Thoughts and reflections

Quarantine and being isolated can really bring out some invigorating and introspective thoughts and feelings. While doing some cleaning and decluttering around the house, and after watching a video on the Catholic sacrament of Confession, where you confess your sins and shortcomings to God through the person of a priest, and you make amends for them on this earth to avoid punishment in the next life. After watching the video, I asked God to show me how to grow and change. I felt the call to make peace with my past, come to terms with all past hurts, shortcomings, and other things that may have been too painful to deal with, and I tried to run from those because they were too painful and hurt too much.  When I was young, I was very quiet and pretty shy until I got to know someone better, and felt comfortable with them. In Elementary School, I was placed in Special education classes due to what the school thought was a lack of expressive language, poor fine motor skills and an inability to interact with my classmates (I would cry when others would laugh). I attended speech classes and occupational therapy while there to try to adjust. I worked through these and was out of special ed by my junior year of High School.  I had a burden if you want to call it that, placed on me by my mother early on to be like my aunt and older cousins, Mom’s sister, nephew, and niece. All three of them were double promoted going through school, with my aunt going to one of the top public High Schools in the area, later getting her master’s degree in Education, and my older cousins both going to single-sex Catholic Schools (my family is not Catholic, but are of various Protestant faiths.  I converted to the Catholic Church in 2006), and also to be like her growing up, doing all sorts of activities (dance, Girl Scouts, Sunday School at Church, I even tried ice skating, which didn’t work out well). The going thought in my mom’s family was to go to college, get a job and be successful. My cousins and I all went to college, I am the only one that didn’t graduate. My mind was going everywhere, and I got bored in class pretty easily. I also could not adjust my first year of school, with being on campus and being away from home for the first time. . I felt like I needed to live up to expectations that were impossible to live up to.  I hurt so bad and felt frustrated, and couldn’t tell anyone how I felt, not even my mother because she would have a fit about it and tell everyone else about it, even if it was between me and her. I feel like I had trust issues with her, and later with many people, because of this, and I can’t tell anyone much, because we all know how word spreads amongst certain people. Now that I think about it, she was the type of person that wouldn’t tell me or my dad much of anything, I tried my hardest at school, but I feel that God had other plans for me, school wasn’t in His plan for my life. I am learning daily to trust in God and follow the examples of Christ and His Mother.