I don't know what it is about August, but I always find it REALLY hard to motivate myself to blog.
But I am MAKING MYSELF do it now.
Phew. It's good.
It's good for me to write.
I have been thinking about topics I could potentially write about for the last few weeks, and I finally decided to talk a little about my childhood/growing up.
I have a pretty good memory, but a lot of my childhood isn't that clear in my mind anymore.
One thing I do know, I was a sassy pants.
The dictionary definition of sassy is:
lively, bold, and full of spirit; cheeky
As well as:
having or showing a rude lack of respect
Now, I am sorry to say, my sassy-ness was more like the second definition than the first.
I actually don't know how or why I became like this, I guess as an adult I can look back at it and maybe attribute it to Middle Child Syndrome.
But I don't know.
I wasn't a very nice child/adolescent, even ask my cousin Emil.
He LOVES to tell the story about how I banned him and my other cousins from coming to my birthday party, but I think they came anyway.
Hahahaha.
I am a little worried that my kids might turn out like I did.
How do you stop your kids from being ruthless little hooligans?
I guess it has a lot to do with your upbringing.
I grew up in a household where I felt ignored (classic middle child)
Even though I probably wasn't really ignored that much, I FELT IT.
And I suppose my way of dealing with this was to try and control the people around me.
My family have told me, I was a little b****.
But I don't remember it.
When I try to think back to when I was young, I can see how I was demanding of my parents and wanted respect from everyone.
I wanted to be heard.
This would manifest in being rude and brash with people.
I wish I could go back and sit my child-version of myself down and talk through whatever issues I was facing.
I was confident, but also insecure.
Loud and bossy, but dealing with feelings of inadequacy.
I was rebellious and counter-cultural while also being a child-version of a popular mean girl.
It doesn't actually make any sense to me.
I think maybe, even like today, I was trying to be funny but it just came across as mean.
And my attempts at exploring my leadership capabilities turned into me bossing people around, belittling them, making them feel like they weren't allowed to defy me.
I am sorry for the way I was when I was younger.
It is hard to accept that I was like that.
I don't remember it. It's like it was wiped from my mind.
I don't think I was ever a bully. I never went out of my way to make anyone's life miserable, I think I was just misguided in how I treated my friends and classmates.
I didn't know how to express myself or voice my opinions without it coming out negatively.
For anyone reading this who knew me when I was an adolescent, I am very sorry for the way Young Martinette treated you.
I'm sure if I met her now I would be horrified and tell her to grow up and get a grip.
And then I'd speak to my parents (her parents) and tell them to talk to her about her behaviour.
Something did change though, eventually.
My thinking altered.
I believe it was Jesus. He helped me renew my mind and I saw things differently.
I forgot how mean I was and tried really hard to be different.
To be kind and caring and understanding.
That's the person I was when I left high school and moved to University.
The friends I made as an adult would, hopefully, say this is the Martinette they all know.
Obviously I'm not perfect and I still have my sassy moments, but I recognize immediately when I am behaving in a way that is not nice.
It's usually only with my dearest Husband when we are in the middle of a tiff and I'm quick to apologise.
I think I was quick to end friendships with those who knew me as a child because I didn't want to be reminded of the person I was.
It wasn't a deliberate thing, but I think once you've hurt someone, those wounds stay with them, and you, and it's hard to move past it.
I don't really have any friends that I made when I was a sassy pants.
It's probably for the best but it is quite sad.
Sometimes people still see you as the person you were.
It took a while for my parents to see me as this new, kinder person.
For a long time, they kept treating me like I was Sassy Martinette, so I would become her, because that's how they were treating me.
I was always at my worst, my most mean and demanding, when I was with my family, even after I had "changed".
Just goes to show that your expectations of someone can influence how they behave.
If you don't expect much, they will not be able to rise above your expectations of them.
I remember that my Dad used to tell me that everyone who knew me, especially my family, thought I was a b****. (This is while I was at high school, undergoing my "change").
Pretty hard to hear but at the same time, I didn't fully accept what he was saying.
I acknowledged that yes, I used to be a mean little girl, but that wasn't the case now.
It took a while for him to stop saying it.
Family stuff is hard, especially when personality changes are happening.
It's too easy to see people the way they have always been, rather than the person they are now.
With God's help, I hope to keep growing and maturing and becoming a more forgiving and kind person.
It isn't always easy.
Even in the last 12 months I have made decisions that now I look back on and think "Wow. That was not very good. I need to do that differently next time".
I hope I can raise my own kids to be the kind of children that I wasn't.
Kind, patient, forgiving, always thinking of others, accepting and loving.
I guess that's up to Lyndon and me though.
Thanks for reading!
I hope I have given you something to think about / you've gotten something positive out of this blog post.
:-)
