I am grateful for the examples I have of genuine presence and authenticity. It seems it has taken me a long time to decide if I am lovable if I am also feeling sad. I have had too many experiences that have told me otherwise. Also if I can be lovable if I am powerful or want things for myself. These are things I am still trying to figure out. Can I be selfish and lovable? Can I be sad and lovable? Can I be useless and lovable? Can I take medicine and still be lovable? Can I be less healthy than the people around me and still be lovable? Can I be loud and lovable? Can I feel stupid and lovable? Can I feel embarrassed and lovable? Can I be awkward and lovable? Can I be hurt and lovable? Can I be ashamed and lovable? Can I feel desperately alone and yet still be lovable? Can I be rejected by most yet still be lovable to at least someone else beside me who may be willing to not reject me when others do.
I guess this happened a while back – rejected by those to mattered most and accepted by one but that terrified me that if I was accepted by the one it would make me lose those who had mattered most. I could not stand to lose them so I didn’t even get the relief of finding someone willing to accept me as I was. instead it’s been years of rejection surrounding and threatening me on every side while I try to survive and try to make the most of a mentally, emotionally, spiritually hellish prison situation. Gratefully, truly gratefully, physically I am blessed beyond all I could ever need and want. Thank you thank you thank you. I know what it’s like without that and I am so eternally grateful for the physical health that the other has felt less important at some point feeling mentally and emotionally and socially and spiritually healthy would be most excellent and helpful. I don’t believe in perfection so it’s really not about that as much as finding a tolerable spot to land in each category at least until I venture out and having a stable landing place to come back to when I’m ready to rest and be home again.
I may always want to explore more. The exploring and learning and growing isn’t as hard if we know we have a safe home base to come home when we are ready. These past years have been learning about adventuring out and figuring out how to establish a more solid and reassuring stable place to come home to when I need to rest. These past years idea of adventuring is new and was quite shocking and extremely difficult to navigate on my own. So hard in fact that I wanted to make sure I was competent to make it on my own so I wouldn’t feel the shattering heartbreak of being abandoned and rejected as a totally unthreatening threat again. I am not alive to hurt anyone or anything but it feels like that’s the position I have somehow been put in – and that is extremely awkward for someone who also doesn’t want to hurt anyone or anything.
I have heard a LOT of criticism over the past few years that I’m not entirely sure how to help. I appreciate the authenticity and genuine remarks of the way people think and feel so that has been refreshing and delightful to know there is some capacity for that to happen. Certainly it is not fun feeling naked and abused in groups of various sizes. It’s awkward and shocking in the general public spaces but also especially with people I once respected and could look to for direction toward a reason and meaning to stay alive for another day.
I was hoping after enough heart breaks I wouldn’t hurt so much and would then be able to carryon even without a hope of a reason or meaning to be alive. It feels like much of my life my motivation has mainly come from inside of me anyway. I don’t survive very well without a hope of at least something good being possible.
It’s my birthday today. Happy 43! Wow. More than double the time my brother survived here. At some point that sadness may fade as well as the other pain but I really am not sure. I thought it was all gone once I was with Alma. He really has been my everything to show me life could be good again. Then we started to disagree about what was best for Oakes and things started changing when we started to disagree. Certainly we can learn to disagree appropriately with each other and make this work. I like to put him above me as far as hierarchy goes but I sometimes question if that is the right order. It also seems we should be at equal partners but that makes me nervous seeing that he was able to bring me so much goodness into my life. I love having him be the provider and presider in our home – he is so talented and smart and experienced and has brought us so much goodness. I really do love him. I know we are both still here under all the junk that has somehow accumulated and we can get back to being so in love again.
Every day now I’m not totally sure where to go from here. I still have hope now of making a safe home place somehow where I can feel safe being alive and hopefully create a place that my family can feel safe in – our home should be a safe haven from the neighborhood and outside world. I do appreciate the people around us but I desperately want to feel like only my safe and loving family is in my home. Sometimes I feel like we have been breached and have no privacy – thus the hellish prison of no privacy and constant critical judgements.
I still have hope of having a life worth living and being part of a world where I feel safe as well as my family. I real family is full of angels who have always been safe – I just panicked at the thought that anyone could possibly get hurt the way I had been hurt and I couldn’t stand the thought of standing by and letting that happen to anyone else after seeing the devastation it brings with it.
I don’t know what this 44th year will bring but I do have some hope for good things this year and expect to be relieved to have a life I can enjoy living again. Even the past two days it feels like someone was willing to give me a chance – willing to teach me instead of criticize me and that makes all the difference in my desire to stay or try to be here at all. Thank you so so so so so much for that. Thank you for seeing me without hurting me. Thank you for being willing to teach instead of condemn. Thank you for being encouraging instead of degrading. Thank you for helping me survive in hell. Though it’s not where I prefer to be – it is a place a I want to learn to make tolerable when I am there as it seems I keep getting the judgement of that’s where I must belong. I don’t belong there but if I’m going to have to be there for whatever reason I am going to have to find a way to make it as tolerable and dare I say as pleasant as possible. Like cute Martha Stewart – just keep doing things that I can do that make me happy and hope that at some point people will take a break from wanting to hurt me or if they do want to hurt me may they please exit from my awareness. I would very much rather not deal with people who want to fight me. I have no interest in fighting or in referring my kids fights. I just need to have some hope that I will be able to see them again.
It funny. I didn’t know I was in heaven until I was born into a new world and was just so freaking angry about it. Like my two sweet boys. They are trying to navigate how to live here too. My goal is to make it a place they can feel safe and comfortable living in too. When both of them are ready to interact with the world in a positive way and the world with them in a positive way – that is when my job is done. How to get there I really don’t know. But that has been my goal for the past 6 years at least and certainly if I make it a conscious priority it will be done. The hardest matter is deciding if it’s an appropriate goal to set and dealing with myself when I make an inappropriate decision and forgiving myself for those.
Still counting on : Faith Hope Love, Peace Love Joy. (FHLPLJ)
Happy Birthday, Lydia.