Not ahhhhs, as in "how sweet." AH HA, as in "What a dunderhead I was to not realize that before!!"
I've had several such moments over the past few days, each one more ringed with gentle illumination rather than blinding flashes of clarity.
Consider my realization that I was toast as soon as I was born. Well, maybe not as soon as I was born, but certainly as soon as Ian died. Ian seems to have been the only sib in any way, shape or form like moi. He loved to bake to delight others, enjoyed being nurturing, was a voracious reader, loved cats, and - most important of all - asked questions.
People who aren't fundamentally irked at my basic existence have a hard time understanding there are quite a few people who are. Particularly in my family. Not just irked, but intensely irked. So much so, that Kerry basically identified me in a letter to Mom as someone who made her want to leave a room as soon as I entered. About as to-the-point as you can get.
I am, to my sibs & other such people, like fingernails on the chalkboard.
This, itself, was not a revelation to me. Trust me, when you affect folks like that, you know it. In my case, I knew since age 10 how Mim & Peter felt about me. Even then, I was a tough little bird. The thing that kept me from being utterly devastated was knowing - at that young age - that what mattered was how much I cared about them. Freakishly adult. At the ripe old age of 60, I find myself wondering if I felt that way due to being an unrepentant Pollyanna or because it was a very smart survival mechanism.
Anyway, I digress. As I've striven to be less fingers on a chalk boardy, replayed a few key moments when I was more bull-in-a-china-shop than bird of peace. Today, I asked myself what I could have done differently to get less wretched ~ for everyone ~ responses?
Nada. .
There's a lot of peace in that simple AH HA! revelation. Get over it, get going.
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