I distinctly remember my mother being curt with a woman at Steinberg's when I was five. I recall looking at both of their faces and seeing how different their expressions were. From this day forward I observed how these abrupt tones, words and expressions affected me.
Married to a man that has 4 siblings that have all done very well either in business and the oil scene, I have observed how differently their children see the world. Money does change things and perhaps the best word to describe it is, entitlement. I don't say this lightly and I am not judging yet when some parents present money to children, and inform them of their difference to others in wealth, their minds form differently than those that see the financial freedom their parents have yet are not entitled to it, or are taught how it was achieved, through hard work.
My mother was brought up in an upper middle family and I recall her telling me that her cousins had to live with her because of their financial difficulties. Wouldn't we see this as a blessings as kids, more time with friends, and family. My older siblings informed me that our mother had told them that they were different than others, and that they were special, more so than other children. I never heard this message and as a Christian I would have had to rebuke it, as I've always believed in at a young age that we are all EQUAL, everything single last one of us. Rich, poor, fat, slim, gay, heterosexual, educated and ignorant, are EQUAL.
We all want to be loved and humans will gravitate to people, and circumstances that will fulfill those needs if they are not met at home. I was the child that manifested what my siblings were feeling. I became quite ill in high school, eventually being hospitalized. I blamed the world, myself, my parents, and God for something I truly couldn't comprehend. Why was I in need to control my world. My world was unravelling around me and the only way I knew how to hang on was to control my eating and exercise. I had no real interest in either before, yes, I danced, swam and played basketball, yet I wasn't the star nor did I have any interest in being one. I was the kid who was athletically gifted without the competitive drive. What was striking to me was my parents lack of interest in anything I did by high school.
The one sport I did finally entered at the end of high school took me so far away from who I really was, it was devastating for all involved. I was desperate to fit in and be with my older sister, and to her unfortunate timing, she was trying to strike out on her own. I was floundering, I lost my compass, so I followed her University path and her sports. Destroying our relationship that I so yearned, I couldn't see the writing on the wall, and my parents weren't strong enough to say NO!. Most of my friends had gone to different high schools and I wasn't one to beg...thus although I enjoyed high school I wasn't focusing on my future, I was stuck in a vortex.
My parents had their lives and it seems we were to somehow fit in. Both my parents worked, and so many times I had wished my mother was at home with me, but it was never to be. She was happy with her career, or at least that is what I thought, but there was always something lingering. She spoke often of other Aunt, neighbors, friends back in Montreal, categorizing them as wealthy, unproductive, fat or lazy. I recall in high school asking her why she did this, she never answered. My oldest sister was privy to far more of this banter than I and she became a manifestation of what she thought my parents wanted. Success to her was being slim and making lots of money. This couldn't be further from the truth, what I valued, and what we had been brought up with, and what I believed my parents to value as Christians.
They brought us up like many families going to the cabin in the Laurentian's during the summer, and on week-ends to ski and hike. We moved out west and something changed dramatically, the distances were metaphorically and literally larger between homes, schools, work and eventually our family. By the time my oldest sister hit high school, I could our family was separating. She sought out avenues to attain love, then my next sibling did something else, by the time I came along, my parents thought that by the time I was 13 I was an adult, and thus no curfews, and few discussions. I was to behave as an adult with a child's mind, too scared to ask for permission to come home at a certain time. I began restraining myself in all aspects of my life, I bought my own clothes, I worked from the age of 12 and I didn't want to rely on them to heavily. Too bad for me I was the kid that yearned to held, loved, communicate to. I loved having discussions at the dinner table, and those disappeared too.
I recall asking my parents to "ground' us, they looked at me rather perplexed, "Why would we need to do that? You are all so well behaved?" How blind were they....did they not care, not see what was transpiring in front of their eyes. We needed boundaries to feel safe, boundaries to know someone loves us, and cares where we are? I got scared and my anxiety went through the roof. Weight dropped off my tiny frame long before I controlled my food. Several of my friends parents asked me if I had 'Anorexia?' I didn't know what it meant so I responded No!"
Fast forward 30 years, still observing the world and finding that the same answers that held truths then, are still holding truths today. My sibling still thinks that success is found in being slim and finically wealthy. For 30 years our voices have been strained by the bonds of family, she not realizing that slimness and wealth are merely outside appearances, real success is what lies inside of each of us. How much we have pushed love into this world, sleep each night knowing we've changed a life for the better, seen the wonders in a tiny flower nestled in a rock, looked out over the ocean and felt small, worked for a cause that assisted another's life, and sought out family members in good time and bad. For family should never been bound they should be bonded by unconditional love.
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