Fuuuuuuuck.....
I know, deep, right? Sometimes no other words will work. For even the most articulate of us, a laymen's word just fit.
I'm tired. So tired. And frustrated, so deeply frustrated. For 26 years I have marveled at the novelty of melodrama. I've been wrapping myself in pretty wrapping of "imperfection" never really thinking it was true. Well, the novelty has worn off. No it's just painful.
When things have fallen apart before, there has always been some sort of net to catch me. Some area in my life that was ultimately part of my identity that was left intact, allowing me some sense of escapism from the reality of how truly flawed I am. When my parents dropped the ball on college (the first time I was supposed to go), I had a new boyfriend to keep from realizing how truly devastating and screwed up it was. When I was divorced, I still had the truly important relationships that had defined me for years and I was so young. So many opportunities, things to do. When an important friendship died, there was my boyfriend and a new found sense of beauty. When I lost my boyfriend, maybe a future in the career I wanted.
In the last year, systematically, everything I have ever defined myself by, the shades of me that I had to hold on to have completely fallen apart, left me stranded without a paddle. There is nothing left for me to feel better about and most of it is at my own hand. The ways I have fought to find so much perfection, the things I have used to mask the secret insecurities I don't want revealed, they have all been betrayed. It's all been a portion of bad language in different form.
I have grown up to believe that there are certain things that make you worthy: beauty, friends, relationships, job, appearance.... those are the important things. White-washed tombs I believe they are called. It is better to be with people, looking good than it is to be alone and comfortable with yourself. I mean after all, if other people don't like you, how do you know you like yourself? What do you have to give, if no one wants what you are offering?
It sounds so fucked up coming out, and yet so correct. Every frigging love song, every book, every TV show, they are all about measuring up, fitting in, being better so others will love you. Hell, secretly I'm in therapy so I can figure out how to be "better" so I can get more love and acceptance. I have absolutely no sense of self. No sense of living for me, for what I believe, for what I want, for what I think is right. I'm always too fat, too needy, too poor, too irresponsible, too sensitive, too overdramatic, too attention getting.... too anything. I'm exhausted and I'm 26. I'm supposed to be just starting life, still having an appetite for the unknown. Currently I am too tired to even get to the gym spending an arm and a leg on therapy.
Always on the fringe, rarely do I ever feel apart of the action, but I don't really want attention, just enough to fit in, not more than will let me get by without someone pointing out what a defect I a really am. You know the bitch of it? Those that I have let closest to me, they have echoed my greatest fear as they walk out. I told my therapist how it has been pretty hard losing so much, and she had the simple wisdom to point out that no one had ever really "chosen" to love me in my life. It felt oddly relieving and frightening at once to have it pointed out so clearly. I quickly did an inventory of the people in my life and knew how correct she was. I croaked out my one question that burned deep after she had stated it, "Is that normal?"
The truly important people in my life have loved me for selfish reasons. I know this is true of most, but for some reason, it has wrapped me in Saranwrap of shame. With my father, it was to make him feel like a good guy, with my mom it was to fill her need for a "normal" family (sorry mom, hate to break it, but we didn't seem to fit the bill), with my sister it was because she had to, with my ex-husband it was to fill his constant void, with my ex-best friends it was to fill their needed space of the funny fat girl, with my ex boyfriend it was to help him prop up his ego and need continued "good guy" routine. With each one of them, we went round and round in the game of how guilty could we make each other feel when we didn't get what we wanted or needed. Eventually, with each one of them, I wanted something they either could not, or would not give and I was easily thrown overboard, my desires become unneeded baggage weighing down their boat.
Granted they were trading me as well, my anything for their presence. I was okay with me as long as they were. I needed them to help me feel better about me. Now that's gone, along with my super youth and I find myself with no net to catch my continuing dive of ego.
Some would say this sort of internal work is great, it's necessary, it's "pruning." Well as I stare at the same view I have been looking at for 15 years, an open bottle of "house wine" and a pint of Hagaan Dazs feeling my ass spread, I don't feel much relieved, or good. I feel the worst thing I could ever feel: lonely.
I wish I could go back. I wish I could go back to when things seemed perfect. There was a split second of time when everything was amazing. Life was before me, my boyfriend beside me, my friends secure and safe, my appetite for food suppressed while life loomed beautifully before me. I knew it was all a mirage, about to fade at any moment, but oh how I relished the seconds as they ticked by. Even as I sit here though, I know, no matter how perfect things get or were, as long as I feel defective, I am always going to be afraid of the return to well... here. As long as I think I don't deserve any better, I will continue to wait for disaster to befall and I will find people to help me get there. I will sabotage before it even starts for taking whatever I can get from others, hoping somehow either they will save me, or I will save them. And hell, maybe if I save them enough times, they will want to save me for once. I needed them to be perfect so I could feel perfect, or at least better. I've said it a million times, someone good loving me somehow told me I was good.
I kept waiting for everything to just work out. My father instilled this weird belief in me that somehow, magically, things were just going to work out. Now, however, I am beginning to realize that isn't the case at all. Most of life has to be lived with intention, with purpose, fully aware of what is happening. Accepting the reality of life isn't so bad though. There are parts of me beginning to understand that loving me, my body, my mind, my heart, my soul, my completely flawed self, may just be what I need. The more I begin to accept my flawed and imperfect way of being, I am just starting to see the outline of how it will set me free.
I'm lonely. I'm tired. Anyone would be if they were me, especially if they had spent a lifetime trying to make excuses for why they should be loved. Well, I can't anymore. I'm difficult. I'm cranky, frustrating and controlling. I want depth and sometimes I try to take it from people by force. I'm not always the perfect employee, friend, sister, daughter, lover. In fact, most times I'm not. But then again, no is anyone else and no one can mask that for me, nor can I for someone else. That's not what this life is about.
Somehow, in all of our imperfection, it is the relationship of us to ourselves, to God and to each other, somewhere in the midst of the pain we cause and the pain caused us, the fruit born and not born, the worms hidden in the apple, is the beauty that we are meant to find. I can't truly see it, or experience it in another though, unless I find it in me. I have to find my relation to this myself and this world in order to find proper relation to others. Everything must have it's place, and for most of my life, my priorities have been upside down. A lot of lip service has been given, but my constant failing has proved it just as such. What's the saying? "Bullshit talks, but money walks." Truth.
As of right now my life looks nothing like I want it to. I want my own place, I want a community where I am known and people love each other.... by choice. I want peace, grace and understanding for myself, and a 26 inch waist. I want to prove to myself, that I am not dependent on images for whether or not I can accept me. I want to feel whole, to act whole, to receive whole.
I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know where to go to church, how to talk to my family, how to not walk into work feeling like the most overpaid employee ever. I don't know how to handle finances, to not feel defective, to make healthy choices, to see value in myself for no other reason than I was born. I don't know how to not be defined by everything I has been my definition and I don't know how to truly succeed.
I guess eventually I will figure it out. Between my therapist, Kindle and Oprah, I should be able to get a glimpse of what a healthy person really looks like. Oh and I guess Jesus would help too.
I hear Lifehouse Storm playing. I know everything will be alright.... I will walk on water, you will catch me if I fall... I know you didn't bring me out here to drown. Barely surviving has become my purpose...
I want to believe that. I want to believe that everything happens for a reason, but even that I have seen abused, used as excuses to hurt or escape responsibility. I want to see real result. I want to see real fruit, real hope out of ashes. I know I am so far from that, so long from seeing anything beautiful come out of the pitiful mess I've made of my life, but still, I want to believe. I want to know He is ultimately still loving me, fighting on my behalf, in control of something, somewhere. I want to know that fighting against the tide of everything I have ever been taught, every message I have ever received will bear out some goodness. My instincts tell me it's too early to tell. They also tell me, that will be partly my decision. I can only pray that as I walk this journey, learning more about me, about truth, about what truly is and isn't will lead me toward His ultimate goal, whatever it is. I also pray, since I seem to have no idea what I really want, He will reveal the deep desires He has placed in me, and He won't hold back in filling in those gaps. Until then, I have a bottle of fine $4 wine to top off and the last episodes of Dexter to hold me over until my next over price therapy session. Amen.
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