Annette Boles
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

A third way is the best news I have read in my entire 56 years of living! I will celebrate my 56th birthday tomorrow and just this morning I asked my friend a deep question! Why did my loved ones not correct my distorted thinking about not taking care of myself?

I have always tried to help who ever is in need even when I don’t have anything to give and I am in need! This has been my way of operating and living my life, but I always end up on the short end of the stick because people take my kindness for weakness.

Why have my loved ones sit back and watch me make the same mistakes over and over again trying to help them and others! I wasn’t getting ahead. I was always falling behind in my financial obligations, but helping them stay afloat with their finances at my own expense.

I realized just this morning I didn’t understand self care or the value of others working for their personal lives! I must admit it was tough work when it came to earning money teaching school for thirty years!

I grew up in poverty, made good grades in school and earned academic scholarships to go to a great private Christian University. Became a teacher didn’t know how to handle money because I never had any and there was no one to teach me how to handle it because no one around me had money.

Therefore you can’t teach about something you don’t know about and you can’t learn about something if you don’t have an instructor.

Every family member needed money and now I had a some money, so what do I do with my money? I can’t keep it for myself because that’s selfish when my family members don’t have money.

Now by default I am the official ATM for my family members for everything. All eyes are on me. The educated “Christian” teacher who knows that the struggle is real! “We” are all in this “together!” Right?

Thirty years later I am standing here in the moment saying what the hell! You are telling me it was not my responsibility to support aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, great grandparents and even great great grandparents! At one point in my young life I was trying to take care of 6 generations! I thought that was NORMAL behavior and the saddest part about it was that kind of performance was expected of me! This expectation was never place on any other family member at that time nor at the present time and it will not happen in the future!! Why not??

I don’t know and I may never know because most of those people are dead. The younger generations have moved on and left the hood and will not look back.

But today, this morning my eyes were opened and my life experiences will change because There is a third way!

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade