I'm not sure how the Brontes or Jane Austen or L.M. Montgomery did it, they must be far more courageous and virtuous women than I shall ever hope to be! Of course I can only presume upon their own personal stories from the trials and triumphs of their various heroines, but all great writing contains at least a smidgeon of autobiography, for how else could an author write so authentically and movingly if not having lived it themselves? It is the difference between studying about chickens in a book and actually trying to raise them oneself, one soon learns if the author of the chicken book perused has more than academic experience therewith! So it is with life and writing, the most realistic characters come from the most authentic lives.
I just returned from a family trip to visit family, and to say the least it was dreadful. I was raised in a loveless home wherein I was bad and my brother was good and there was nothing to rectify the matter. I then looked to the in-laws to fill that aching parental gap in my soul only to discover that they are much of the same mind, except it is my kids that are good and we parents who are bad, even their own son! Of course Anne Elliot can drift through decades of such neglect and abuse, with only a wretched cry in her own room every now and again to say she's unsettled. Jane Eyre runs off into the wilderness, much as I'd like to do but can't conveniently at the moment. Anne Shirley would smile grimly, hold up her noble head, and try winning the hearts of her detractors, a thing I've tried to do for decades in vain, in my family and my husband's.
What do you do when the behavior of your family or in-laws drives your own thoughts to despair and even contemplating self-harm? At least in the case of my biological relatives it is easy enough to cut off contact when it is all one sided anyway, but what about those you can't exactly hack out of your life for the sake of others' feelings, particularly the kids? They aren't intending to destroy my soul, rather it is just their normal, they don't know any better yet they won't listen when you try to discuss it. We can't talk about great grandma, she's dead and there's no sense talking over her foibles. We can't talk about past abuse, as it is over and there's no sense dwelling on it. It's okay for them to say/do whatever to you, even be it calling you a horrible person, they are just tired/overwrought/expressing themselves but when you disagree with anything, even orange jello, pertaining to your own kids, they are only trying to help/just love the poor kids/giving them a little treat and how dare you interfere! How do you disagree with persistently cheerful and determined selfishness garbed as kindness?
Their cats, cows, dogs, and kids are all spoiled and obese and they wonder why I try and 'interfere' on behalf of my children? This is where my heroines of literature fail me. What do you do in such circumstances when you have not moral courage enough to stand against the strain of it all? If I don't see them until I am healthy enough to deal with them, we might all have died of old age by then! I can't cut them off cold, else my kids and husband will take it amiss. They won't grow or change or even admit there is a problem, so we'll all be long dead in that case too. Perhaps I just can't face them on their own turf? Maybe just host them on neutral ground or on my territory? That is still annoying, but not a weeklong bout of despair, self-doubt, and agonized soul searching wondering what's wrong with me that no parental figure in my entire life has considered me good enough to love and accept. Like Jane I'll hie myself into the metaphorical wilderness and like Anne E. partake me of a good cry as needed but unlike Anne S., I will quit trying to woo those unwittingly set against me in the deeps of their souls, I must needs love them in a biblical sense (do what is best for them) but I don't need to kill myself trying to please them and earn their affection when it is impossible nor make myself wretched over something beyond my control (so says my mind, but oh silly heart!).
Maybe things were easier two hundred years ago, you just hopped on a boat and never saw your family again or set off across a vast sea of grass to escape likewise. Now there is Skype and email and text and interstates and paid vacation time. Miss Elliot could go to Lyme whilst her tormentors were at Bath and nothing but a sporadic indifferent letter was heard betwixt them. Jane could vanish into some forgotten moorland. Anne Shirley could simply take the train to the far side of the island and enter a new world entirely. But I forget that Anne S. did deal with Aunt Mary Maria or whatever her name was, the old hag moving in and tormenting everyone day and night, and only accident removing the live-in misery from their lives. I can't accidentally insult someone's age and solve my problem (that happened on this trip!), but at least I now have a literary example of my problem! And I can smile because we don't share the same house for more than a week at a time, perhaps I need to gird up my proverbial loins and take myself in hand and quit being ridiculous. I should be able to handle a week or so, right? Too bad I can't just rewrite their character or my own as easily as I can a person in a story! You can, but it is the work of a lifetime rather than an afternoon and you have to be intentional with the process, so maybe in a hundred years I can handle a month in their house? At least I have classic literature to fall back upon as both escape and inspiration!
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