Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want to Know the Answers To

Okay, so like the title says my point lately is don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. This is one of the first rules of Tarot, but also should be one of the first rules of life. My biggest problem is that I'm extremely curious. Honestly, the answers I will get will most likely torture me. I will stay awake at night replaying the scenarios or words in my head, creating extremely deep wounds. Once they start to coagulate and heal, I start replaying it again and again, opening up the wound and further agitating it. Is this sick to the point of masochism? Yes. Can I help it? Maybe. But like I said, my curiosity eats at me. Not knowing is far worse to me. I have always had an overactive imagination (quite a shock to you guys, I know, lol) and if I don't know the actual answers I'll invent my own. Mine, however, won't be anywhere close to reasonable. They'll involve Mexican drug cartels, cheating suburban gardeners, and rocket ships getting lost in the atmosphere. All that to explain why you didn't call me back last night. Yeah, it's crazy. I get that. I'm working on it.

It blows my mind to think that parents could disown a child because their political beliefs, moral compasses, or life 'choices' don't exactly mesh. Isn't the whole point of becoming a parent is to show another human being unconditional love so deep and earth-shattering you can lift cars off of them and move entire mountains to make sure they never have to suffer like you did? People become parents for various reasons, I'll concede that. But something should happen when you hold that child- regardless of whether you're a Christian, two-parent family who planned the kid or an alcoholic single woman who had an accident- regardless of the circumstances, something should happen. You should look into the eyes of that innocent and realize that the world you used to live in suddenly just got a lot bigger and scarier. You're no longer the nucleus of your universe. Somehow, overnight, someone else came into your world and should own part of your heart. Everything that mattered before should be called into question and your priorities should be completely reshuffled. I'm not saying you should completely disregard your belief system, but your priority should be loving your child. Above anything- your addictions, your friends, your love of designer shoes- all of that should become arbitrary.

I don't know. I guess I have this romanticized concept of love and family. I barely have the ability to cut someone out of my life for actually betraying me, let alone just because I don't agree with something they do. A lot of people have told me that this is because I'm 'too nice' (which, by the way, is complete B.S. because there's an equal amount of people that would argue that I've acheived a new level of bitchiness. That's another rant for another time.). I've spent a lifetime attempting to cultivate and create the family that the books and movies show us. At what age does one give up and realize that it's just never going to happen?

Except I have family. I have the most amazing friends that anyone could ever ask for. When we hang out, I get that Hallmark-y family feeling. We've watched sunsets, sunrises, held each other when the world crashed down around us, gotten angry by proxy, stayed up all night asking the important questions- forcing each other to think more deeply and from different perspectives, but above all- we've made each other laugh. No matter how bad things have gotten- break-ups, test scores we weren't happy with, sickness, pasts coming back to haunt us, and every other curve ball life has thrown us- we've been there for each other. We listen, we understand, and we laugh.

My friends have shown me what's really important. No matter how busy we've been, we've managed to make time for each other. When I think of having children some day (MAYBE...hypothetically....)I know that my friends will be an installation in my children's lives. They will be Aunts and Uncles. Each of them can teach my children something different- be it Hutchy showing them how to be kind regardless of the situation, Katie showing my girls how to stand up for themselves and the boys what's acceptable and what's not, Jen showing my children that a little mystery goes a long way and that listening is the best thing a friend can do, Kassy showing them how to find the beat of their own drum and how to dance to it-not giving a flying eff who's watching and what they think of it, Sam teaching the boys how to dress and the girls how to not put up with anyone's crap, and Tori....well, Tori will be that crazy, rebellious aunt that makes my kids feel like they're doing something crazy and bad that mom doesn't know about; which, knowing Tori, I won't know about. As long as they come back home in one piece....:)

I'm rambling. It's my favorite activity. The moral of the story is this:
1) Don't ask questions that you can't handle the answers to
2) If you choose to become a parent, reshuffle that priority list. If you are anywhere in the top five, hell, the top ten- keep redoing that list until you've got it right
3) Real family doesn't have to be blood. DNA does not a loving group make.


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