Help and Hurt are BOTH Four-Letter-Words

 This week has been solidly in the perma-twilight feels, but I've worked out all TWO days of it so far (or three? Are we counting Sunday? Unsure.) and that's been helping. Dope. 👏Ah.👏Mine.👏

This morning's waking-up-probably-dream-related insight has been: mismatch. Relationships don't work if there's a mismatch in lifestyle, needs, or goals. That's so obvious, right? But there's a big core piece of me that's always been like, "No! I am a bulldozer! This will work because it has to!" To the extent that when I first got to college and started dating I said, aloud, "I think I could be in a relationship with anybody - because I can adjust myself to who they are." WOW. CRINGE. HUGE RED FLAG. I think my mom said something like, "That's not...ideal." But not forcefully. And that says a lot about who we both were at that time.

My uncle posted something on Facebook yesterday in which he wrote a small essay on his dad, my grandpa. My grandpa's great qualities and what he learned from him and blah blah blah. And honestly - yes! My grandpa had some stellar qualities. I hear he even liked to help take care of newborn babies. He would walk them babies around the house late at night when they woke up in the wee hours, which was unheard of in the 50s. The only caveat my uncle gave was that he had "anger issues". No elaboration on what that meant. I wanted to add, "Yeah, and he asked grandma for a divorce and moved out too and you were the only one who got any visitation time with him when they were separated!" But I suppose that's not really my story to tell or information to share. Just a fun little nugget my mom shared with me when S was asking for a separation.

And, to be clear, I adored my grandpa. He was a 10/10 grandpa and managed his anger so well by the time that I came along that there are only three or four instances I can remember in which I realized he was upset at all. But it smacks of gatekeeping to me. My uncle had a completely different relationship with my grandpa than did my mom or my aunt. 

Eh. Families are complicated. Nobody's ever completely Good or completely Bad. And we're all getting triggered like whoa.

Driving around yesterday I realized that when a person is in a helping profession with kids they are, of course, helping and dealing with all the other adults in that child's life as well, but also - they're helping and dealing with the children that those adults were (due to triggering), and the adults those adults-who-were-children had in their lives. An infinity mirror of children back to time before history.

Fun!