Negative Nancy

Blogging, for me, is like writing to an imaginary friend. I don't really know who's listening or who really cares. Sure, I can make some cute dollhouse furniture, and I hope you enjoy my crafty posts, but behind the pictures are hands who do a lot of things. I'm only 29, but I'm living a life that isn't as shallow as pins on pinterest.

I hope I can share a little life story and lesson today, without being thought of as a "negative Nancy". After all, blogging can be therapy---FREE therapy ;)
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Name calling is nothing new to me. I am the oldest of 3, and yes, my younger siblings terrorized me growing up. You may think siblings do this sort of stuff all of the time, but it wasn't just to me. My parents were even victims.

My brother was almost 2 years younger, shorter, and wider than me. 
 He used his size to his advantage.
I remember getting beat up and being called a "dog" with barks to the face.
The endless "you'll never find anyone to love you" and "you're a scrub" comments weighed me down.

My sister was also shorter than me...we were friends until she hit the 4th or 5th grade and she met friends that weren't so nice. We are opposites, and the only thing the same about us is our big Italian noses and the fact that we are both left-handed.

Both my brother and sister went down roads I didn't go.
I did everything "in order"...graduated high school, went to college, graduated again, married, kids...I was the rule follower.

I won't go into my siblings' lives, but lets just say they've done things differently. Even now we only talk maybe once a year, and the other day my brother contacted me on facebook by commenting on a blip I wrote about a short sale issue we were having. He proceeded to tell me, in the shorter and cleaner version, that I am a "negative Nancy" and complain too much about my life.

I thought I had gotten over this lack of relationship with my siblings, but the truth is, any words they say still have great weight with me. We are older now....29, 27 and 24...we should be grown up enough to quit with the name calling and offer advice or a "hey, I'll pray for you."

I find it funny people on the outside can have such skewed views of who someone is, or what they are going through.

Instead of having grace, we jump right to judgement.

 

Grace and judgement are like oil and water.

You don’t really need to be a Science geek like me to realize oil and water have a dislike for each other, and don’t mix.

If you do want to be a little geeky, and expand your vocabulary, you might be interested to know that 2 liquids that don’t mix are said to be “immiscible”.

  If you have a glass, and pour water and oil into it, you will notice they separate. One goes to the bottom, and the less-dense fluid rises. One displaces the other, and wherever there is water, there is not oil. Wherever there is oil, water is not there.

If my heart was the glass, I would hope there would be a lot of grace that mixes with what I know I should be feeling for other people.  It is a daily struggle for me to release the feeling that my way is the right way.

Where there is grace there is no desire for pay-back.
Where there is grace there is no desire for someone else to feel regret.
Where there is grace there is no superiority.
Where there is grace there is no judgement.

Isn't immiscible a great word??! ;)