Thursday, June 18, 2015

You Get What You Get And You Don't Throw A Fit!

When my daughter first started taking ballet classes at 3yrs old, her teacher would do this thing at the end of class where each child could pick a wand, sparkly necklace, fairy wings, or some other kind of super-girly item out of a treasure chest. Then the child could wear that item for the last few minutes during free dance.

The girls LOVED it.

Except when someone took the item that they wanted.

Hell hath no fury like 3yr old girls fighting over a tiara.


The teacher, in her infinite patience, would simply say "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!

After a couple months the girls knew the rule and when the treasure chest would come out, they would quietly line up to pick their items.

Oh you could tell when a little girl didn't get the fairy wings that she had her eyes on, it was hard to miss the disappointed face and audible sigh as she took her supplementary magic wand and trudged back to her spot on the floor, but she knew the rules so she never complained.

Then the music would start and soon she would be leaping across the room; happy that she had a wand that could make everyone fly, instead of the fairy wings that would have only been able to make her fly.

For 3yr old girls they adapted quite well.

My life, it's been weird. It is literally what Lifetime Channel TV movies are made out of. The stuff that happens to me, it's just not stuff you hear about everyday. It's my own life, and yet it never ceases to amaze me.

People ask me on a pretty regular basis if I would change my life if I could, and my answer has always been an unequivocal "no, I wouldn't change a thing."

That doesn't mean that I wish it didn't hurt less, or that I would like to not cry as much, or that I wouldn't love to have my heart feel a little less torn, it just means I wouldn't change anything.

I really wouldn't.

If my parents hadn't abused me, I wouldn't have married my ex.

If I hadn't married my ex, I wouldn't have my kids.

If I hadn't been an abused child, I wouldn't be the parent I am today.

If my ex hadn't abused me, I wouldn't be running my nonprofit.

If I wasn't raped, I wouldn't have the firsthand knowledge that has helped so many other women.

If I hadn't spent so many years in despair, I don't think I would have ever come to appreciate life the way I do now.

I wouldn't be the same person.

Sure, the delivery method of all these lessons was less than ideal, but it was what I needed to get to where I am.

You can argue that there are easier ways to achieve the same things, but I would argue differently and I think that anyone who has been in a situation like mine would agree.

It's like when you hear someone with a terminal illness saying that they wish they had known when they were healthy, what they know about life now.

Healthy people might understand the concept, think they get it, but they really don't.

You simply cannot grasp something that you have absolutely no knowledge of. Without a method of enlightening, there is no way to fully understand a concept so abstract.

I get a lot of pity because of my situation. I catch a lot of sad eyes, and quite often I hear the phrase "I could never survive that," and that is another thing that never ceases to amaze me.

People think my life is suicide worthy.

I am who I am, because of my life.

I didn't get what everyone else got— the easy path— I got something better.

I got a challenge that led me to a really awesome place.

I got something that led you all here.

Sure, as I said I'm not really a fan of the delivery method in the lessons I learned, but the end result has been pleasing.

As you've watched on this blog, I've taken the challenges as they've come, and I've done more than just accept them, I've grown because of them.

My life is not something that I would have chosen for myself, but in a way I'm happy that I didn't get to choose, because what I got turned out to be something better than what I would have chosen for myself.

I would have picked easy.

I would have taken the free ride.

But I didn't get that.

I've got an uphill trudge, both ways, in the rain.

Sometimes, I had to climb.


A few times I even fell completely off the damn mountain, nearly drown, and had to climb the whole freaking thing again.

But I'm at the top now and the view, it's amazing.

You see, I don't see things in the same way that other people do. I'm not the person relaxing in my car while I zip down the highway of life to an easy destination. I'm the girl that fought the battle, took the expedition, and I learned a lot in places that many people don't even know exist.


Everything we do in our lives shapes who we are, and unfortunately some of the things that shape us the most are things that had less to do with the choices we made, and more to do with the circumstances that were forced upon us. In those situations it's easy to feel jilted— as if you got a raw deal while everyone else got something better— but the reality of the situation is that you've been given something unique by way of a less than desirable delivery package.

And yes, sometimes it might have hurt! It may have dented, and even cracked you a bit, but it hasn't destroyed you.

As long as you're still alive, you aren't destroyed.

You're different.

When you start to pick up the pieces of what appears to be a shattered life, you may get put back together a little bit differently, but that's OK. You're not going to be the same as you were before because you've changed, but how you change, is up to you.

We talk a lot about how we can choose to die with something, or grow in it, and we talk about it a lot because it's so true.

You may have gotten something a little different than what other people got, but what you do with that is up to you.

You can choose to hide under the rocks, not looking at all the people zipping past you in their cars, and forever feel envious of the people who are passing you by, or you can pull yourself up, climb the mountain, and see everything that everyone else is missing.

You can turn what you got, into something that you want.

You didn't get what everyone else got,—you got what you got— and it's up to you to make what you got count.

I look back at my life and in every instance of trauma I see the good that came out of it.

Yes, it hurt, so very much of my life has hurt, but it hasn't stopped me. I turned pain into gain, if you will.

There were many times that could have been the end of me, but I didn't allow that.

I took what many claim would be the end of them, and I turned each and every situation into a beginning.

I fell off the path, and then I climbed the mountain so that I could get a better view.

You might not have gotten what everyone else got, but you can turn it into something better.

You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.

If you don't like the wand that you got, it's just because you haven't figured out yet that it can make you fly.

I wouldn't change my life because it made me who I am.

Don't let the view of another's life cloud the view of your own life.

You didn't get what they got, you got what you got, and if you can't see the blessing in what you got, it's only because you haven't climbed high enough yet to see the view.

If you don't like who you are because of your circumstances, start climbing, you're just not there yet.



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If You Liked This, Read These!

"Make It Count"

"He Is Still Hurting Me"

"A Different Kind Of Post"

"My Christmas Tree Might Actually Fall Over"


Picture Credits

Ballerina

Rock Mountain With Trees

Mountain Path

Man On Mountain

11 comments:

  1. It really sucked when I realized most people aren't going to respect you for simply surviving the shit in your life, but they WILL respect you if you grow from it. "Not committing suicide" just isn't enough for most people. But whatever. If people are holding me to a higher standard than I hold myself, they must view me as better than I view myself, right?

    Once again, an awesome post Eden. Made me think a lot.

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  2. My youngest started kindergarten this year and came home using that expression. Except he said, "you get what you get and you don't forfeit". It's taken me since September to realize he's been saying it wrong... Thank you! Here I was thinking his teacher was on some sort of heavy medication! Hahah love your posts BTW, they are hilarious!

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    1. And incredibly powerful. Keep it up, you've got an amazing way with words!

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    2. Oh my gosh, that is SO funny!! Glad I could help clear that up for ya and restore the teachers good name lol!

      Thank you :)

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  3. I used to say "You get what you get and you don't get upset". Except that my kids are now better at this than I am. Quite often my bruised ego stomps its foot, shouting "But it's not faaaiiiiiirr!!" - the word "fair" isn't even allowed in my house. Sometimes bitterness gets the best of me. But I'm working on it.

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    1. Haha!! Hey, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one! You are already on your way!!

      ;)

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