It’s bollocks not knowing what you want to do, or should focus on your whole life. I think it’s rare for anyone to really know except for the example their parents set for them. For example, doctors tend to run in families all in healthcare; civil servants are the c grade students who end up in shitty admin roles, army people run in the same vein together with police, airport security etc.
My dad, was a very talented engineer, who made model steam engines all machined in his workshop. He was also a computer engineer, in the days when mainframe computers were the size of a room and ran on tapes, or were even programmed with punch cards. He taught me how to build computers, network them, wind my own motors and turn a laminated armature on the lathe, all by the time I was ten. I knew how to balance his fuselages for his model airplanes, and dope the wings, but after I was ten or so, he stopped.
And mama took over then, she would teach me Chinese painting, fan dance, cooking, sewing, and I finally got the drive to just learn how to make jewelry by myself. I knew how to solder, how to polish, use power tools, blow torches, machine shop stuff by the time I was 13.
And that was utterly my normal. I never thought anything of always doing something. So my parents did in actual fact impart many practical skills to me, but, no real sense of my place in society, as I was always to remain hidden.
Mama wanted me to be a doctor, but I grew a phobia to biology due to my own suffering. Dad was an engineer, and since I was a savant with maths at that time, I thought I’d just get an engineering degree and carry on.
But, after I had run away, and realized I had zero competence in the world, I sought to fill the vacuum of belonging with anyone. Just anyone that would keep me. So I just ended up in more trouble. And the pain started, the grief, of my parents never reaching out to me, to find me, to open the door, gone.
After 17 years of obedience, I knew nothing else and I felt unworthy, so I tried to fill myself up on study, to be something my parents could take pride in, if they ever would reach out.
But they didn’t. So many years of pain went by, not knowing my place in society, and thinking Love was conditional, and that I was used and damaged goods, unworthy of my parents blessing to give to a man.
The highest price tag on my head was £14,000 for an arranged marriage to bring someone over from China for the visa. And I blew that. So I thought mama was just disgusted with me.
Which kind of was the plan, choosing to destroy what value she had placed in me, because as a teen and turning into the biology of a woman, who felt that a woman’s place in the world was a complete lie, that somehow, even society gaslit me. That I would never even become anything other than to sleep in some man’s bed and cook him dinner.
And I never knew what I wanted for myself.
But I knew I was good at doing shit for others.
So I followed THAT PATH of doing other peoples business, just because I was good at it. But I hated it.
I hated doing as I was told. I hated performance KPIs. I hated the pointless goals that didn’t match up to real success. I hated everything and didn’t know where to go next. Such that I always seemed to fall into the next job or the next, get fired again and again, my confidence eroded away, and now I hated my engineering degree.
BUT. Somehow I have used all those skills. The jewelry making fine detail sculpting, the engineering of mold making, machining, and just - amazing shit I had forgotten was part of me.
How rare is it for people to come into contact with that sort of constellation of innate skills? Some people know their interest and passion, but keep it as a hobby to live to work to pay for the hobby.
But now, I am working to live.
And everything seems to make sense to me like it all snapped together in timeliness in a way that could not have been predicted or imagined.
I feel like society is enslaved. To what people think they should be doing, what their path is supposed to be. And even what order you’re supposed to do shit with. Find boyfriend, get career, get apartment, get car, get a house, get married, have kids, and… yeh done that’s it.
Me: no boyfriend, no career, failed my masters, got a batchelors degree instead, got an apartment, had baby, got a house, got second baby, lost house, lost kids, went on a world walkabout in a fucking daze wondering what to do with my fucking life, where to go, how to escape memories and start over. Find a place to belong, get a career, get boyfriend (boss) loose career, cuz I’m a loser that pretends to be successful with imagery and grades and shit.
Basically there was no linear path and no gradient of incremental success. It was more like, running from a burning building using stepping stones made of COW PATS. So essentially running away from fires I started, and stepping in shit on the way out. Brilliant.
Until I lost my fucking shit altogether. Broke my brain. Etc etc. you know the rest of the story.
So how is ANYONE supposed to know what to fucking do, if I was so smart but didn’t have a clue?
It was parenting. Parenting that currupted my sense of worth, but strangely - actually - has given me a bunch of skills that I never truly appreciated until now. Full circle, everything came together and I am so grateful for what they could do.
I was only ever a survivor in life, from an endless cycle of victim - but that is NOTEFUCKINGNUFF
It is not enough to just survive the world another day another winter, another year. Fuck that shit. The one thing I do have, which is a positive possibly, was that “running away” can actually be construed as being ballsy enough to just fucking do it.
I ran away from home and knew nothing about paying taxes or shit like that. But it was better than being in that place up for sale etc.
I ran away to london after I lost my kids, dissappeared into the underbelly of under the table cash work for a twisted millionaire, that was pretty ballsy. I should have been a criminal. That would have honestly been a better career choice because if you fuck up, hey at least jail is like a hotel pit stop.
I would have been good at sneaky stuff if I was ballsy enough without the “morals” of society which never really worked for me anyway.
I should have been a fucking criminal. LOL.
I ran away to the Philippines for gods sake. I could have dissappeared then but didn’t. I took a job there and turned it into 18 months this time working for a crazy german billionaire who owned a film studio and was also a crack smuggler.
Then planned two years ahead to make it to the US, another departure from my past that kept on catching up.
Then Austria for another two fucking years. I mean, if I think about it, it’s not that I was crazy or completely stupid. That’s pretty ballsy, I give myself credit for just diving in.
That’s a real strength I have, so now I’m proud of all the shit I went through. Like it taught me the real mistakes, of not valuing myself enough. And always thinking I’m different and excluding people, judging them. But I’m actual fact, I’m pretty sure most people are familiar with these feelings,, and the amplitude or scale of trauma or disaster doesn’t matter when pain is normalized.
So, the amount of trauma you survive is the testament to your strength. Which means, you are of value, to someone, to a special community somewhere, to a place where you can belong. And that strength and determination to evolve through the pain of trauma, is your lesson to teach others.
Packaged for your tribe.
My tribe, happens to be women. Oh that’s a lot I know. But the criminal part of me is just going to milk it. After all, I had to always strive for the biggest and best right? Hahaha me a capitalist after all. Ha! Hahaha