Para, Para, Paradise

PAST

It shouldn't surprise anyone who's read the blogs so far that I read a lot of astrology. And one thing I've noticed in my horoscope, and in Chi's, and in Rory's, is that there's an awful lot about how we expect perfect happiness, finally, someday in life. One day, we expect everything in life to somehow smooth out, and to be what we always wanted and needed.


And it always tells us we're going to be disappointed.


Rory's, especially, is interesting. She has these transits that talk about how she seeks her own insular, ordered little world, that's comforting and familiar and provides everything she needs to feel loved, comfortable, happy, safe. They talk about how she seems to live in a sort of floaty, happy, imaginal world. There's a lot about dreams and fantasies. And, um, how she seems to be trying to force Chi to create that for her, as if he owes it to her. 


And it sort of makes sense, if you think about it. This hobby she's involved in I'm quite sure can be all-consuming, if you let it. There's special clothing and special hobbies, crafts, and skills. There's a whole hierarchy of leadership. Everyone has a special name, an alter ego, and plays a character. If you look around at the Facebook profiles of people in the hobby, a lot of them post their hobby name as well as their real name. Their friends are all from the hobby. They even have little symbols they all post on their profiles. I used to be a Star Trek nerd when I was younger--I had my Deanna Troi dresses and I could even do all but two of her hairstyles on my own head. (I went to a couple of cons where I had a couple of guys following me like lovesick fools.) This hobby looks even more absorbing and insular than that.



It would seem that we all expect the world to finally meet our needs and make us happy one day...and we expect each other to do it for us!



(Well, okay. Rory would probably be much happier if the earth opened up and swallowed me whole, but other than that, I mean.)



Look at this. Look at everything she expects Chi to provide for her. Look at everything I expected he would do for me! And, apparently, if astrology is at all accurate, he has quite a set of expectations for me as well. (I just don't know it yet!)



And it's all part of this thing, this phenomenon I finally do observe in myself, which took a long time to observe. Because when you believe the world is a certain way, and you believe this in error, you don't have the perspective to notice it as such. It's just the way the world is, to you. Why would, how would, you ever consider it to be a "perspective" or a "set of expectations"?



And yet I know it's true.   



I remember when I was a little kid. I was so unhappy. I had a mother who was my best friend, and then ugly, screaming, and rageful by turns. I went to school and I was the kid EVERYBODY hated. I was the kid who got laughed at every day because of what I was wearing, the hairstyle I had (not Farrah Fawcett "wings" when that was the ONLY hairstyle that was "in"), hit, kicked, gum thrown in my hair, beaten up at the bus stop. I was the kid who watched as other children I had never even met walked by me in the halls at school and pointed and laughed at me. Word spread far and wide...I was the girl to pick on.

 
I used to dream that one day I'd be a famous writer. That someday, when I wrote something everyone loved, or I wrote Star Trek or Star Wars or some such popular franchise, I'd finally be accepted and have friends then. My parents would be proud of what I actually wanted to do instead of what they wanted me to do. I'd have enough money so I wouldn't have to worry. Life would come up roses and I'd finally be happy. And you know, when I was married to Simon, he was like this, too. Of course, he was a lot closer to a career as a household name than I was, but even when it wasn't working out, in his mind it still would always work out. One thing you can say about Simon, he was a very happy, very sunny, very optimistic guy. (I got some very unrealistic ideas about the publishing business that way.) 


Come to think of it, he didn't have that great a childhood, either.
 

And then you sit there and wait for it to work out. We all seem to think that life is about It Finally Working Well On The Earthly Plane. Don't we all think that if we could just work hard and be good enough, we'd all be Donald Trump, or something? (And that's why some of us are very judgemental toward poor people?) And we keep working and struggling and waiting and waiting for it all to get easier...dreaming of the day.


In my case, it never got easier. I ended up in a career that's been very difficult for me, that I've only now managed to master and earn what I should be earning in. I started to have friends, but then elder care landed in my lap, everyone moved out of state, and I was too busy to notice. Now I can't find anyone. I met the love of my life, and then he died.



And I worked so hard during that time, I really did expect that after I suffered that last, horrible loss, things would finally turn around for me and be easy and good from then on out. As if the world would finally say, "Okay, you did a good job there. You're tired and you've been through enough. Bad times are over and you'll be taken care of and have only good, easy times from here on in."



And it didn't happen, and it didn't happen, and it didn't happen. I was grieving, and things just got harder. The elder care got more demanding, not less. The whole world just looked black.



And there I was sitting there saying, Hey, it isn't supposed to be like this. Didn't I do a good job taking care of Simon, and of all the other things I was supposed to take care of? Aren't I supposed to be rewarded for all of this?? Wasn't life supposed to get good one day??




I got so depressed with the world. It had just been too hard for too long. I started to feel like I couldn't impact anything, and nothing would ever go well for me no matter what I did. I started to feel as if I had been cursed. I started waiting to find out I had cancer, too. I just started waiting for the worst thing that could ever happen to me to start and morph itself into something even worse.


And then...along came Chi.


The world really IS going to reward me!! I really am going to be given some of the things I need!! IT ISN'T HOPELESS!! 


Throw the confetti. 



I think that, growing up in an unhealthy family, there's no sense of balance in what the world will offer. If you grow up in an extremely unhappy family, the world looks skewed bad in your eyes. And you make up for it by telling yourself that one day, if you're just good enough, ONE day it will all be as good as it once was bad. I did it. And, it seems, Chi and Rory do, too. Do all children from unhappy homes do this??



And it's never true.  Even with Simon, which was the most happy, fun, and effortless relationship I ever had...there were still problems. Horribly unfair, terrible things happened in the world outside that affected our happiness, and took him away from me far too soon.



And I sat around wondering what was wrong with me that life should be so cruel. Or, what was wrong with LIFE that life should be so cruel.



It never occurred to me that my worldview was just, wrong.



If you don't understand that the basic plan of life is that there will always be SOMEthing wrong, SOMEthing missing, and that life will never be "just GREAT!" you're going to spend most of it expecting that WONDERFUL thing to happen and fix it all.



And it might be the next person you fall in love with.



And that might be a terrible disaster. Even if the relationship might have been okay otherwise. Look at all the expectations you're heaping on the other person and the relationship.



Rory certainly heaped her share onto Chi, and he was slowly dying inside trying to meet her expectations instead of living as he needed to live.



Now I'm going to come along and do the same thing?



It really is time to wake up. Life's not a child's daydream.



The interesting thing about that child's daydream is, we're so happy while we're dreaming it. For years and years, as long as we think we're suffering now for a beautiful future next month, next year, next decade, it helps us keep our moods happy and sunny.



WHILE IT'S WRECKING OUR RELATIONSHIPS.


One thing I see now, you can't pile all that onto another person. Otherwise you can't let them be themselves. Chi and I were in love four months, and it was already starting to happen.



What do you think? Did you have a tough childhood? Did you enter adulthood with a dream of rosy, Hollywoodland happiness someday?