Things I Think About - Serious Manda is Serious
One of the things I've been working on during the course of my relationship with TJ (and yes, this does imply it's something I've been working on for SEVEN YEARS) is the fact that I have a tendency to take life very, very seriously.
For me, this issue is heavily linked to spending my youth in pretty significant poverty. When there already isn't enough money to cover bills AND food, there is no such thing as a minor expense, or a minor emergency, for that matter.
Beyond that, there are a whole shit ton of basic experiences you simply can't afford. You can't learn how to fish if you can't afford a pole, bait or lures. Either that, or you only go when invited by someone who does have all the equipment. Those invitations don't come often. Many folks assume that owning the equipment indicates a shared interest... Same with skiing. Same with so very many other things.
When I was younger, those things were for other people. In fact, there is no better way to learn the idea "that doesn't belong to me" than to be desperately poor. And I can't think of a harder idea to shake, even when the poverty finally stops.
My earlier struggles with this issue very much centered around the concept "that doesn't belong to me," especially when acknowledging a disparity in income. TJ, on the other hand, rarely thinks in terms of "mine" and "yours" and has been coaxing me toward "ours" from the very beginning. Anyone who has borrowed a book from the man is familiar with his lax concept of "ownership." One of many things I really love about that guy...
I mentioned in a recent post that I have a tendency to pad my expectations because I became tediously discouraged by disappointment. It was easier to believe I couldn't have what I wanted in the first place than to constantly be denied.
While this may all sound very dramatic to most people, I assure you, it was based on years of reality.
One of my favorite illustrations of our constant battle with poverty was when I was 15 and started growing out of my blue jeans. One of the bitchy ADULT women at church decided to comment to another teen in the youth group that my pants were so tight I looked like a slut. This, of course, came back to me and I was mortified.
I told my mom what had happened on the way home that day, and she felt terrible because she hadn't even noticed I was growing out of my clothes. The result was that we then went through my closet and got rid of any jeans that were tight in any capacity.
When all was said and done, I had two pairs of jeans left. One pair was too big for me. The other pair was high-water. And I made due with those two pairs of jeans until I had saved enough money from babysitting to buy new jeans myself, MONTHS LATER. Bear in mind, in small town MN, babysitting money was a dollar per child per hour. These kids today talking about babysitting income above minimum wage also blow my mind.
Though, I do need to go off topic for a moment here to comment on the fact that a "CHRISTIAN WOMAN," by my definition, would take the poor girl shopping herself rather than call her a slut to her peers. But the topic of being a decent human being is apparently beside the point...
Anyway, in contrast, a few years back TJ got into a car accident and "totaled" his SUV. I remember getting his call, being grateful he was perfectly fine, and then instantly going into "buckle down" mode. Like I said, when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a minor emergency.
In my mind, this situation meant that we would need to pull the belt even tighter for THREE to SIX months. 'Cause yeah, every time my dad hit a deer it meant MONTHS of our family pinching the pennies to an even greater extreme.
By default, I assumed TJ's car accident meant shit was about to get difficult for a period of time. But the aspect of this experience that was truly world altering was what happened next.
TJ has had quality insurance for a very long time now. He also buys quality vehicles that still have resale value to them. Within a few weeks of his accident, he'd purchased a new vehicle with about the same monthly payments, and we'd received our insurance settlement.
When all was said and done, we ended up with significantly extra money in our savings account. Why? Simply because his blue book value for the vehicle was greater than the amount remaining on the car loan. That was it. There were no lingering effects, there was no problem with our budget going forward. We just had a tidy chunk of extra in savings
Here I was expecting things to be rough for months and require sacrifice, and the dude actually came out ahead!!!! From my perspective, it was downright anti-climactic. Like I said, world altering.
But this experience very much illuminated for me my default assumptions about life. I expect life to be difficult. I expect every thing I care about to be an uphill battle for something that may never "belong to me."
And due to my experiences with my father, this went beyond money and into personal relationships. There is a very large part of me that simply expects everything to blow up in my face and become an even bigger struggle.
Now the reason it has taken me so long to wrap my head around some of these basic concepts is that it's not enough to understand that life has changed, that the basic norm is different than it was. I mean, I probably wouldn't have married the guy if I hadn't already understood that my life was going to be different than where I had come from. And while I'm kinda talking about financial issues here, these thoughts are less about having "money" and more about being responsible and making sustainable choices in life.
Rewiring those negative default expectations simply takes time, and it comes from experience. With every little event that plays out differently than my past, I relax more. And every time a minor emergency or expense plays out in a good way, I let go of one more piece of anxiety.
What makes this an active process rather than just the experience that goes with time is the decision to fight those impulses in myself. It's not enough to simply let it play out. With each event, I am forced to engage with and rewrite my own default settings. Or more honestly, I am forced to engage with my fears.
For a long time, the world was a scary place that I had to constantly struggle against. And it has to be obvious to most folks that I'm the sort of person who doesn't tend to back down from a fight. But it's exhausting to view all of life that way. There need to be places of safety and security. There need to be allies and people who can be trusted. There needs to be a community of support.
Thing is, you can't really embrace all the good things if you're too busy expecting the worst. And it's nigh impossible to find the joy in life if you can't stop taking yourself and the world so damn seriously.
I lucked out, because TJ is a very joyful fellow. He inspires me to let go of my fears. He inspires me to relax and trust that things will be okay. I still get the jolt of worry by default, but each time I choose to set it aside and face what's going on calmly, everything turns out to be just fine and those instincts fade. Over time, I've been working on creating a new norm in myself.
I don't think I'll be able to shake all of my seriousness. Some of it is a response to very real learning curves and I am loathe to forget those lessons. But I know now that I can have both. And joy belongs to me, too.
For me, this issue is heavily linked to spending my youth in pretty significant poverty. When there already isn't enough money to cover bills AND food, there is no such thing as a minor expense, or a minor emergency, for that matter.
Beyond that, there are a whole shit ton of basic experiences you simply can't afford. You can't learn how to fish if you can't afford a pole, bait or lures. Either that, or you only go when invited by someone who does have all the equipment. Those invitations don't come often. Many folks assume that owning the equipment indicates a shared interest... Same with skiing. Same with so very many other things.
When I was younger, those things were for other people. In fact, there is no better way to learn the idea "that doesn't belong to me" than to be desperately poor. And I can't think of a harder idea to shake, even when the poverty finally stops.
My earlier struggles with this issue very much centered around the concept "that doesn't belong to me," especially when acknowledging a disparity in income. TJ, on the other hand, rarely thinks in terms of "mine" and "yours" and has been coaxing me toward "ours" from the very beginning. Anyone who has borrowed a book from the man is familiar with his lax concept of "ownership." One of many things I really love about that guy...
I mentioned in a recent post that I have a tendency to pad my expectations because I became tediously discouraged by disappointment. It was easier to believe I couldn't have what I wanted in the first place than to constantly be denied.
While this may all sound very dramatic to most people, I assure you, it was based on years of reality.
One of my favorite illustrations of our constant battle with poverty was when I was 15 and started growing out of my blue jeans. One of the bitchy ADULT women at church decided to comment to another teen in the youth group that my pants were so tight I looked like a slut. This, of course, came back to me and I was mortified.
I told my mom what had happened on the way home that day, and she felt terrible because she hadn't even noticed I was growing out of my clothes. The result was that we then went through my closet and got rid of any jeans that were tight in any capacity.
When all was said and done, I had two pairs of jeans left. One pair was too big for me. The other pair was high-water. And I made due with those two pairs of jeans until I had saved enough money from babysitting to buy new jeans myself, MONTHS LATER. Bear in mind, in small town MN, babysitting money was a dollar per child per hour. These kids today talking about babysitting income above minimum wage also blow my mind.
Though, I do need to go off topic for a moment here to comment on the fact that a "CHRISTIAN WOMAN," by my definition, would take the poor girl shopping herself rather than call her a slut to her peers. But the topic of being a decent human being is apparently beside the point...
Anyway, in contrast, a few years back TJ got into a car accident and "totaled" his SUV. I remember getting his call, being grateful he was perfectly fine, and then instantly going into "buckle down" mode. Like I said, when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a minor emergency.
In my mind, this situation meant that we would need to pull the belt even tighter for THREE to SIX months. 'Cause yeah, every time my dad hit a deer it meant MONTHS of our family pinching the pennies to an even greater extreme.
By default, I assumed TJ's car accident meant shit was about to get difficult for a period of time. But the aspect of this experience that was truly world altering was what happened next.
TJ has had quality insurance for a very long time now. He also buys quality vehicles that still have resale value to them. Within a few weeks of his accident, he'd purchased a new vehicle with about the same monthly payments, and we'd received our insurance settlement.
When all was said and done, we ended up with significantly extra money in our savings account. Why? Simply because his blue book value for the vehicle was greater than the amount remaining on the car loan. That was it. There were no lingering effects, there was no problem with our budget going forward. We just had a tidy chunk of extra in savings
Here I was expecting things to be rough for months and require sacrifice, and the dude actually came out ahead!!!! From my perspective, it was downright anti-climactic. Like I said, world altering.
But this experience very much illuminated for me my default assumptions about life. I expect life to be difficult. I expect every thing I care about to be an uphill battle for something that may never "belong to me."
And due to my experiences with my father, this went beyond money and into personal relationships. There is a very large part of me that simply expects everything to blow up in my face and become an even bigger struggle.
Now the reason it has taken me so long to wrap my head around some of these basic concepts is that it's not enough to understand that life has changed, that the basic norm is different than it was. I mean, I probably wouldn't have married the guy if I hadn't already understood that my life was going to be different than where I had come from. And while I'm kinda talking about financial issues here, these thoughts are less about having "money" and more about being responsible and making sustainable choices in life.
Rewiring those negative default expectations simply takes time, and it comes from experience. With every little event that plays out differently than my past, I relax more. And every time a minor emergency or expense plays out in a good way, I let go of one more piece of anxiety.
What makes this an active process rather than just the experience that goes with time is the decision to fight those impulses in myself. It's not enough to simply let it play out. With each event, I am forced to engage with and rewrite my own default settings. Or more honestly, I am forced to engage with my fears.
For a long time, the world was a scary place that I had to constantly struggle against. And it has to be obvious to most folks that I'm the sort of person who doesn't tend to back down from a fight. But it's exhausting to view all of life that way. There need to be places of safety and security. There need to be allies and people who can be trusted. There needs to be a community of support.
Thing is, you can't really embrace all the good things if you're too busy expecting the worst. And it's nigh impossible to find the joy in life if you can't stop taking yourself and the world so damn seriously.
I lucked out, because TJ is a very joyful fellow. He inspires me to let go of my fears. He inspires me to relax and trust that things will be okay. I still get the jolt of worry by default, but each time I choose to set it aside and face what's going on calmly, everything turns out to be just fine and those instincts fade. Over time, I've been working on creating a new norm in myself.
I don't think I'll be able to shake all of my seriousness. Some of it is a response to very real learning curves and I am loathe to forget those lessons. But I know now that I can have both. And joy belongs to me, too.