Labels, Summer, and the Gray Area
I don't know what it is about summer, it always seems to be more chaotic then I expect it to be. It always seems to either stand still with time, or fly by. I accomplish the world, or start fall with a mess of a house and unfinished projects.
For me, putting a name on things, labeling trauma, are very scary things. It makes everything concrete, it makes it real. It validates is happens, it becomes real, raw, and unavoidable. I avoid a lot of things until I am ready because well, I have this really bad habit of sweeping things under the rug.
Gray areas, I really hate them. I am more black and white kind of thinking. If it's wrong today it will be wrong tomorrow. You can do the wrong thing for the right reason if I can see your heart is in it, it's still wrong but I can forgive that. When you get into the clearly heavy stuff, the stuff that no matter your reasons is wrong, like hurting someone on purpose, then it's unforgivable.
Now you are like, well these three things have nothing in common. To you they might not, but to me, ah to me, this is my summer. This is like waking up everyday stuck in that movie Groundhog day. The only consistent thing currently, is nothing. That's right, the only consistent thing going on for me, is life is so inconsistent.
This summer the universe has decided I must be tested to the fullest. I am being tested by having to navigate territory every parent hopes they never have to think about. I am doing this while be in a blended family, with two out of three kids being mildly special needs. I already wished I had a handbook, now, now what in the actual fuck is going on? Can I unsubscribe, snooze for thirty days, unfollow adulthood? Can that be an option? Please, pretty, pretty please???
The answer is no, and it brings me to the labels. A duck is a duck because of all the characteristics of a duck, you wouldn't look at duck and call it a fish, it's a duck, and that is it's label. Not everything in life is going to fit in those nice little boxes of familiarity. Sometimes boxes aren't square and can be round, then what do you do if the object is square and too big to fit in the round box? What if you can't trim the object down to fit in the box?
NOW my dear friends, you have entered the gray area. Everything you thought you knew, well it's now being tested. If you do the wrong thing for the right reason, does it make you a bad person? What would you call a person who does this? If a person steals because they are starving and have no means to get food themselves, are they a thief? Are they deserving of a life sentence? Or do you look at the whole picture and go for leniency? THIS is the trouble with gray areas, not everything in life fits the clear cut definitions or labels.
Labels, summer, and the gray area are the bane of my existence. Is it Fall yet?
For me, putting a name on things, labeling trauma, are very scary things. It makes everything concrete, it makes it real. It validates is happens, it becomes real, raw, and unavoidable. I avoid a lot of things until I am ready because well, I have this really bad habit of sweeping things under the rug.
Gray areas, I really hate them. I am more black and white kind of thinking. If it's wrong today it will be wrong tomorrow. You can do the wrong thing for the right reason if I can see your heart is in it, it's still wrong but I can forgive that. When you get into the clearly heavy stuff, the stuff that no matter your reasons is wrong, like hurting someone on purpose, then it's unforgivable.
Now you are like, well these three things have nothing in common. To you they might not, but to me, ah to me, this is my summer. This is like waking up everyday stuck in that movie Groundhog day. The only consistent thing currently, is nothing. That's right, the only consistent thing going on for me, is life is so inconsistent.
This summer the universe has decided I must be tested to the fullest. I am being tested by having to navigate territory every parent hopes they never have to think about. I am doing this while be in a blended family, with two out of three kids being mildly special needs. I already wished I had a handbook, now, now what in the actual fuck is going on? Can I unsubscribe, snooze for thirty days, unfollow adulthood? Can that be an option? Please, pretty, pretty please???
The answer is no, and it brings me to the labels. A duck is a duck because of all the characteristics of a duck, you wouldn't look at duck and call it a fish, it's a duck, and that is it's label. Not everything in life is going to fit in those nice little boxes of familiarity. Sometimes boxes aren't square and can be round, then what do you do if the object is square and too big to fit in the round box? What if you can't trim the object down to fit in the box?
NOW my dear friends, you have entered the gray area. Everything you thought you knew, well it's now being tested. If you do the wrong thing for the right reason, does it make you a bad person? What would you call a person who does this? If a person steals because they are starving and have no means to get food themselves, are they a thief? Are they deserving of a life sentence? Or do you look at the whole picture and go for leniency? THIS is the trouble with gray areas, not everything in life fits the clear cut definitions or labels.
Labels, summer, and the gray area are the bane of my existence. Is it Fall yet?
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