Ladies From the Lord

Ladies from the Lord

 

            I'm the youngest girl in my family. My sister is only one year older than me and she has called me her baby as if she gave birth to me when I was first born. My mom and sister have always been there for me, and you can tell they love me and treating me like the baby that my age implies me to be. It has been difficult as I got older to deal with some of their more smothering behaviors. I think that somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to endure the "excessive babying" or well-meaning advice of these two women in my life and started running away from it. It wasn't an immediate thing, just one situation after another started pulling me away from.

            I remember when I came home for my first break in college, I was excited to tell them about a crush that I had on someone in my major. Being the loving yet nosey people they are, they asked me to show them his Facebook pictures. I say pictures because they took the computer from me and went through as many profile pictures as they could. My excitement of sharing turned into disappointment when their sleuthing lead to more critique of the person and questions of why I liked him. So I decided to hold off on telling them about any person of interest after that. Another time I was talking to my sister about some things that were bothering me. It's not like I haven't done it before, but this time it seemed like she had an answer even before I was done talking. And when I wanted to explain things more, it only made her emphasize her point and what she would do. There are plenty of times I can think of where I've been talking with my mom or sister or both of them, and they would talk over me or half listen and I would need to repeat myself three or four times. No one likes to be talked over so I took to talking less. I'm not saying that these were the best things to do, but I was frustrated. I had tried talking to them before about my frustrations, it just never had an effect on how these things were handled. After a while, it wasn't worth it to me to bring up many things with either of them. I've spent a lot of the last few years just keeping things mostly to myself, no matter how good or bad it was.

            My mom and sister could still tell when things were bothering me and sometimes they would try to talk with me. Still, we'd run into the same problem and I would shut down. This was frustrating for them. This all boiled over into a conversation the three of us has yesterday. I was commenting on a few things about my sister., my mom noted that I knew her so well and asked my sister to make some observations about me. She mentioned that I have barriers and that I don't like to rely on others when I'm going through something. This isn't really false, I usually don't tell others about what bothers me, especially when I know that someone is going through really rough things themselves. However, this was an opportunity to express some of my frustrations one more time. I told them how it was hard to tell them things when it felt like they weren't listening to all I had to say and already had an explanation or an opinion without knowing where I was coming from or how I felt. I wasn't looking for yes women. I love that both my sister and mother are God-fearing women who want to direct me in His ways. I still expected that council to be both educational and empathetic. I know that they love me and want to protect me, but sometimes the way they tried to help seemed to inhibit me or not really help the situation I'm in because of their lack of understanding about it. I want to have the council that God has blessed me with, I also want to know that that council is truly and completely listening and I'm safe to tell them all that's on my heart.

            The conversation ended well. I think they understood my concerns and they agreed that they could work on their listening. They also talked to me about how I should take their direction with a grain of salt. I understand that they keep teasing me about being too sensitive, so I'll try not to slip into the mindset of them being against me on everything, deep down I know that's not true. Am I expecting things to be perfect immediately? NO. I'm sure that it will take me some time to open up after keeping things to myself. It will take some time for them to fully listen without responding and to not talk over me or even themselves. I think the important thing is that we are all willing to grow. We will help each other grow and learn. At the end of the day, I really am thankful for the blessing of my mother and older sister. They are the closest people in my life and will always be there for me. God placed them in my life for support and guidance. I want to be able to use that blessing properly.