Objections!

People will object no matter how honestly you live your life.  Especially when you live your life honestly.  

They will examine you under a microscope.  Judge you.  And find fault with every decision you make.  Some always will.  No matter what.

As far as I’m concerned, the only question to ask yourself, is “can you live with the decisions you’ve made, and the ones you are making now?”

If not, can you go back and make amends?  If not, what is in the way?

I’ve been trying to work out a trauma which occurred in my life some years ago.  And I don’t have anyone to ask, anyone to help me work out any pieces of the puzzle.  I don’t need to be right about any of it, but I try very hard to get to the truth.  ALWAYS.

I realize that it can only be MY truth.  What I know in my heart.  What I see.  What I feel, etc.

The same is true for this blog.

I know that some may object to anything I say or feel and I am okay with that.  I am only attempting to speak about the truths which reside within me or truths which I may be questioning.  And I am okay with being wrong.  All of it is okay.  It’s not a debate.  

What interests me is getting to the underbelly.  Getting to the healing.  Just as I’m trying to do with my body.

About five months ago, an old and very good friend asked to speak with me, even though our friendship was at that moment in time, on a hiatus.  I agreed, and offered that perhaps we would even attempt to do some healing.

When we finally sat down together, I asked her if she would give me permission to be accountable to her for all of the ways I knew I had hurt her heart.  When someone offers this to you, my best advice, is to get out of your own way, stop wanting to hear what you want to hear, and let them.

She agreed.

I worked every muscle I knew to work within my soul that day, and I sweated through that conversation with love and with courage.  It was okay with me that I didn’t smell like a rose (literally or figuratively) because my friend afforded me the opportunity to take responsibility for every way in which I knew (and I knew in the deepest of ways) I had hurt her and for why I had.  It was a healing for both of us.  A blessed one.  Yet, I began to see that she wasn’t quite ready for all of what I had said.  So note to self, and note to my peeps, note this as well.  Ask for feedback.  Ask for proper pacing.

Me?  I’m a little pushy.  If you ask me for the truth I am going to give it to you.  So please be ready to hear it.

The day after I turned 22, my father told me he had terminal cancer.  Boy, was I pissed!  But my response was that I told him we needed to get busy working to heal our relationship.  And for the next five years, I pushed him like bloody hell in order to accomplish what I knew was going to be quite an arduous task.  

When he died, just a few weeks after my 27th birthday, although it was a truly sad passing over, I had no regrets.  He and I were good with each other.  Of course, my sister objected to how I handled his passing, but you see, that’s the point!  That’s what people do.

It was my prerogative to deal with our father’s death in the way I would choose.  It certainly wasn’t up to her to tell me how.  I stayed faithful to my truth and I had no regrets.  I’m not sure that I can say the same for her.  But I wouldn’t care to.  It’s not my place.

A friend of mine often says, “Jill, sometimes, I would just love to know how that mind of yours works.”  Well let me tell you.  When I think about how people object left and right about anything and everything anyone does, I giggle to myself a little bit.  No, that’s not true.  I laugh quite a lot because a funny scenario comes to my mind in its full regalia.  You ready?  Here it is:  The wedding seating planning!  I’m laughing already.  

I think about the “Machataynim.”  (That’s Yiddish for the in-laws)  I think about how the families often have to set about keeping the Machataynim football fields apart from one another so as not to start a riot on what’s supposed to be the happiest day of the lives of the betrothed.  OBJECTIONS!  OBJECTIONS!  If you listen to everyone’s objections, you will never get married, you will never be happy.   You will drive yourself completely nuts!

I feel a song coming on.  

Uh, oh.

I think I hear some more Objections!

Only Blessings.

11.18.11

Jill Bacharach