I am the definition of an iconoclast. The husband has called me that multiple times in our life together and now that I’ve confirmed the exact definition (thank you Kaplan GRE Exam Vocabulary in a Box) it’s got me examining where this need to rebel began. We are all part genetics and part experience, but I would argue that the part of my personality that can be attributed to nurturing is actually the opposite of what I experienced growing up. Raised by hard-working parents, I saw my Father throw away a sweet, gentle woman that loved him for a good time and I watched that loving woman work herself to death and never take a chance on anything that made her happy because she was too scared to fail. I am the opposite of my parents, always avoiding any path that might lead me in their footsteps.
I live for risk. I take chances in love, work, friendships and with my own life. I love adventure and I’m constantly walking the line. My brother got all of my parent’s worse attributes. He got my Mother’s cautiousness, which keeps him from taking chances and the safety net he’s insulated himself with has become his own prison. From my Pop, he learned that women are greedy and selfish and only looking for a provider. The quality in Dad that caused him to seek out young, needy women so that he in turn could feel needed and gain companionship set an example for his son that was entirely jaded. I have a smart, funny and talented brother that somehow fell victim to the worst part of nurture and he deserved better.
Obligation, working a job I don’t like, loving people who don’t want me, never loving at all and never taking life’s joys for myself are the things I rebel against. In my quest to learn from my parents’ mistakes I have gone 180 degrees the other way and I live a bit like a nomad searching for the people and places that can help me feel happy. I live on the edge. Excitement and unpredictability gives my life a satisfaction that is invaluable to me and would be completely alien to my parents. I have made mistakes, so many mistakes, and I have hurt the people that loved me. As much I wish I could make all that hurt up to my Mother, my friends, my current and past partners, I cannot say that I regret. I live my life for me, but also in a kind of race against the martyrdom of my Mother and the sins of my Father.
There is a part of me that wishes I could be the woman those people deserve. Pop, for all his faults, is a good man and he doesn’t have a lazy bone in his body, but he never learned how to truly love. I on the other hand, have loved with a fierceness that has left little room for anyone to live up to my expectations or irrational fear of rejection. I do the best I can to blend the side of myself that needs spontaneity with the part that craves love and acceptance. I’m not sure where I will end up or if I’ll manage to keep deserving my husband’s love, but I know the list of things I will not end up doing, I just look to my parents’ example and do the opposite.
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