Gifts from the Past, Imperfect and Precious

        Had to shift around some storage boxes today, and came across a few, in particular, with great, sentimental value.

        Two were from my mother; most of what I now have from her.  They are mostly stuffed animals and baby blankets she kept, all those years, that connect me with infancy.  I can remember holding them in my little hands, slobbering on them lol!

        There is also a doll that she had had made for me, by someone from her work, because I had been asking for a Cabbage Patch doll for years, and my parents couldn't afford one.  I remember she told me, "Now, this is not a doll to play with; this is a doll to keep on your bed to look pretty."  I would sit or lay on my bed, and just look at the doll, feeling the fabric of her, and playing gently with the yarn of her hair.  I thought I'd lost her, forever, and here my mom saved her and the other things - clearly I inherited the ultra-sentimentality from her, even if I didn't have her in my life much, after I entered my teens!

        The other box contained some items from my grandmother, from my father's side.  I remember wandering around Grandma's and Grandpa's house, entranced by the decades-old decor, fascinated with imagining what had happened all the years those things had been a part of their home.  I remember her toy drawer she had set up for the grandkids, and many of the items inside it, reminded by a couple of items I found!  Things I had adored, and that were special for reasons I alone could appreciate.

        It all reconnected me with parts of my past that mattered, but that I've now realized I'd had to leave behind when I tried to let go of it.  There was no way I could escape some parts of my past, without letting all the other parts go.  I'm seeing how far I've come, and how much I've healed, to look in those boxes and be not only okay seeing their contents, but happy at knowing those pieces of my past hadn't been severed, completely!

        I've been feeling, lately, like things have just been going backwards, within me and within my life, and here I find that it isn't true!  It is because I've come forward, that I've come to realize that there are things about myself, and my life, that need attention, not because they have suddenly sprung into existence, but because I have advanced to the point at which I realize they are there, and that something needs done about them!

        I may make mistakes, or cause messes, or create hurt, in the process, but that is a huge part of what growing up human is all about.  It's like those web sites or programs that say, in their 10,000-word legalese notice contracts, that by continuing to make use of the product or service, we agree to the terms thereof.  If I want to be a better and more advanced human, there is a natural, essential, and required, educational process that is involved, that cannot be escaped, and... well, being human is part of that process.

        Those two women, my mother and my grandmother, were not traditionally involved with my life.  My life never was fully traditional, in many definitions of the word!  But they were both deeply important to me, in ways I couldn't understand quite like I can, now.  I'm so grateful that I've had and kept those little trinkets, so that I can see that, so clearly!  A huge part of the good that I am came from them, despite their being incredibly, imperfectly and beautifully human.

        I grew up knowing things that they both wished to keep secrets, and I kept them, and as I grew up, the contexts and meanings of those secrets changed and shaped the way I have viewed the world.  I am realizing that the things I thought were faults, failures and foibles of theirs to hide, were actually things that taught me that it is okay to be flawed, and imperfect, and even to have things about me that others wouldn't understand.  They simply add to my depth and character as a human.

        And I no longer hide in fear of being a person of unusual depth, character and understanding.  They taught me that it's okay.  I still adored them, so they were still worth adoring, even with the quirks that made them wonderfully and uniquely imperfect, too.  I've not yet reached the point of completely accepting myself, as the ghosts of the past keep interrupting my view and blurring what I perceive, think and feel, but looking at the precious life-gifts in those boxes helped me see that that is okay, too.  It's all a process, and a worthwhile one, at that.

        And that is what happens when PB is caught by the random and unexpected.  But we tend to do stuff like that a lot, at our house.  Anyway...

        Better days ahead, my friends!