Personal discernments

You know I consider my parenting Penelope as a journey that her and I are on together. I look at it as a journey only her and I are on together, even though there are other participants in our world. But they are not on our journey, just like passengers on the same plane are not on the same journey. We are alone in this journey. But unlike passengers on a plane, who's life is basically in the pilots hands, I am the one in control of this journey. As much control as I can be I guess. And I just learn more and more that I really don't have much control over it at all.
This whole journey has really cracked open the facade of my life. I had a view of my life being one where I had total control and 100% responsiblilty and accountability for every single thing that went on in it. One of my pet peeves, something I have always seen as a huge character flaw - and still do - of George, is when people take absolutely no responsibility or accountability for their actions. "I was late because I ran into so and so..." or, more specifically "I didn't know so you can't blame me" when it came to Penelope's circumstances. It's like saying "I sat her in the middle of the road but it's not my fault she got hit by a car." Anyway, I countered my intolerance to that mindset by having a rather opposite mindset. I did know that a lot of things were out of my control but I felt that I could, if need to or if my energy was focused on it, gain some control of it. I don't think my viewpoint was much different than most people who feel that, with enough effort, they can do anything. Isn't that what we learn, and honestly, what we teach and tell people? I mean, I tell that to Penelope "With enough work, you can do or be whatever you want to be." Is that fair though? Not just because she is Penelope with Reactive Attachment Disorder, but just because we honestly don't have that much control over our paths? There are always news reports about some amazing person who overcame their adversary to become whatever they wanted to be. Shouldn't they put a little disclaimer like they do during exercise equipment or weight loss commercials "*not typical. results will vary." or something?
So my perception / shell has cracked open. My confidence in things comes from that perception. I'm a perfectionist at heart. I don't work well in the gray.. the "maybe." I feel like I have to start over at 34 (next month). Learn to live in this uncertainty. It's been 10 months since I've worked and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back into my career again. It's hard enough to find the level position I was at when just looking, let alone with the economy and having quit and not worked for 10 months. A couple of people had recommended being self-employed and do consulting work. That takes confidence - something I lack anymore.
Plus I'm consumed with my role of parenting Penelope. It's an important role but it's not one that puts food on the table. But it's more important than any role I could have that does put food on the table. So how do I balance that? That's another thing I've learned I am not good at. I just figured, it's something I could control.. but it wasn't.
I think I also hide in this role.. It has consumed me so now it's where I feel comfortable. It's what I know anymore. I think of it as Penelope's AT think of Yuckworld. It's not a place you want to be, but you are so use to it, you're are comfortable in it. It's scary to get outside of it and go into Happyland. I want to be in Happyland, but until I know that Penelope is out of Yuckworld for good, I'm having a hard time letting myself out of it too. A good offense is a good defense, right?
I just don't know any other way right now. I even "parent" my brother's kids that way. I see my brother and his wife do the more traditional correctives, and I cringe.
Two weekends ago, Penelope and I stopped over to play with the kids while their parents put a new "big girl" bed together for my 2 1/2 year old niece. I'm going to call her Maddie. She was clinging to me wanting me to play with her. She is into brushing your hair and putting fake lipstick on you with these toys she has. But she had dumped her brother's metal lunch box of army men on the floor and was refusing to pick them up. Total, flat out, refusal. "NO" and huffed off to do something she would rather do wanting me to play with her. I told her "Not until you pick up your brother's toys you dumped." Well, she had a fit. Screaming and crying. She wasn't going to do it and I'm just down right mean to her for making her. I said "Then maybe you need a time out to calm down." And then RAD Mom kicked in. "Thanks for letting me know you needed a time out. Let me know when you are ready to get up by stop crying." This was a modified version of Strong Sitting. Knowing, based on the rules of Strong Sitting, you have to change up the time by the age, that she wasn't going to be able to deal with too much sitting. So I checked on her after 15 seconds and said "Thanks for letting me know you still need more time" giving her two thumbs up and a big smile. If a 2 1/2 year old knew what crack was, she definitely thought I was on it from her expression. But I knew that when I paid attention to her, her cries got louder. But as a "Mom" I could tell her cries after the first initial 10 second fit were just fake and forced. After about 3 or 4 minutes and 3 more checkups, she stopped crying. I went in and said "Did you stop crying?? Awesome! You did great!" High fived her, and said "Now all you need to do is go pick up the toys and we can go have some fun!" She picked up every single army man with a skip in her step and a smile on her face. LOL. It actually cracked me up. Then about 30 minutes later, she got a hold of someone's lip balm. Expensive looking. Her mom gives her cleaned out empty lip gloss stuff but this was full. I tried to take it from her but she wouldn't give it to me and then she became all beligerent again. I took it from her and she busted out a huge tantrum. So it was time to sit out again. Did the same thing, but this time it only lasted maybe a minute. When she was done and was allowed to get up, she wanted the lip balm back. I said "No, sweetie." She said "But I stopped crying." That made me laughed. I gave her a hug and told her that she did and I was proud of her, but her sit out was for not doing as I told her to. She said "Oh, okay.." and went off to play.
It's a cute story but it's an example of how I am just this different person anymore. It's not that I was ever a yeller or anything like that.. but just like the rest of the world, our parenting instincts are just a certain way. Just like now, these are my new instincts, other instincts have changed too.
So now I need to go on a new journey of self-discovery. I did the sewing of oats/ self-discovery when I was in my late teens early twenties. Years working at the YMCA, traveling, and college. Now, I'm on a new but different journey of self-discovery. It's not just me anymore, but me with a child who has special needs. I have to find me in all this.
One thing I've done, and it just seemed that where my life has led me, was to start going to church. Penelope is much more religious than I am. And because of her, I talk about God more than I ever had. She has questions. I give her my take on it, but then am I just bullshitting her with my own personal spin? I was raised without a church. My father was born Baptist, but I gathered from the bits that I know about him and religion that he feels he's "done his time" in church, having gone Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays every week until he moved away from home. My mother was raised Methodist and that's the church that they were married in. When we were in grade school, Mom took us church shopping here and there, but we never continued anywhere. We grew up in a very Catholic area of town and my twin brother and I went to a Catholic school for two years in grade school to help us academically. We were the only non-Catholics at the school which drew a lot of negative attention. That's why it was for only two years. I had a friend in grade school that was Jehovah's Witness - who told me I as was going to hell which freaked me out... I did volunteer and work at the YMCA which is my only positive religious related experience. Which prompted me to try to go to a non-denominational Christian church - being that the YMCA is non-denominational - when I was in my 3rd year of school. But the one I picked, close to my neighborhood I grew up in, was so weird! They talked about how other religions are "Cults" including Baptists and Catholics and they knew they were evil and were trying to get you to think they are not. And how he was at a conference in Hawaii and met a witch who tried to brainwash him or some crap like that. People were "speaking in different tongues" and they had at the end time for people to come up to be healed. I tried to keep an open mind and went for a month. - 4 times. But then I had enough. That was my last attempt at going to a church.

My older brother, Penelope's dad, went to a Catholic high school and his senior year he was baptised. But after graduating high school, he never set foot in a Catholic Church again. I think he did it because one of the priests had taken him under his wing in high school. That actually is a little bit of insight into how George thinks. If you are super nice to him and want him to believe something, he will bend over backwards to fullfill that wish for you. But it's more in a self-serving way. It's very superficial. There are no true convictions to that belief. A few years after that he met some people that were into Neo-Nazis and he got into that. Strolling downtown wearing their Doc Martins with white shoe laces, picking fights with anyone they found inferior - people of color, interracial couples, homosexuals - whomever. I assume he did that. He would comment about people he knew who did that - but was smart enough not to say he did it too. I know he wore the shoes with the laces. He made a point to let me know what the white laces meant (White Power) and Doc Martins being German was also very important. All things German... That is the circle he met Harriet I also assume - since that was around the time. I'm not really sure how she came into the picture other than she was someone who didn't care he was a total social reject, since she was the same. But she had an identity crisis of her own she battled. She went back and forth from skinhead with her own black outfits, black hair to hippy chick with peace signs, long flowy gauze dresses and tie died tops and sandles. George hated the hippy stuff. But, just like George, she conformed to whatever was socially appropriate in the circles that were accepting of them. They got engaged and then Harriet ended up pregnant with Penelope. So then they broke away from the Neo-Nazi thing and followed their closest friends in a different direction and decided they would join a more family-friendly Christian organization. (I say sarcastically) I'm not sure when they switched over to the Klu Klux Klan actually but they had become more domestic even though Harriet got busted for putting hate flyers on cars at the grocery store parking lot next to their apartment complex right before Penelope was born. We knew they were racists but we didn't know they joined any groups until Harriet used George's membership against him during the divorce to get emergency custody of Penelope. It took us a week to get a judge to listen have another hearing so George could present proof of Harriet's membership also. Did you know the KKK have membership cards? Nothing too technical. It had a "Put name here" on a line in the middle.
After that went down, George saw that he couldn't be a member any more or he could lose Penelope again. George's KKK friends told George "Just say the word" and they were going to get rid of Harriet. "You don't speak ill of a brother or the brotherhood." How is this an okay group to belong to?? He still defends them as non-violent misunderstood people.
After a couple of years he had found a grandmother figure "Charlene" that loved to watch Penelope. She was very religious and talked George into going to her church. She was very good at selling the idea of church being a good place to pick up chicks to him. So then, as a single dad, looking for a "mother for Penelope" started going to church. I'm not sure what kind of church it is but I know that the women and girls had to wear long skirts and little white hair bonnets. Very conservative. George and Penelope went there for about a year. George stopped going to that church because he said they were too conservative for him and he had new friends at a different church (ie. new pond for fishing). But since he isn't much into the religious stuff, he only went when there was a girl of interest going. Charlene was very concerned for both George and Penelope's souls. Her church's belief was that if you didn't go to their church, you were going to hell. So she kept persuing George to go back. George would say no (he wanted to sleep in), so Charlene offered to take Penelope to church and for the day - no charge. So Penelope went to that church and learned how everyone who doesn't go to that church is going to hell. Including her mother and father. Penelope asks Charlene "What about my mom and dad?" Charlene says "They are going to hell." Great....... Penelope also has learned the criteria of who qualifies for heaven and hell and starts going around telling people they are going to hell. Great..... WTF George! He just dismisses the problem because this wonderfully nice lady takes his needy kid off his hands for a day once a week for no cost! Around the time I came in the picture...... for more than that reason but that was one of them....

So now, after having her for 4 years, we are going to a church. We are not members yet but I see that in our near future. I don't want to jump the gun but be rational and investigative. But I really don't see how it doesn't fit what I believe and what I want Penelope to believe. I believe that our religion is too personal to be defined within an organized religion. I also believe that there is no right or wrong belief as long as it doesn't promote harm or hate. For Penelope, I want her to learn not to judge but embrace her difference and others differences as unique parts to learn about. We started going to this church that is Unitarian Universalist. It's a small congregation which has it's pros and cons. This past Sunday was their annual "church shoppers Sunday" where they talked about what it means to be a UU and gave examples of UU members and their different beliefs and backgrounds. There were several other visitors like Penelope and I and this was the first time we met and sat down with the Reverend. We met with him with some of the other visitors. Two were a couple who are also looking to get married. One is Buddhist and the other is Christian. I thought that was so interesting! But they just talked about all the different types of religious backgrounds that the Sunday Sermons are built from. Not just Christian but all religions and that they are accepting of everyone as long as they follow and promote their beliefs. They believe all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sexual orientation, have inherent worth. They celebrate their different experiences, opinions, and lifestyles. They believe in moral and ethical living, striving to live with compassion, and maintaining the rational of justice and equality.
It's interesting, not this Sunday but next Sunday the Sermon is going to be "Blessing of the Animals." We are suppose to bring our family pet to church so that we can "celebrate the sacredness of the animal kingdom" and our personal relationships with our furry friends. Penelope has already picked out which pet we are bringing.