New Birthday

Birthdays have become cumbersome by a certain age.  I've remained the same age by choice now for several years, and for obvious reasons must now change the claimed age for credibility purposes to another year, by one.  Let's see how long it can carry me. 

My younger sister still looks younger; I don't bother with makeup for a significant number of years now.  I've adopted the Elizabeth Warren with glasses look, with longer hair, and the days are numbered for that as well. 

It was a good birthday this year, for the first time in awhile.  As I didn't really 'have' the birthdays in between, it's pretty much a wash anyway. 

Last night with all the family excitement, us actually being together for a holiday, I again knew what day it was and the overwhelm factor was so strong yet again the evening passed, until today. 

Still recovering, grateful everyone is safe, and scratching the surface of the catching up from what is usually maintained when alone, almost abandoned with family events in progress.   We will all be still recovering for several days from the travel and getting back to life without family together, which in a way seems very much wrong and neither ideal nor optimally functional.  So much more can happen for the better when everyone is together long and often enough.  Staying busy keeps the sadness away.  Productivity is in spurts instead of steady, which would be different otherwise.

Neurons

The Nature or Nurture theory has for some time now been proven that DNA changes daily. In other words, environment is everything. We are all a product of our surroundings. In children with rapidly developing brains, there are billions of connections in synapses being made daily according to responses to different stimuli that can be either positive or negative, shaping perceptions for the future, permanently.

The absence of positive stimuli leaves connections that break from any past positive associations if not regularly reinforced. No stimuli to respond to causes the related synapses to break or die away, to be replaced by other connections that are more prevalent or dominant in the present environment.

This has recently been illustrated in The Secret Life of the Brain, a PBS video by a well know documentary director with a track record on many subjects not related to medical research or developments. In a provided interview, he stated the high standards in producing for PBS, so his reputable style transferred to informative, demonstrable images and stories.

In one form or another, the visual (a PBS DVD) has already been widely published in a significant number of related materials having to do with children, the life cycle, and the aging. The brain develops continually into old age if properly or positively stimulated. The brain fully matures as 'adult' at around age 25. Some associations or memories can be repressed, buried, or 'forgotten' (apart from disease) by traumatic events and other forms of conditioning that can be either immediate and short term, or ongoing. The latter is most closely related to environment.

A child in one environment will behave and respond one way, including physiological responses that manifest in overall well-being or health. If that same child is sent to a radically different environment where the previous positive comforts or reinforcements no longer exist or are drastically changed, certain behaviors and physiological processes begin to occur. Some can be reversed, while others cannot. Length of exposure is a factor.

The responses are textbook or signature of the developmental cumulative trauma responses in children, yet largely ignored or misunderstood. If a child acts out where they feel safe, as in school or with others apart from the environment that is the source of the trauma (where they feel unsafe and therefore cannot behave in any way other than what is 'expected'), where they must alone do whatever is necessary in order to survive, emotionally, psychologically, or physically, it is often regarded as the 'fault' of the environment where the responses take place.

The source is sometimes considered in schools, where the phenomenon is not unfamiliar and witnessed by more than one person on more than one child from different families. Yet when this takes place with a family member or in another home away from the source of tension or original trauma, the environment where the responses are released becomes inappropriately suspect. There are no witnesses to reveal the manifestation process of behaviors, and the original environment is usually either 'unavailable' or those who contributed to the ongoing conditions deny or additionally blame where the responses took place. After all, the child is 'well behaved' in a negative environment or place where they are afraid on one or multiple levels. The consequences for 'getting out of line' result in the child being restricted more with every small 'infraction', which compounds according to the number of persons 'enforcing rules' in the environment, or other 'disciplinary measures' that go unchecked indefinitely.

This creates high levels of stress hormones in a child's body in addition to the complete dormancy or deadening of neural or synapse connections in the brain associated with healthy responses, optimism, or an ability to think clearly for themselves. Not being reinforced their own ability or past coping skills that have gone unnurtured for extensive periods, all responses are about potential consequences or the source of stress and their likely reactions rather than an ability to feel at peace in their own choices.

Confusion, frustration, negativity, cynicism, weight fluctuations, head and stomach aches begin to surface where a child may at times be able to express themselves honestly with another caregiver or competent school staff member. Expressing oneself honestly often comes in the form of the releasing of repressed anger and resentment towards those for whom the child has less fear, as well as self blame and plummeting self confidence from long term influences of general negativity, inappropriate blame for adult responsibilities, and sometimes aggressive 'acquisition' of what is 'forbidden' in the source or more oppressive environment. Excessive wants and appetites result from arguments or insistence of needs for toys that are 'age inappropriate' to increased consumption that is a result of severely restricted food regimes or long periods between meals.

In many lives, these patterns become a permanent part of the child's personality into adulthood. Negative behaviors transform what was a previously happy, well-adjusted and healthy child to one with negative personality traits that mirror the source of primary stress and other forms of coping that became habit for sheer survival. Most everyone the child comes into contact with accept the child where they are upon any encounter with the exception of those who may have known the child prior to the change. The entire phenomenon is natural and understandable if the timeline of events and responses are appropriately monitored. Unchecked or taken out of context without knowledge of causal events, those who encounter the child do what they can with the behaviors or responses they observe at 'face value'.

Giving the 'right answer' to 'authority figures' is a survival mechanism. The consequences of an honest answer are either too frightening or the child has so lost touch with his or her own identity that how they may really feel is obscured even to them. Everything is to 'please', because their personalities or personal wants have become secondary to those who make all the rules that cannot be broken, or else. This cycle can repeat itself from one generation to another, when the models for adult behavior prohibit or prevent any basis for comparison of healthy collaborative interaction that isn't about power, control, or excessive acquisition in terms of relationship dynamics.

People become 'pawns' or means to gain. Children who have experienced both types of individuals among their attachments develop forms of self-hatred for feeling they cannot control what they have been most strongly influenced to model for sheer survival when desired responses become habits that repeat in their behaviors that conflict with their more positive inclinations or attachments that have not been completely forgotten or suppressed.

We all know someone like this, who was once a child. The ones with hope had early positive and nurturing environments. Those who have existed in negative environments from birth have been most at risk in our society. Conscience and healthy interaction have been all but completely absent for most of their lives. There are no associations in neural synapses for behavior about anything other than survival or collaborative interaction that includes empathy. Another term for some of these adults is sociopath. If environment is the source, the predisposition is more illustrative, when recognized and understood. It is less often that genetic inclinations play a large part, thought they also exist.

It's heartbreaking, and preventable, to watch the unfolding of repetition from one generation to another. Ironically, the education is accessible to everyone, yet goes unexplored by those appointed to children in times of crisis. Empathy or well-rounded knowledge on what affects children most do not appear to be required experience systemically where so many children go from at risk to mere 'statistics'. There is too much reliance on either popular wisdom, internal politics, or inappropriate monetary incentives that affect position retention.

There is nothing to be lost in becoming familiar with what affects our lives directly having to do with the next generation. Everyone loses more than feelings associated with peace and comfort from the neural level. Lives are lost, sometimes our own or those closest to us. It's not 'what happens to other people'; it's everywhere. To remain ignorant or blind harms everyone, and is only felt by many if the consequences are direct and explosive, when the timebombs have been in front of us all along.

‘Older’

“Life begins at 40.” Not anymore. According to recent media proliferation, “50 is the new 30”. A life began at 40, for the first time: a child. No previous pregnancies (that I’m aware of); had ‘given up’ on the prospect of becoming a mother and was beginning to look into ‘alternative parenting options’.

Then it happened, or something started that would forever change identity and perspective. In many ways profound and significant, in others, disillusioning regarding relationships and the scope of ‘human nature’.

Purpose took shape, in a way that will define the other perhaps half century to follow. The legacy at work is merely a continuation of the examples of role models that inspired and created the most positive experiences that existed in childhood.

It remains difficult to grasp, now that taking care of one’s health has moved to the forefront after not shadowing the threshold of a doctor’s domain for nearly ten years. Most of the people administering medical maintenance are younger, doctors included. Some look older; others are obviously not. This is where not feeling my age begins to all but scream.

I feel just over 30; my body speaks otherwise. I’ve the energy to keep up with my child when fully ambulatory. By the same token the energy also comes from a young life that looks to me for inspiration, validation, and explanations of things he can’t understand. Most of the time, the answers are to his satisfaction. Most of the time, our relationship is deepened on what matters most.

The most frustrating part about personal ‘health care’ is the time consumption. In offices where you don’t want to be takes up days of valuable time that would otherwise be spent on further advancing one’s life, and the lives of all others affected, especially my child, for whom the quest was entirely created.

Those in ‘retirement’ don’t have this concern. I’m close to the age where going to a doctor has become part of a monthly routine for some, as if it were some lifestyle activity. I look forward so much to when it tapers down to what might be ‘normal’ for who I consider myself to be at this point in life: very active and someone who doesn’t look or feel their age.

When I was as vibrant as a few of the women I’ve observed sticking needles in, taking them out, or some other related function, it wasn’t on my radar that those I serviced would one day be someone like me: someone who was once like them at an earlier point in life. We don’t typically think that way. What we become when we’re ‘older’ is a transformation that is either an extension of an earlier life, someone completely unrecognizable from their ‘youth’, or something in between.

The unsettling thing is how quickly it happens. I can remember when my child was an infant as if it were yesterday. The joy was so overwhelming, and so fleeting, as what would not be wished on even an ‘enemy’ began to transpire, and it was all I could do in simply remaining active in protecting the precious and special life that had been brought into the world for a reason.

It became the protection of a life and a purpose: his. It is ongoing. He is not the same child before the negative forces of human nature ‘out there’ left an indelible mark. To dwell on it would be too devastating. Moving on daily is all that can be done, until the lights are brighter and the road ahead is clearer.

It’s easier to accept that those administering my ‘health care’ or ‘maintenance’ are years my junior than my child losing sight of his purpose from influences that have their own interests as ‘priorities’. He has responsibility imposed upon him that is not his, thus taking responsibility for things that are not about him, affecting his emotions, actions, and choices. It has become ingrained to the point of being reflexive: everything I took action to prevent what he could be exposed to, a broken system only exposed him more. He has become a commodity, an acquisition, a showpiece, motivated by pleasing those he must to survive on many levels when away from what was created during his earlier years.

He has not lost sight of that, though the longer or more he is elsewhere, the impressions fade. Who he is fades under the glare of ‘surviving’ at an age when he is most vulnerable. He is alone with unanswered questions and thoughts no one can explain to his satisfaction, so he doesn’t bother asking most of the time. His responses are signature, though no one sees or listens when it’s actually happening.

Exceptional children are reinforced consistently of both their abilities, what they can do in the world and when. In the absence of the former, confusion and internal conflicts arise; long term implications are not realized. All kinds of signature symptoms appear, that seem to be only obvious to competent professionals: those obscured from true protection of those they’re trained to represent.

The spinning is all for profit and status, and a young innocent life is the means. He’s not the only one. He didn’t come into the world for this. What’s done cannot be undone, though there is still hope. “What goes around comes around” has meaning for a reason. It can’t go on forever.

Those my age are established, having created empires that will long support their heirs. Most had lots of help in some form or another. Being everything to one person is not profitable unless a team is also in place. An example of healthy relationships exists, though they’re so rare. A glimpse and reference point is to remain constant, or another life could be sacrificed from others’ needs, that either come with a price, or can be bought.

The cause of true aging? Negativity is one, which isn’t me. Wasted time is another, also not me. Stereotyping on a systemic level doesn’t help. Apathy clouded by profit incentives doesn’t either. Being too affected by others contributes (not me again).

Which leaves what? The ‘forties’ in some ways were an oblivious blur, mixed with joy and unmatched anguish, all because of a child coming into the world, defining a purpose of his own and shaping yet another: keeping the former, among other things inextricably connected.

I’m not envious of those who had the kind of support where they could move ahead much earlier, like those who now stick needles and other things into me on occasion. I embraced the term ‘late bloomer’ long ago, yet didn’t imagine that it could only be beginning now. I’m now and forever a mom first, and all that follows is merely an extension of that identity, for a reason.

You may be reading this at an age a couple of decades prior to midlife. Know this: it will be here sooner than you expected. Procrastination is a luxury no one can afford because time is the ultimate commodity. A child to a certain kind of parent puts into razor focus the value of time. To others, it creates resentment imposed upon children for which they can neither escape nor take away the permanent effects. No ‘damages’ can compensate for what has been taken away, if or when identified.

Single or without children doesn’t mean actions do not affect. Everyone you come into contact with is either a parent or someone whose life influences the next generation, thus your legacy as well. That ‘wings of a butterfly’ ripple effect concept? Believe it. And that’s just on a ‘regular’ day, as if there really was such a thing.