The List

Alida over at Pantsless in Seattle just posted a list of 31 things she’s learned in life, in honor of her 31st birthday. It’s a great list and shows a joy and light of spirit that is informed and made deeper by some of the hard things she’s had to deal with in life.

I read this list at an odd time; this past week I’ve been feeling a deep sense of unsettledness. Some of the things about my childhood that I’ve been discussing with my counselor recently have left me with this increasingly stark awareness that what I experienced growing up isn’t normal, but it also isn’t normally abnormal. I didn’t have a happy childhood, but neither was I, say, molested. Yet again, I fall through the cracks. The lack of a commonly recognized “bad” childhood has made me believe that mine was OK, and I’m realizing that it wasn’t. Not only that, but I’m realizing how being not OK in a way that’s not really commonly understood is itself unsettling, isolating and cause for much self-doubt and even blame. If nothing else, it clearly takes a long time to understand that what you accepted as normal and OK isn’t.

And so, I read this list and I hear a voice in my head start to rattle off the things that I learned as a kid and I hear, finally, how grim and screwed up a list it is. How starkly in contrast to Alida’s list. And I get a sense of how much this list has formed a layer of negativity and poison in me, one that has held me back in so many ways over the years. Aurora has talked about setting intentions and how that guides her in moving forward positively. In another post, Alida talks about this year as the year of making it happen. When I contemplate the things I’ve wanted for myself but haven’t done (for example, writing or traveling to Mongolia) I wonder why it is I can’t seem to move forward. Sadly, I think this list is a big part of it: lessons drilled into me that still weigh on me and hold me down and back even with all the work I’ve done on unlearning it.

I’ve learned new lessons as I’ve gotten older and that list is better, happier. Perhaps sometime I’ll do up that list. But for today, I feel a need to make this list. Perhaps to speak openly finally about some of what I grew up with. Since everyone I grew up with is dead, this is the closest I can come to confronting them all.

This is not going to be a happy list or a happy read. It’s probably best that you stop reading now lest the negativity that I carry from that touch you, dear reader. This is one of those posts that is more for the writer. Thanks for reading this far.

And so, without further ado, here’s my list of 31 terrible and fucked up things I learned as a kid (it just happened to land on 31, I didn’t plan it that way).

1. It’s OK for my uncle to pin me down and tickle me when I don’t want him to and not stop when I beg him to.
2. It’s OK for my uncle to tease me about my genitals (including in front of other people) (calling it my “tallywacker”).
3. It’s OK for my uncle to tease me about being “girly” and call me a “cream puff” in front of others.
4. It’s not OK for me to not like my uncle because of those reasons. If I feel that it’s because I’m too sensitive (see #3) and it’s disrespectful of my elders, especially those who are giving my mother and me shelter.
5. It’s OK for your step-aunt (who’s four years older) to bully you and tease you. No one is going to do anything about it.
6. It’s OK for my mother to get upset and cry and say I’m selfish and don’t care about her when I’m asking for things I might want and need.
7. Related to #6, it’s not OK for me to get upset back or try to defend myself. I need to just take it from her because she’s my mother, she’s right and it’s my fault.
8. My mother loves me but doesn’t understand me (“You live in a different world than I do”).
9. It’s normal to (of necessity) sleep in the same bed as your mother until you’re 10 or so.
10. I’m a burden on my mother. She would be better off without me.
11. Your primary job is to be responsible for taking care of and making your mother happy.
12. It’s my fault my father didn’t write or contact me: he says I was supposed to write him more.
13. My father doesn’t want anything to do with me; that’s why he never calls, writes, visits, sends gifts, gives any indication that he knows I exist.
14. Kids should be seen and not heard. Go play in your bedroom while the grown-ups have company.
15. I’m going to Hell (learned at Christmas day homily when I was 6).
16. If I was a real boy, I’d like sports and play football.
17. You give those in authority (parents, teachers, etc) your absolute obedience and do what they tell you.
18. It’s not OK for me to ask for anything for myself, that’s selfish. I should wait until an authority figure offers me something instead.
19. It’s up to you to get good grades and get a scholarship for college so you can be the first in the family (and it’s expensive and see #10).
20. If you don’t succeed with #19, you’re a failure, a disgrace and even more of a burden (see #10)
21. Everything in life is scary and overwhelming.
22. You can’t do it, you’ll fail.
23. You should always follow the safe path.
24. One wrong move and you can lose everything (including love).
25. You can do what you want only when you finish doing what you have to do.
26. God put us on this earth to serve others and take care of others not ourselves, that’s just selfish.
27. It’s because you’re such a bad person that Jesus suffered so much.
28. Men and boys are scary, brutal creatures who bully and are a hair’s breadth from violence. It’s not safe around them.
29. You have a male body, so that means you can be just as bad as other men and boys. But you’re not really one of them, they don’t like you and you’re not a girl either. You don’t belong anywhere; no one wants you.
30. You have no right to think about what you want in life so long as you have your family. You have to think about what’s best for them and do that.
31. You’re going to be alone when you’re a grown-up: everyone in your family will die before you and leave you alone.

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