I have kind of stepped away from everything this week and I feel horrible for it. People counted on me to be there and help them do things but I...I've given so much lately that I want to keep what little I have left to soothe the hurts on my spirit and soul. I'm hurting. I'm heart sick and my spirit is weary. I once thought I could keep pushing myself but there is nothing more I can do except let time and distance give me what I need.
But still, I feel so much guilt. I've always taken care of my family and friends first. It is just in my nature. I don't want anything from them either for it. I'm not looking for acknowledgment or accolades or anything even remotely close to that. As silly and cliche as this may sound, all I wanted and continue to want, is their happiness. I've always been this way. As far as I can remember. I've always put the needs, wants and desires of others before my own. Since I started putting myself first...I find I have a hard time being comfortable with it.More so when I am already vulnerable and unsure of myself. I'm not sure how I feel about having a psychologist tell me that I need to be putting me first again. I guess...it's just an old habit and what I know best...no wonder I feel so lost...
These past couple of months have been a hard and lonely road for me. I've felt so alone in a room full of people I love and so lost looking at the person in the mirror. I'm confused and I'm found. I'm broken but I am whole. I am shattered but I am together. I am alive but I feel dead. I hope but I know hope is a false thing when it lives in a lie. While I know I cannot change the path I have walked these past couple of months, I really am running on faith that I will continue to do what is right for me and for those I love.
I am once again reminded how those you love will always be the only ones who can hurt you the most. This is only because they matter. Still, I love myself and in the end...I've unwittingly led myself to believe something that is VERY false and it has hurt me. I've convinced myself that I am meant to be alone. I've been given nothing but a loathsome reminder that I'm inability to have children has put this block between me and everyone else. I loved a man once, so very, very much...and he left me because I could not give him children of his own flesh and blood. I struggle with that memory a lot. I struggle with hearing him say those words to me and, in the heat of anger, tell me I'm just a defective woman. It is something I carry with me and it is a wound that has festered. Slowly, poisoning me until I have reached this place...this place where I have no idea what I am doing anymore. Or wondering why I even bother trying to keep my heart open to love when my experiences with it have left scars...some so deep...I know I push past it but how do I heal the abyss of the pain some have left on my heart? How do I heal the betrayal from those I love? How do I heal when I don't know what I am doing anymore? But I have to have faith...
So, I have faith. I need to have faith. Someone who loved me, even at my worst and most unlovable, once told me that I make them proud. That I matter. That no matter what I do with my life, that they would still love me and be proud to call me theirs. They told me that my soft heart would be hurt a lot and I listened but I didn't think they might have meant this much. Still, they also told me that I am like a reed in a river, never breaking but bending to the rushing currents and debris around me. Then again...they told me a lot of things but they always did say that it was my soft heart that made me so beautiful.
I was warned that people would take foregranted who I am simply because of my own nature to accept things and people as they are and to forgive them for almost anything. I have to have faith that they were right...when I was at my lowest, when I contemplated not fighting for my future anymore, not bothering with anyone or anything around me, and that I wasn't worth it anymore and started building walls around myself, they said "I know with a certainty that would surprise you that you WILL endure, survive and recover from pain, strife, and the cruelties that are around you and thrown at your feet. I know this in my bones because you are strong and your ambitions are not for yourself but for others. You need to be more selfish. Quit giving so much of yourself away to people who don't recognize the gift you give them" and I need to believe that they were right. That I am that strong. I survived everything life has thrown at me so far and I've lived with these holes in my heart for a long time...I just wish it didn't have to be this way. Wishes...they are always selfish.
Since I started writing this blog so much has happened in my life. I can't believe I am still standing at times. I mean...I've been lost, I've been betrayed, I've been hurt repeatedly, I've been abused, I've been used, I've been changing, I've suffered from exhaustion (both mental, physical and emotional more than I can count!), I've been dealing with loss and grief and facing things I have put a lot of energy into NOT facing before...and yet here I am. Still trusting that everything will turn out okay and that the universe is always on time. The reality of the fact is letting go takes times. I am still dealing with the raw edges of emotions, thoughts and fears I have kept to myself for a long ass time. And yet...I am still here.
I have many reasons to be strong. I have many reasons to push myself further and harder. Not because I feel like I always have to be strong but my reasons are simple and worth the effort it takes to face the day. I'm not physically strong though. My strength is a strength without having to be strong...it's beyond physical. It is without establishing my dominance or superiority over anybody. It is what gets me up every single day, it is what makes me smile when I hear someone say my name with happiness in their voice and it is what allows me to experience the overwhelming sense of joy I get when I experience those rare moments of belonging...and my reasons are deeply personal and my own. But sometimes...we need to depend on others to be strong for us and it just happens that I have a hard time doing that because of my past.
So, I have a hard time depending on people (not just my family and friends but people as in professionals and other people in general) to be there for me because every instance in my life, growing up, when I needed someone, and when they said they would be there, they weren't. I have been hurt repeatedly by them. Some not believing me, other demeaning me, and some...their indifference was more painful than those that outright hated me. Not that I expected them to do anything but just being there, in the same room, hearing me out, would have helped. Presence...it matters more than people realize. But I know that they can only support me through everything that comes my way in life because I need to do the work. When I was starting my healing journey, I was told that I would want to give up a lot but was told to not give up. That I was more resilient than I realized. I didn't think I was at the time. I was 15 years old, I just charged a well known family patriarch with sexual inference (I was 4 when it started), I had one failed suicide attempt directly behind me, I was being placed in foster care for my own protection (I was being threatened to drop the charges) and every time I did do the right thing...it became the hardest thing in the world. No one knew how hard I fought to get where I am. How many times I almost gave up on everything...doing the right thing took me from my family and friends. Doing the right thing ostracized me in my community for awhile. I was ashamed. I was being judged. I was being told that God would want me to forgive him and all it did was inspire anger and rage inside of me because all I could think of was "where was God when I was just a little girl and a grown man got sexual pleasure from using my body?! Where was God then?!" and I stopped believing in God. But when I was told I was resilient...they were right. I am resilient and I learned young that doing the right thing is NOT the easiest thing.
So, I know that the right thing to do is to trust that not everyone is out to hurt me and to not close myself off from the world just because I am hurting inside. I dealt with the feelings that being sexually assaulted and abused as child wrought in me. The aftermath is something I deal with all the time. It is not really in my nature to let anyone close. In my heart though, I yearn for that closeness and it sometimes becomes a physical ache. I want to be proven wrong. I want to believe that people are good. I want to believe that everything I have been through has been for reason but I really, really hate it when someone says God works in mysterious ways. I've done so much to lose even more in my life...that I am scared to lose what little I have left. I love the friends I have right now and that I am close to, I know I can depend upon them to be there for me. They understand why it is so hard for me to let them be there at times...and I love and appreciate them even more for understanding my heart more than I do. I don't take anything foregranted because I am so very aware of how quickly everything you love about your life, can be taken from you.
So, I am not as put together as people think I am. I work hard to find whatever happiness I can and I hold on to it. I work hard to be the best me I can. I am not afraid of working hard hahahaha My problem is...I'm scared now. I am scared of being hurt. I'm having a hard time trusting my own judgement in people because of how poorly my judgment has been in the past. Like seriously here, I have had 2 boyfriends and 1 fiance cheat on me, I've been stabbed in the back numerous times, I have had my trust betrayed in the worst ways possible, I have had my infertility used as a means to end a relationship with me, I have been treated as some kind of fetish because of my size (I am more then a face and a body!), and...I'm weary and afraid to open up anymore. I am trying to have faith...in myself and the fact that I still do believe most people are good. I am trying to trust my own judgement. I am trying to not shut out those that honestly do care for me...I really, really am trying not to do that but it is hard. The urge to close myself off is strong. Still, I am not the type of person to just shy away from everyone and everything just because I am experiencing a ton of bad shit and a lot of doubts. For now though, I just gotta accept that I am a lil lost and confused inside. That I shouldn't be making any decisions until I feel solid and that I will be okay. It is one thing I have learned (and STILL it irritates me!) that I will always be okay. Still, I have wishes for myself that I want realized and it's time I start cultivating some of that healthy selfishness I keep getting told to do...I got the message now. Jeeze...
Till next time,
xo 1/2
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