drwex | Journaling project, Day 38 (Reply)

It’s not too late. You aren’t behind. You’re exactly where you need to be. Every step is necessary. Don’t judge or berate yourself for how long your journey is taking. We all need our own time to travel our own distance. Give yourself credit. And be thankful you made it this far.

How far have you come? How much have you grown? Think about the specifics of your recent and long-term growth. What have you not given yourself enough credit for? Give yourself credit right now.

We've already dealt with the "you are exactly where you need to be" nonsense before. I won't rehash it; suffice it to say I find that it reeks of privilege and condescension. My thoughts go out to friends here who are battling cancer and depression; this is not where you need to be and I hope you find a clear path to the right places for your true needs.

The message here seems to be about the length or time of a journey. I do know people (including myself) who feel like if they haven't accomplished Thing X by Age Y then they're a failure. I hate those "40 things to do before you're 40" lists because to hell with that. My life is not a playbook someone else laid out and my goalposts are not defined by abstractions. So, yes, I very much believe we all need our own time to travel our own distances. I always knew I wanted a PhD. Finding a time and way to get mine that wasn't the expected "straight on" path was the right thing for me.

Likewise, the only regret I've ever had about having kids is that I wasn't in a place and situation to have them ten years earlier. Having kids when I did was scary to me and it was harder than anything else I've ever done or likely ever will do. But having kids in a situation where I didn't have the right partner and the right support would only have made things harder and worse. Whatever else my kids take out of their interactions with me, I hope they'll always remember that they were wanted, and the long strange road it took to get to that place.

Turning to the question of "how much growth" - it's very hard for me to judge. In one sense I still think of myself as the same person I've always been. There are notable events and things that have changed me. I have come to agree with the notion that "parents" are a separate tribe of humans from "non-parents" and I'm sort of OK with that. But I think this is more about the internal change and for me that's been one long process of discovering what's wrong, trying to figure out how to fix it, and then trying a bunch of things to fix it.

Last time I wrote about trying to manage my anger issues. I didn't even know I had them, for a long time. My brother was always the angry one - I was the peacemaker/peacekeeper. I had no idea what "mansplaining" was for a long time. I didn't understand privilege, nor the degree to which I carry and express unconscious *isms. I didn't understand how much baggage I've been carrying due to my trauma. And on and on. Each time I've come to understand that I have a problem and have undertaken to fix it.

Maybe I've fixed some of those things. Maybe not. Should I give myself credit for change? I tend to think not - if anything, I'd like to give myself credit for a dedication to discovery and doing the damned work. Goodness knows there are days I'd like to be able to retreat into old shells of ignorance.

A friend of mine pointed out that one of the challenges of having people with whom I've interacted over a long period of time is that sometimes they're reacting as if I was the drwex of old. If I've changed, but not changed enough to dislodge peoples' old impressions of me, have I really changed? Or does it really matter? I have a hard time giving myself credit for that.