Anisette Studio

I just read a post of a fellow blogger. The post was about writing a letter to the self at 100 years old. I thought what a marvelous idea! What kinds of things would I say to myself? I responded to the blog but there was more to say I feel. I wanted to ponder this.

What I want out of life for myself is_____? Well, I have had two marriages. The first gave me my children. I want good relationships with them of course. I want to know what they do with their own lives. I want to be a part of those lives.

I don’t know what they think of me fully. I think. LOL that it might be nice to know. But I realize that we have to let them know who we are by how we influence them, we need to drop pearls of wisdom and be able to communicate what we think to them.

Parenting is important an important role, but there are no instructions on the bottom of the baby. We do our best then according to what we think is best. The information comes from our own experience; from what we observe and deem right or good information. It’s the business, the lack of time that is the “I got you!” This is where the frustration comes into play and not always with the best results.

The first thought to parenting is “How do I do this?” And you weigh the pros and cons of how. And finally, you decide on your direction. Usually it’s “not what my parents did!” Only to conclude they were not wrong in all their decisions. They too were doing their best according to what influenced them.

I would respond differently than I did when in my twenties because I have learned to consider others differently. In some matters I still feel I did what was best for me at that time, according to what I knew. But I do think of what I felt I knew. And I realize there were things I did not consider. That I am less emotional about what bothered me or was affecting me. Experiencing life does this. I can now bring into that experience other factors. New information about what others felt change things into something understandable. The problem is people do not know how to communicate well. We do not think about if something is true for us, it may be true for the other person we are upset with. There is a lot of guessing going on about what the reality is. So, it was with my first husband.

I started asking myself what I knew concretely about our relationship that I could examine and have it make me “feel good” about our failed marriage. I did after all marry. I found those positive reasons again. And I found my own flaws if you will. Meaning I went with marriage because I did not know how to find my way to an art school. My parents did not know how to support that because they had never been to college to know that experience.

A lot of hurt and anger swirls up because of divorce. People stop talking and assume rightness. The pinpoint behaviors become the focus, the reason to leave what is not working, often because those behaviors are indeed not what they should be. Abusiveness is abusiveness. It is not ok to do certain things to another person. I asked why regarding my first husbands’ responses towards me. He did not give me the answers I needed to hear, and he did not stop his behaviors. So, I felt I needed to leave to preserve me. Leaving became a nightmare. Years were spent on trying to understand. I did move forward but my point is I brought the past right along with me, feeling I needed to understand, and to justify to myself and others the wrongs of what happened. Finally, you let go of that. Usually when kids are adults. All that time is lost time. Thats the sad part. Its tainted time. And all you can do is live in the present and move forward.

So, what would I write to 100 year self?

Best wishes! Pejj Nunes