My oldest brother purchased me a pair of Converse running shoes when I was 10yrs old. They were blue with a red logo on the side of them. To a 10yr old kid these shoes were to be cherished and shown off to all of my friends.
I had these shoes for about 3 weeks when one day it had began to rain, not heavy at first, so I rushed to get inside and in doing that I cut across our front yard since it was the shortest path to the front porch. I was pretty much successful in not getting my shoes wet.
Once inside my brother, who had purchased the shoes, noticed that the front of the shoes were wet and had some grass on the tips from cutting through the front yard. He told me to take them off and give them to him. I was a little worried that he would be upset but thought I was just going to get a “talking” to.
He inspected the shoes and noticed the grass on the shoes and wanted me to see it up close. He held the shoe in front of me and told to look closely at how the tips of the shoes were getting ruined because of my stupidity. I looked closer.
What happened next has affected my life ever since. As I looked closer he hit me in the mouth with the part of the shoe that had grass on it and then threw it at me while screaming about how stupid I was and that he would never buy me anything again. Bleeding from my lip and tears running down my face I apologized and took my once prized possession which had quickly gone from being prized to something I was unworthy of and was a thing to be feared.
The other day I was talking with my daughter and the discussion came up about not walking on the grass. While I don’t really care if anyone else walks on the grass, I have an aversion to it. I try not to do it and will walk several feet out of the way if needed. She found this interesting and so we discussed the why and how of it which leads to this blog.
Though this blog is not about getting a split lip or an aversion to not walking on the proper path it does bring to light how we develop certain odd habits and quirks that we carry with us from our childhoods. I am sure we all recognize these things in ourselves and we can often look back into our childhood and see what the events were that affected us.
I often look around me and try to see if I am creating these events in those that are close to me. I check to make sure that my wife and daughters don’t avoid certain things with me, whether they be conversations or daily interactions. I am a little sad to say I can see some things that I have done that have “trained” them in how to act around me but for the most part I am caring and watchful of my actions.
We can often teach our families around us to not ask certain questions by our reactions or to not attempt certain feats, whether they be adventurous one or ones they just don’t have the skill for, because of our reactions in the aftermath of a failure. Words such as “I told you so” or “You should know better” are often our training tools as adults and parents.
Take a look around and see if your kids don’t wear Converse tennis shoes or walk on the grass so to speak. I certainly don’t have any Converse running shoes nor do I stray from the proper path. I learned a lesson a long time ago… and it is a tough one to forget. My family has it own oddities but most of them are self inflicted ones…:-)
Lin
The story reminds me a bit of my grandpa. He would not wear blue jeans. I was told his reasoning was because as a kid, only the poor wore jeans – he being one of them. There must have been teasing from the better off kids. All my memories of him are in dress pants. Even when he would garden or be on the tractor it was in some sort of dress/docker style pant.
Indeed, it is interesting how those personal quirks begin.
Your life is an encyclopedia of useful stories. You should tell them more often, for everyone’s benefit.
Whether it’s because of my quirks, I don’t know, but all I do know is I could vanish into thin air and it would only affect my wife/kids. Nobody else would notice I was missing because nobody cares
I am pacing myself till i am older. Brenda actually told Kaylen to hurry and go if she need to because she felt another story coming…:-)
dpullen, I often feel the same way as you. That is usually the point where I sit and realize that if there was no one left other than my family i would be fine.
It just wears on you feeling like a loner your entire life. Despite 100+
so-called “friends” on facebook, I can’t think of the last time anyone has called to ask if I’d like to hang out sometime. My “friends” never respond. God took the only person from me that ever gave a damn about me last year…the same God that so loved the world that he permits the only person that always stuck by me to die from cancer, as though that’s somehow better than the great flood. I think one of the things I liked most about the class is that I didn’t ever walking into class feeling like I was the biggest mistake cuz we were all in the same boat. There are times any more I’d be just inclined to jump in and not even bother to try to tread water because it’s just a losing battle anyway.
dpullen4 – so ONLY your wife and kids would miss you? ONLY? How do you think it makes them feel that you don’t deem them important enough to matter enough to you to count them as “there for you”? 100 friends would make you feel less lonely? i doubt it. We are all lonely, are stuggles are ours and ours alone to keep to ourselves. They may parallel others, but they are only ours to keep, get through and share.
The story I read above was to me about “rippling” if you gave up, or passed on, and keep seeing them as “only” your wife and kids, the ripple of that tide will pass through the rest of humanity like a tidal wave, making everyone more lonely. They are your living world, God is your spiritual world, all to you, yourself and yours. cherish.
and yes, it wears on everyone to feel like a loner, it is up to you and you alone to open up the doors to others.
also dpullen4…you are loved by all.
Well said. It is about the ripple that we cause no matter how we feel.
I particularly liked the statement…”They are your living world, God is your spiritual world, all to you, yourself and yours. cherish.”
I’ve always opened up the door to others, only to never get returned calls. I can probably count on one hand over the last 10 years that someone that wasn’t my wife, dad, or brother asked if I would want to do something with them. “Friends” like that make you really think about how much people value you as a person. It’s not that I really care about what they think of me, but the simple fact nobody cares enough about me to feel like I’m worth being a part of their lives.
I would agree it is frustrating that people are getting to busy to include friends in their lives.
It seems to me that we are as a group of men pulling away from other men and turning our focus onto more self serving things.
It requires a good amount of time to maintain friendships whether they are of the colleague type or the close personal type. I often fail at both of them.
I am sensing a theme here my friend. Honesty, simple and concise is the name of the game for this blog. It gives me ideas for my own. For most of my life, I have filtered, either for my parents, or for God, or for others. Its been hard for me to write a blog because I felt blocked. I am realizing now why, I’ve got to stop filtering and measuring the truth into digestible bites. Thanks!
Molly, I agree. Often our filters are there because we are afraid our friends need them. Soon they become who we are and then others only get a part of who we are.
You are great and I would be disappointed to only get part, especially when the whole of you almost makes me pee my pants with laughter.
I love you.