives me a sort-of “yes, great!” impression and Spong’s writing style was rather engaging.  I had heard that Spong was a little farther from Emergent Christianity than lots of people were comfortable with, but I was really curious what he had to say.  He started off with the whole “the Bible is a narrative and not a rule book” style which I totally agree with. 

He went through the various sections of the Old Testament including lots of details of what biblical scholars think of the various books (time period, purpose, etc.) and while I hadn’t heard many of the details before (did things really happen or were they written as allegory and/or political/ethnic protest) nothing was truly earth shattering for me.  In the last several years I’ve gotten away from thinking that everything written in the Bible had to have truly happened in order for the Bible to be true.

Then he got to the New Testament.  Hmm…  A couple things really stood out to me.

First, he believes that the Apostle Paul was probably a homosexual male.  On the one hand, not earth shattering to me – some of the passages that he points out do make sense if you read them with that hypothesis.  Maybe that was something Paul struggled with.  Spong goes on to psychoanalyze Paul a little more than I’m comfortable hypothesizing for a man that lived so long ago, but again it’s all just conjecture at this point and doesn’t really effect my faith.  Here’s where it gets sort-of juvenile to me though…  part of Spong’s reason for believing Paul was a homosexual is the verse in Romans: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”  Spong goes on to say that “members” is specifically translated as an arm or other limb and we all know that there’s only one male limb that is not always controlled by the mind.  Umm…ok.  Even in the ultra-literal camps that I’ve been a part of I’ve always understood that even they believe Paul was referring to a general sense of “not always doing what we’re supposed to do” and not specifically “a limb” like an arm or something.  It just seems like at this point in the book, Spong takes up the literal cause just because it advances his agenda.  Now for the juvenile part…  After going through his hypothesis and discussing the whole “limb” theory, every time Spong refers to a Pauline verse later he italicizes the word “member”.  I couldn’t help giggling every time I read a section where he did this because it was just so obvious that he was trying to make sure you thought about the verses in that way.

Now like I said, while I find some of his reasons lacking, Spong’s hypothesis might be true and it’s not faith-shattering to me.  But the rest of the book was a bit disturbing to me.  Namely, he doesn’t believe there was a bodily resurrection.  It seemed like he generally believes in a spiritual resurrection and that the Apostles and others had a “Christ experience”, but it wasn’t actually a bodily resurrection.

The second disturbing things for me was the feeling that he totally discounts any supernatural occurrences in the Bible.  The sense I got was that he believes it was only because people were living in a pre-technological time that they actually believed Jesus did miracles.  Even the general sense of the work of the Holy Spirit seems totally discounted by Spong.

Basically, it felt like most of Spong’s beliefs fall a lot more along the lines of Gnosticism or pantheism than Christianity and it’s only because people don’t really know about Gnosticism that his beliefs are called Christian.  I’m surprised that he is/was an Episcopal minister with the sway of his beliefs.  Overall, it was an interesting book to read (although I skipped over some parts that started getting repetitive), but in terms of opening your eyes to how the Bible is much richer than just a rule book and/or true stories that really happened I think there are a lot of other authors that do a better job and who don’t take away some of the mystery and supernatural-ness of the Bible.  I can agree that we don’t have to take the Bible literally for it to mean something and I don’t know where I stand on the continuem of how involved God was in the creation of the Bible, but I can’t let go of the feeling that all of this is much bigger than just us and this earthly life with a disembodied soul later.  There has to be something bigger than us and I like how N.T. Wright says that even if each of the gospel writers was not accurate and/or each thing did not truly happen, the events left such an impression that we know SOMETHING happened – something awesome and beyond anyone’s understanding – something that effected people then and continues to transform people now.

Surprised By Hope

I just finished N.T. Wright’s newest book, Surprised By Hope.  Like all of his books that I’ve read, I was very inspired by the book and you do find a definite hope in the book.  Some of the topics were previously explored in his book Simply Christian but this book looks specifically at the biblical foundation for the resurrection, heaven and what the church should be doing right now.

Most Christians that I know of have this idea of the rapture, going to heaven when we die and this whole purpose of being on earth as “saving souls” (making sure more people can get into heaven).  N.T. Wright takes the time to put the Bible into a historical perspective (what people during that time period actually believed was being said) and breaks down each point individually – including the point that Jesus’ resurrection was a bodily resurrection (transformed body, but still a body) and even during that time people had definite language and understanding for “ghosts” and such to make clear that a “spiritual resurrection” is not what the biblical writers are referring to.

First, I love one of his quotes about the rapture and/or going to heaven:

“When the emperor visited a colony or province, the citizens of the country would go to meet him at some distance from the city.  It would be disrespectful to have him actually arrive at the gates as though his subjects couldn’t be bothered to greet him properly.  When they met him, they wouldn’t then stay out in the open country; they would escort him royally into the city itself.  When Paul speaks of “meeting” the Lord “in the air”, the point is precisely not – as in the popular rapture theology – that the saved believers would then stay up in the air somewhere, away from earth.  The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is, back to the place they have come from…  Being citizens of heaven, as the Philippians would know, doesn’t mean that one is expecting to go back to the mother city but rather means taht one is expecting the emperor to come from the mother city to give the colony its full dignity, to rescue it if need be, to subdue local enemies and put everything to rights.”

That “putting everything to rights” is what Jesus began and what we are inaugurated to continue in his physical absence.  He will put the finishing touches on it and transform/renew everything in “the end” to make a new beginning.  But it won’t be a new creation that lives as disembodied souls “in heaven”, but a transformed creation of earth where heaven [the place where God is] and earth [the place where people are] fully overlaps.

So our mission is not the “saving of souls” so they can go to heaven, but the spreading of the gospel – that Jesus is Lord of this world and he’s coming back to restore and transform everything and we are his emissaries to show the world the transforming power of God.  “Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”  This is what salvation is about – not the “get to heaven” ticket that is so often preached.

I Escaped

It was quite a while ago (almost 7 years), but I escaped from my parents house. Maybe not your typical running away – I left when I got married. But it definitely felt like an escape to me. Sometimes it feels like I barely made it out and I remember the panic and secrecy of packing up my clothes and stuff – one backpack load at a time and finally a small carload or two to try not to draw attention to the fact that I was leaving. I left a lot behind. I still think about the things I left sometimes. I’m never sure if I should try to get the stuff on a visit or not. Would it start a fight? Probably. Or just tears.

You see, around the time I got a job (about 14) my parents started making it clear to me that NOTHING in the house was mine. I was an interloper. The house wasn’t OURS, it was theirs and I was just living off what the deigned to provide for my use while I was there. Even my savings account which I was putting most of my paychecks into had their names on it “so if I ever got out of line or tried to run away, they pull the money out so I couldn’t make it on my own”. Same thing once I bought a car. At that point, it didn’t even matter to them that it was my money and my possessions – not only was my stuff theirs, I was also theirs somehow. As I got older, it got worse. Working and school was a good reason to yell at me, because it took me away from “spending time with the family”. You see, I was neglecting my family by spending any time away from them. Don’t even start with trying to have friends. My parents made sure I had no one I could turn to and yet often yelled that they were kicking me out of the house because I was such a bad daughter. Any friends I did make (with their blessing to start with) soon learned that my mom monopolized their time as well as mine and they got them same flaming treatment if they didn’t allow it. No one stayed around for long.

The first person to stick around became my fiance. Soon after we got engaged, my mom called my cell phone one evening I was at school to tell me that my sister really liked my room orientation better, so they were trading our rooms while I was gone (after I had already told them I’m getting married soon so she can wait to take my room until after the wedding). They called to let me know of course so that I wouldn’t walk in to the wrong room when I got home late that night.

A few months before the wedding, I just started sneaking out a backpack worth of clothes and stuff at a time. I already did as much as I could at my fiance’s house instead of mine (although we still spent our requisite time at my parents house to try and keep the peace). I’d sleep at his house until about 2am, then get up and drive to my parents house to sleep the rest of the night – trying to avoid having to see or talk to anyone at the house. My mom at one point threatened to not show up at the wedding, but of course was there in tears that her “baby” was getting married. Pretty much anything large or anything in a main room of the house got left behind. Treasures from family friends over the years – well, how could I break up the “set” that was sitting in my mom’s shelf (one for me and one for my sister). I left it all behind. Even my baby books and anything else I thought would be noticeable to my mom.

Months before the wedding I started thinking about moving out, just to get away from the stress of it all, but some “good, Christian friends” told me it would be wrong. Too much temptation to have sex with my fiance if I moved out. Like sex is so terrible that you should put up with anything else to stay away from it.

I’ve learned since then. Seven years later I still dream about trying to escape. I never truly called it what it was when I was living there – abuse. I still have trouble with it sometimes. I’ve forgiven them for what they did, but I can’t let myself forget. I can’t let myself get drawn into their web of my own worthlessness again. I can’t let my children be drawn into that mentality. I still see them and talk to them and it’s really difficult for me. Everyone thinks they’re “normal” and “great” – and they think so too. And yet I know the truth: that their abuse has left huge holes in me, that they are still only interested in themselves and what I can do for them, that if I am finally healed it’ll probably be because I don’t interact with them at all, that even your parents can hurt you – and worse than anyone else. Do they have issues that have made them this way? Probably, but I can no longer treat myself as so worthless that I will allow all of their problems to come out and treat me like a non-entity and a person only alive for their whims. I’m worth more than that and perhaps someday those holes in me will understand my own worth too.