Mistakes and Regrets, Part 1

I have none.
Part of being a fighter is building on your weakness as well as your strengths.  I have fought long and hard to get to where I am now.  And today, of all days, I cry.  Like a weak, pathetic thing, I cry.
Why?
Mostly because I have enough hormones racing through me to make a statue of granite burst into tears.
But also because my mother cannot deal with the past.
My last post on this blog was a harsh look into my own past, which happens to also be her past.

This is not something for which anyone in my family should be unprepared.  I am the trouble maker.  I bring up history when everyone else would rather sweep it under the rug and smile and eat turkey.
Why do I do this?

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  ~Winston Churchill

I believe this as much as I believe in anything.  Unequivocally.

So too do I believe that I myself have made bad decisions in the past, and difficult decisions that make me sad to think about.  Am I happy that I didn't leave my first husband before starting a new love affair? Of course not.  But I don't know if I would have left that pointless relationship if not for the lust that drove me into the arms of another man, which ultimately led me to my independence, and the horrible karma I paid in return.
Do I look back with tears in my eyes at having made the decision to abort my first pregnancy?  Of course I do.  But I know beyond doubt that I would do it again, crying the whole way there and back.  It was not a good life for me or for a potential baby to be in.
I have traveled a rocky road, I have paid penance for hurts that I have caused.  I look into the past not with regret but with open eyes, determined not to retrace my steps, determined to be a better person going forward.  And what my mother doesn't understand is that she is one of the people that taught me to be this way.

Which brings me to the issue of the cycle.
I vow not to be wife to an abusive man.
I vow not to allow my children to be victimized by anyone.
I vow not to live in a loveless marriage.
I vow not to abuse drugs, to hit, to terrorize, to ignore, to pretend.

These are things I learned from the people around me, the people closest to me.  I learned how not to do what they did.  And yes, my mother is one of those people.
Does this make me love her less?
No.
I know she was a victim as I was, and broke the cycle in the only ways she knew how.
I also know that a failure to look back with eyes open, as well as a failure to face the present with the same clarity, condemns us to repeating, rather than breaking, the cycle.
And now it is my turn.

So, mom, and anyone else who has a problem with what I write, I'm sorry that people make us feel bad for wanting to understand our past.
I'm sorry that people deny us our truths.
I'm sorry that being hurt makes us want to hurt, even the innocent, in return.
I'm sorry that facing our own truths is like reopening a wound that won't seem to stop bleeding.
I'm sorry that it's easier to pretend than to take off the mask.

I know it is difficult to be the agitator.  I know it is crushing to confront a painful reality.  I know how hard it is to say "no" when everyone else is saying "yes," to say "listen" when everyone has their hands over their ears.
I know what it is like to be on the outside.
To hear over and over, "oh you're just being overdramatic."  (Yes, because it is highly overdramatic to be outraged at the memory of having my pants pulled down and spanked with the bare meaty palm of my stepfather at the age of 14, right before we leave for Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.)
I do not blame anyone for not wanting to live the life of the agitator.

But I learned who I wanted to be as a result of watching, and listening to, those closest to me.  Especially when the advice was cautionary.

"Be social.  Be strong.  Be a fighter.  Stand up for the weak.  Speak out for the voiceless.  Learn from my mistakes.  Be passionate in everything you do.  Write what you know.  Do as I say and not as I do."

Now, today, years later, you cannot be upset when my life clearly says, in response, "okay."