February Focus: Day 12
Growing up as an only child, it was very easy to think the world revolved around me. That’s because it kind of did, as far as how I was raised. Both my mother and father worked together from home, so I was around them a lot. My mother doted on me, reading to me, helping me with homework, giving me educational toys, and being my primary role model. This isn’t an insult to my dad, as he was always there too, but has admitted that it was mom who raised me. Either way, it was a good home life. Being the solo kid does allow for a unique vantage point in life, just as any other spot in the birthing order would. However, I’ve noticed over the years that being the center of your own universe can cause some interesting ripples when it comes to those in your orbit.
It seems a lot of the time I get people projecting their feelings onto me. I feel mapped out, as if people are trying to fit me into a worldview so they can live vicariously through me. Years ago before some of my friends got divorced, they’d always tell me I should go out and hook up with a lot of different guys, because “you’re single and you should.” Didn’t seem to matter to them that I didn’t ever feel like doing that. Just the other day I expressed wanting to have a child and was flat out told by my aunt, “Don’t do it, you’re going to have a really hard time.” This seems to be a pattern for me; always being told what I ‘should’ do while everything I want to do gets burned up upon reentry.
Perhaps a lot of this is my own insecurities coming to the forefront. I’m so desperate to have someone affirm my life choices that I think everyone else is against mine. However, I don’t think it’s entirely farfetched to think there’s hidden projection throughout all our statements, if you have the time to explore those vast recesses of space. I just may pick up on it a little more than the average person, as I’ve had plenty of time to navel gaze while floating about in my solo spacesuit.
I don’t really have anything against anyone who projects their things onto me. I don’t mind being the world’s lightning rod, but I would like to see some kind of return about it coming soon. I’m not sure how much I’ve been expected to shoulder, and I simply cannot complete this mission by myself. There’s got to be someone out there willing to hear me out, and let me bounce these ideas I have about myself off them. Until that day, I’ll just be writing into the void, hoping my own little solar system here has enough gravitational pull to bring the right things in this time.
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