When I was born it happened to be Sunday BUT there was a silly rhyme about being the “SABBATH CHILD” who is “blythe and bonny and good and gay”. My mother was sure I was just like that. She nearly ruined my life with her projections, so I struggled greatly AGAINST being blythe, bonny, good and gay”………… I grew up OVERobserved!
BUT there was nothing I could do about being born on a Sunday—nothing! Oh well, there might be something I realized after some time of playing the game of NOT ME.
I went church shopping to see if this Sabbath god could make me not be me. There I found some success, because no religions or their sanctuaries wanted me as me anyway! No women, no vaginal bliss, no sex, and no ME, except for my uterus.
To be over-observed as a child is terrifying, but for me it helped, because it drove me to spend so much time finding ME, bearing children especially SONS, and then getting ME to stand right up behind the altar saying prayers that turned simple elements into holy food, so they said. The Sabbath was MY day! I had to steal it back for myself, my maternal, mothering, sexy, authentic self—womb and all, standing behind the altar
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I married a man because I needed one to complete my image. Also, I loved him and he loved me and we had children we loved. But he too had to struggle to live up to expectations to make money and make sons. What got lost for us both was the ability to know, yes, who you are as YOU. My second husband also was over-observed as an only/boy-child. He was “saved” by the faithful company of his mother, and the respect he received from the Episcopal church where he sang in the cathedral choir, and was eventually ordained priest.
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Oh yes, I know all about dysfunctional families, and as far as I can see ALL families are. We waste valuable yet necessary time to, yes, get real! What anyone learns in time is how to be a self, while managing to sort out all kinds of emotional pain along the way. (It amuses me to recall being a family therapist and witnessing one family session at which a young boy dashed into the room and announced: “I am issue-free!” I recall congratulating him and telling him he could always return whenever he wished. He did.)
Never mind that this kind of self-authentication process is common to us all. It’s damn near as impossible for Divinity as it is for Humanity. (No, Christians, you don’t get the last word here either!)
