An Inspiration? Hardly...

I was talking with my son a few months back, and he was telling me how much I had influenced him; strong work ethic, planning, setting goals and working for them, being creative and thoughtful, firm and decisive, without bullshit or artifice. Always being who I was, and be damned to those who didn't like it. This has, he said, influenced him to not only run his acting troupe, but to plant and can vegetables every year, to keep going upward in his job, to further his education, and to do the things he loves to do. He has become an instructor for "Leave No Trace", a group that protects the environment by, not yammering after others to wear leaves and go off grid, but by responsibly, individually, quietly, noticing and caring for their own individual environments.

Just this weekend my daughter said that she never felt that she could live up to me; I was so firm, so decisive, never scared, always doing research then making common-sense decisions. Never caring what others thought, but following my own path, doing what I felt was right, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. She always felt like she couldn't even approximate all I had done and even all I still intended to do. This from a young lady who worked full time since she was 14, was valedictorian of her high school, and went on to graduate summa cum laude from college as a biologist. Who didn't quit, who worked three jobs and ate Ramen noodles to put herself through college - and still found the time to work a potter's wheel and play on the basketball team.

Somehow I've never thought of myself as an inspiration to others. I just did what I thought was right; made the choices that felt right, and told others what I thought. Very few people saw me tossing and turning at night, knew that I felt that frisson of fear deep in my gut, knew that I would sit down and make lists, all the time, with "Good" and "Bad" checkoff columns. When I got sick, I didn't sit and whine or make a big deal about it - I was embarrassed because I had so many things to do and I didn't like my body rebelling and not permitting me to do them. So I simply went on ahead, as hard and as fast as I could, making fun of myself and my illness, belittling it and making it seem less than it was. Mostly because it pissed me off - limits of any sort piss me off.

I don't know what to do with compliments or gratitude. Honestly, my father raised me to be suspicious of them; the flattery of others was always suspect. Usually it had an underlying purpose and a reason other than to make someone feel good. I find it so weird that people are impressed by what I do as a matter of course or a matter of conscience.

But it is nice to hear from your own children that they were positively influenced. A lot of parents wait their whole lives to hear that. Some never do. I just wonder that the people closest to me never saw the angst, the late nights up pacing, the constant worry that I HAD to accomplish, HAD to do all I did... and did it, much of the time, with a clamped-down feeling in my gut. It wasn't easy. Not a single step. And not being positive, every step of the way, didn't help at all. But being able to recover from downfalls, to spring back fully formed and girded, snarling and ready for the next step, was an imperative. I'm glad my children have that rebound. And I'm glad that they know now that each step was NOT assured and was NOT as easy and as effortless as it appeared. But when you want things, you do things. And if those things don't work, you step back, take a good and reasoned look - and do them differently. If they learned nothing else from me, I hope that they learned - resilience.