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The letter V
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The petulant misinterpretations (miscalculations) I made of the
ways
my parents
occurred for me when I was young, were exactly that: the
misinterpretations of a child. They
impacted
my life as a child (to be sure) but only in childish ways, ways
which I would have chilled and quickly dismissed, had I made them
as an adult. But
children
don't distinguish "childish ways" and dismiss them. So my unchecked
misinterpretations continued into my adulthood. My past took up
residence in my future. It bled into my future.
This is the
trouble
with the misinterpretations we make about our
parents
when we're very young: left unchecked, they have a
disproportionately enormous
impact
on our lives as adults. In this regard, living is like the letter
V. We make (lay down) childish misinterpretations at the narrow
point of the V when its arms are close together ie when its
impact
zone is minimal. Then as we live our lives, the arms of the V grow
further apart ie the
impact
zone of the totality of our misinterpretations expands
inexorably.
In adulthood, the arms of the V are wide apart. The
impact
zone of my childish misinterpretations of the way
my parents
occurred for me, was
vast.
Left unchecked, my life as an adult was run by the
misinterpretations I made of
my parents
when I was a child. That's grotesque, the life of an adult being
dictated to by the misinterpretations of a child! The inmates were
running the asylum.
As an adult and
parent,
I'm maturer and wiser now.
My parents
did an amazing job raising me, an extraordinary job, an awesome
job. They didn't have a manual for raising
children
(children,
in case you haven't noticed, don't come with a manual). They raised
me amidst the plethora of other demands on their lives. Mistakes
were inevitable which I, the petulant child, had no space for. I
cut them no slack. I blamed them. Too bad! I bore that cost, not
them. I was righteous, heavy. And as long as that righteousness
stayed with me, it
impacted
my life and my relationships. How could it not have? The arms of
the letter V were wide apart by then.
That's bad news. Truly. Such missed opportunity! Such love lost!
But these are conversations for transformation. And conversations
for transformation don't just swap bad news for good (it cheapens
them). No, they invent possibilities for completing
the past so it doesn't bleed into the future. There's an
impact
zone of misinterpretations and righteousness, and also an
impact
zone of correction and completion. It's the same letter V.
Regarding the misinterpretations of my past, particularly in regard
to the way my
parents
occurred for petulant me, correcting myself and being complete
generates a
vast
new opening.
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