Growing up, money was tight in our family. I never went hungry. I always had a place to live. So, from my perspective things were pretty good. I never really understood the stresses my parents were under to provide for us though. We didn't have a lot new clothes. I wore hand me downs from other families. I remember dad taking me out one afternoon, when I was about 5 or 6 to go pick bottles up in the ditch along the highway to Shellbrook. I had a good time. I didn't realize we were actually doing it so we could have bread and milk that night. There were times when my brother and I couldn't stay for lunch at school when they were doing the $2.50 for a hot dog, drink and rice crispie square fundraiser because my parents just couldn't afford it. I remember when I was 12, a friend wanted to go to 7/11 to get a slurpee after school. I was so embarrassed because I had no money. He suggested I ask my dad for $1. I was terrified to ask for money. I knew we didn't have any. But I did it. I remember the look on dad's face. I thought back then that he was mad at me for asking, but now that I think about it, I'm sure it was more of a look of pain. Pain that he couldn't give me anything. He went inside the house and 10 minutes later he came back with a handful of nickels and dimes. I'm sure he scoured every corner of the house and looked under every couch cushion to put it together.
Growing up, recreation and leisure were foreign concepts. Dad worked to provide for us. That was all he had time for. We never went on a vacation. The only time we traveled anywhere was to visit family, which wasn't bad, but it wasn't really a vacation either. I'm sure finances played a role. Mom and dad did manage to pay for 1 season of little league for my brother, and 4 months of kayaking lessons for myself but outside of that there was not much else. My parents didn't really have a concept of extra-curricular activities. We never went golfing. We never went skiing. We never enrolled in any organized sports. No hockey. No soccer. No baseball for me. No cadets. No boy scouts. We never went camping. I grew up in Prince Albert and didn't even know PA National Park or Waskesiu existed until I was 16 and our youth group went there. Sometimes, when I see pictures or hear stories of families going on vacation, or going on ski trips I am envious. I had my bike. When other families were in Mexico, or Disney, I was on my bike, all day, every day.
Growing up I didn't have a lot of friends. I never invited anyone over to our house to play. My friends would actually comment on how they would invite me over to their place but I would never invite them to mine. I guess that was the SAD thing again. Birthdays were the only time I ever asked anyone over, and I did that mostly because I felt I had to. I avoided youth group at church until I was about 15 or 16. I felt very uncomfortable there for the first year or so.
Growing up, I was all about school and reading. I would read a novel every couple days. I had a 99% average through most of elementary and Junior High. That was my world. I was a pretty tightly wound kid. I remember crying because I couldn't figure out how to spell a word on a spelling test in grade 5. I finished off our entire grade 6 math text book in a week and spent the rest of the year helping my teacher help the other students in class. In grade 9 I didn't even take math, I read. Our teacher would give us a pretest, and if we got over 95% we didn't have to take the particular unit. It was like a spare all year long. I'm also pretty sure I was a little OCD. I remember walking to school and having rules about how many steps I could take on each pavement block. I couldn't step on any cracks. I was allowed only 1 step on pieces that were cracked. I was only allowed 2 steps on on whole blocks. I could bank up extra steps I didn't use on previous blocks for future blocks if I got into any trouble. It was insane, but I would do that going to and coming from school every day.
So, if that was me growing up, where does it leave me today? Well, I tend to be cheap. Even if I can afford something, rarely can I justify buying it. I have only been on 2 vacations in my life, and the first one my friend had to basically drag me to California kicking and screaming. I'm thankful for that though. I'm still a bit of a nerd but I have greatly scaled back my reading and studying, although I still love to learn. I think the OCD is gone. As for recreation, I ride my bike, still. I am working on actually picking up some new hobbies though. I see how excited and happy people are to go on ski trips or go to the lake for a weekend and I want to give it a shot myself. It is a big decision for me to do things like that but I am going to force myself out of my rut. Look out world, here I come. And finally, relationships. I'm still trying to figure that out. I do have some friends and yet I am still trying to figure out how to be a friend. I will write a lot more about that in an upcoming post.
This is why I am excited about life. I am aware of these limits so I can change them. I can be the person I want to become. I have been thinking about the verse, "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart," lately. It's strange because I see it popping up all over the place. Right now my focus is really to delight myself in the Lord, and hopefully the other things in life will fall into place.
Once again, thanks for letting me get this stuff off my chest.
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