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Blog Entry 100 of 125 Bad Mom
I call myself Bad Mom because at the time I came up with it, I was learning about the assumptions we put behind our words. I was following the pattern of not believing that my kids are okay, and speaking to them from that basis. I changed that, and it made a big difference. I am from Utah and my people are still living there. My husband was in the Air Force and we rattled around until we saw Colorado, and we stuck.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~Huh

Faithfulness, integrity, truth and stuff
Contributed by: Lisa Arata   on 7/8/2008

Last night I had a telling dream. In it, I was sitting in a boat, having an illicit relationship with some guy--a man a bit older than me. I'd liked him because he was sure of himself and he smiled at me. He looked like that Australian actor, Bryan Brown.

We're getting down to some business and yet it's not very fun. In fact, I'm disgusted by what I am touching with my hands. We can read each other's minds a little. He thinks I'm too old and too loose. I think he's greasy and uninteresting.

An acquaintance from my past whom I thought was pretty neat comes into the room and looks at us with disgust, as if to say, "I'm not even going to dignify this situation with a responsible action--I'm just goign to pretend it never happened." She looked sooo disgusted and I felt ashamed.

"Besides," she says, "He's been caught with twelve-year-olds before."

I jump out of the boat. Then in my dream my husband starts to seem like the gentle, clean, warm person he is and I've been unfaithful to him with scum.There's something about this dream that rings true, and I know it was a metaphor for my life.

I think about the problems I've been having lately and really, all my life. I have to say, fidelity is about as germane to all of it as I've ever thought of before. The times I alienated friends and family members, the times I haven't shown up for things I'd said I would do. The religious faiths I tried out and dropped. The money I failed to invest properly. The way I chose my education, my marriage. I wasn't faithful to...something.

And, the things I've envied; Military people, with all their pride and dignity. Some people I could've been friends with but they intimidated me. Boys I could've gone out with if I'd had more faith in...what is it?

I have always thought that i was being faithful to myself in backing out of plans and things when it didn't feel right. Only, now it's as if the picture is reversed like a film negative. If you have faith in yourself, you make a plan and believe in it, and you follow through. I don't really know much about that kind of belief and follow-thru. The only thing I've been faithful to is my marriage--and I've done a crummy job at that.

I hadn't been faithful to myself, who I was, what i stood for--because I have had no idea who or what I am. I've lived like a one-legged stool, always depending on who was looking at me to decide who I was at the moment. I've even thought that when I was enjoying some music, the musician would probably like me because I liked his or her music so much.

It sounds pathetic. Maybe some people start out with a goal and a plan of how to get there. I think my eldest sister is like that, and when someone like me is quick to change their mind or take a different route, it kills her respect.

Now I get this angry feeling like, "How dare you put a plan and a goal above a person?"

And, "Look at what your goal and your plan has gotten you! Nothing better than what I've got, even if it's more prestigious in the eyes of lawyers and folks of that ilk."

But what does that anger matter?

Do I want to be someone with a goal and a plan to get there? Why wouldn't I? What frustrated me in the past and taught me to act like I don't care?

Or worse yet, did I want to sort of go along with whatever came along, only to find myself with a sense of dissatisfaction in life, and miles from any sort of imaginings of what I might have liked, and finding it would be too drastic to make those kinds of changes?



What is a person?

What are words?

What are desires?

They must be just what we choose. And then, when we've made our choices and chosen our words, I suppose we just build on that, and decide what is appropriate for ourselves, and then when it's time for reflection and questioning,You can sayit's success if we have done what we set out to do, whatever it was.


The truth of you
Is not in what you say
But what you do


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Lisa Arata

Greeley , CO

Lisa Arata has posted 125 blog entries and 181 comments since joining on 4/18/2007. Lisa Arata 's average blog rating is 4.79.
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