In order to harvest life gracefully and successfully, I need to take a long hard look at my life, the past and the present, by examining my life for what it is. When examining my life, I realized that I must do this in a factual way, without judging my life as bad or good, or right or wrong, but to admit that it is what it is. Making a judgment on what had or didn't happened in my life, and wishing my life had been different would be a hindrance to harvest life successfully. Anger and resentments would get in the way of my goal to harvest life gracefully.
Now, I will start telling my story for what it is, my very first step in how to harvest life.
I am the 5th child of 11. My parents were devoted Catholics and did not believe in birth control. Never less this is why I came from such a large family. I grew up on a dairy farm, my dad spent long hours in the fields working the crops and in the farm barn tending to his cows. He work from sun rise to sun down. I did not have much of n opportunity to really get to know my dad on a personal level until he stop being a farmer, about 10 years before he pass away at age 73. My mom had a problem with depression and spent much of her time in bed or talking on the phone to her mother, who was my grandmother on the phone for comfort and understanding. I remember my mom saying how she would feel so depressed whenever she became pregnant.
I remember coming home from school, my sisters and I would have to do up the breakfast and lunch dishes as well as make supper and do those dishes. Then it was house cleaning, washing clothes and taking care of the babies until bed time. There was little time to do homework and school was not encouraged at all. I can still remember my dad after a long day of working on the farm, sitting at my mom's bedside holding her hand as she cried from feeling sad and depressed. It was also my dad who got up with the baby in the middle of the night if needed. Many mornings I would see my dad asleep in the rocking chair holding the baby, where he had spent most of the night.
As a result of my mom's illness and my dad's long work hours I did not develop any social skills, or coping skills to deal with any childhood problems other than to bury all of my feelings deep inside of me. I did not received any emotional support from my parents or anybody else accept for the few occasions that I was able to spend time with my grandmother. (my mom's mom) I did not know what feelings were or how to name or express what I was feeling until I reach adulthood and sought out help after my life had became a mess. I did not know how to make friends as I had no companions. I had my siblings but I never felt like I fitted in. My two older sisters bonded together and left me out on any of their activities. My brothers were not available because they were involved with working on the farm. My younger sisters were much younger than me and bonded with each other. Therefore, as I child I was left to my own defenses. I became a lonely and an insecure child, I did not felt love for myself or love from my family.
I don't have a lot of memories of preschool age but in my next writing I will write about some of those memories.
Again, I want to mention in order to harvest life gracefully, one need to examine their life in a factual manner. I really am serious when I say in a factual way, we do not want any judgments if we want to heal from our emotional wounds. This is the first step to harvest life gracefully. The goal is to reach a point of acceptance. Acceptance will come as we work on admitting what is.
What do you say? “ HARVEST LIFE GRACEFULLY!"
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