This writing is meant to be therapy for me. I am supposed to do it every day - expression of my feelings every day so that I can eventually sort through the things that impede me. I poured out a lot of feeling this morning as I wrote so this evening, I don't know that I have much to write.
This thought just struck me. I can't receive compliments well. I'm always suspicious that the giver of the compliment is actually making fun of me. I colored my hair red. I always end up coloring my hair red. My mother is a natural red-head, and she always spoke of it with a sort of elegant vanity so maybe that's where I get my equation of red hair being most beautiful on me. Since I have colored it red this most recent time, I have gotten many compliments. It has been a good month and a half since I colored it, so it is faded. In the last couple of days, I have gotten several comments on the color. Instead of thinking "Oh wow. Red must work for me really well.", I have thought "This crap must look really faded and people are complimenting me to my face and making fun of my sad faded hair behind my back." I wore different pants to work. People told me they were cute. Instead of thinking "I am so glad I was able to find clothes that fit me nicely", I think "Gosh those other pants must have looked so bad that everyone is relieved to see me in something more current looking" or "There's probably something wrong with what I have on but people like me enough as a person to try to validate what they think is redeemable." Someone said to me the other day "Sarah, you're so pretty. You're such a pretty girl. That face you made was just so, I don't know - just pretty". Instead of thinking "You know what? I have come a long way from the buck toothed bucket of awkwardness that I was in high school.", I think "People are so nice about things when they think you're pleasant to be around. They just reinforce you with something that may not even be true just so they can make you feel good." I curled my hair for work last week. One of the guys at work said "You're hair looks really pretty like that. I like curls." Instead of saying "Thank you" and throwing a winning smile at him for such a sweet compliment, I said "Are you kidding?! I have old lady hair today! I think it looks terrible!" He literally stood there and just said "No. It really looks nice. Just take the compliment."
What of that?! Is it the American culture I grew up in? Was there something in my nuclear family that has left me so insecure? Is it from scars from ill-intended men during the course of my life? Is is all of these or none of them? Is this just part of our deficiency as imperfect humans that we tear ourselves apart from the inside out? I just don't have the answer to that. It's terrible though.
Would I ever want my daughters or my son to feel suspicious when someone encourages them? I'm sure my mom will read this. What must that make her feel to know that I can't believe any positive feedback when it is given to me? I spent my childhood and time in her house growing up being told that I was so beautiful and that I could do anything I wanted. Why does this plague me?
Should I even need positive feedback? Where is the line of health where that is concerned?
I have just spent so much time in self doubt trying to save myself from moments of embarrassing self inflation that I have created a complex for myself. I don't supposed it really matter from whence it came. It only matters what I do with it now. The thing is, I'm just not sure where exactly to go.
I do know this. I have value. That cannot be taken away. I have beauty. I know that I CAN see that. Not many people love as deeply and fiercely as I do. That is something that cannot change with time. Circumstances can change that, but only if you let them, and I have fought to keep that.
What if people do think that I'm actually pretty? What if someone really did like my new pants or the way I curled my hair? What would be so wrong with enjoying those compliments? I guess nothing.
Monday, January 27, 2014
On being loved
In my adult life I have grown accustomed to not being loved - or at least perceiving that I could not accept love. I have believed that the ugliness of my human experience was too much for others to bear - that it would reveal the conditions of their love.
My dad died almost 7 years ago. I would lay awake at night and quietly weep or i would close my eyes and see visions of him laying on the bathroom floor dead. He was my best friend. My dad always seemed able to shoulder the burden of my hurts or my confusions. Nothing was off limits in talking with my dad. This is what made us excellent partners in business and friendship. It always made me feel so secure to know that , if no one else understood or cared to listen - my dad always would - with no judgments . He always made time for me, and I always made time for him. I stopped feeling that security when he died.
All of our lives and roles in our lives changed when he died. That is not unique to our family, but that is the reality that I lived, so that is the only one to which I can speak.
Anyway, I became, more than ever, the fixer kid. I was the one who would help however I could - take on the big tasks that no one else could handle. I would rescue situations and people. I would "talk sense" into unreasonable people or scenarios. I was never allowed to grieve....and I stopped feeling unconditionally loved. This is not to say that I actually stopped BEING unconditionally loved. It's just what I felt. I had to be this or that for people. I lost my identity.....until last March.
Last March I left a culture of abusiveness. Immediately after that, I reunited with an old boyfriend - the one that always felt like unfinished business - the one that I knew had never stopped loving me and that accepted everything about me. the one that was never afraid to call me out on my misbehaviors but then give me a loving embrace right after. It did not take any time at all after our initial reconnection for me to realize that his character had not changed. He still loved me and was willing to shoulder up every bit of baggage that I couldn't carry....and then help me set it down at the appropriate "tomb" so that it could stay there and no longer encumber me.
It has been a very strange experience for me for someone to be so focused on my grief so that I could actually experience it. I have often felt that I have received much more than I have given, and I have felt so much guilt over that. Despite his constant reassurance that the scales were not tipped inappropriately in one direction, I have felt built.
He came to stay with me over the month of December. He stayed for an entire month - well, 27 days. Close enough. It was like a dream. After years of chronic insomnia, I found myself falling asleep at 10 at night and waking up at 7 in the morning. . I was no longer alone when I left work. My house, instead of being cold and lonely when I got home from work, was warm and inviting with a hug and kiss at the door and scents of delicious food cooking in my previously unused kitchen. We developed a routine for each evening and then found new things to do on my off days in this town where I have lived for 2 years but had never felt the freedom or had the company to explore.
.......and then he went home. I have felt grief over his absence. I knew I would, but the reality hit me nevertheless. I cried tears a short time or two, but I did not embrace my sadness - my loss - my loneliness. Instead, I pushed him away and blamed busyness. I said vague things about things between us not being normal, but I refused to even allow my own mind to admit what exactly it was because then I would have to reveal to him what I was afraid would actually make him feel badly for something that was outside his control. I didn't want to push him there....because I am a pusher. I am a "salesman". I didn't want to do that to him or even make him feel that's what I was doing. So....I just pushed him away. Not far. Just far enough that he couldn't get close to my heart to see the pain but not so far that I pushed him out of my life. It didn't work though, because when someone loves you - truly loves you - they see through those things, and he did.
We had a long talk this morning, and I had to admit my feelings. I had to apologize for pushing him away. It was horrible and embarrassing, but then.....I felt loved. He reminded me that embracing my pain with me does not tax him beyond what he is able. It does not deplete him. What depletes him is being pushed away being left alone and confused. Then he used the word "partners". He could not see me, but tears welled up in my eyes and then spilled over. I have a partner. Come what may, I have a partner. Until death do us part, I have someone to travel this human journey with me. I have someone who loves me. I have someone to love.
I am a lucky girl.
My dad died almost 7 years ago. I would lay awake at night and quietly weep or i would close my eyes and see visions of him laying on the bathroom floor dead. He was my best friend. My dad always seemed able to shoulder the burden of my hurts or my confusions. Nothing was off limits in talking with my dad. This is what made us excellent partners in business and friendship. It always made me feel so secure to know that , if no one else understood or cared to listen - my dad always would - with no judgments . He always made time for me, and I always made time for him. I stopped feeling that security when he died.
All of our lives and roles in our lives changed when he died. That is not unique to our family, but that is the reality that I lived, so that is the only one to which I can speak.
Anyway, I became, more than ever, the fixer kid. I was the one who would help however I could - take on the big tasks that no one else could handle. I would rescue situations and people. I would "talk sense" into unreasonable people or scenarios. I was never allowed to grieve....and I stopped feeling unconditionally loved. This is not to say that I actually stopped BEING unconditionally loved. It's just what I felt. I had to be this or that for people. I lost my identity.....until last March.
Last March I left a culture of abusiveness. Immediately after that, I reunited with an old boyfriend - the one that always felt like unfinished business - the one that I knew had never stopped loving me and that accepted everything about me. the one that was never afraid to call me out on my misbehaviors but then give me a loving embrace right after. It did not take any time at all after our initial reconnection for me to realize that his character had not changed. He still loved me and was willing to shoulder up every bit of baggage that I couldn't carry....and then help me set it down at the appropriate "tomb" so that it could stay there and no longer encumber me.
It has been a very strange experience for me for someone to be so focused on my grief so that I could actually experience it. I have often felt that I have received much more than I have given, and I have felt so much guilt over that. Despite his constant reassurance that the scales were not tipped inappropriately in one direction, I have felt built.
He came to stay with me over the month of December. He stayed for an entire month - well, 27 days. Close enough. It was like a dream. After years of chronic insomnia, I found myself falling asleep at 10 at night and waking up at 7 in the morning. . I was no longer alone when I left work. My house, instead of being cold and lonely when I got home from work, was warm and inviting with a hug and kiss at the door and scents of delicious food cooking in my previously unused kitchen. We developed a routine for each evening and then found new things to do on my off days in this town where I have lived for 2 years but had never felt the freedom or had the company to explore.
.......and then he went home. I have felt grief over his absence. I knew I would, but the reality hit me nevertheless. I cried tears a short time or two, but I did not embrace my sadness - my loss - my loneliness. Instead, I pushed him away and blamed busyness. I said vague things about things between us not being normal, but I refused to even allow my own mind to admit what exactly it was because then I would have to reveal to him what I was afraid would actually make him feel badly for something that was outside his control. I didn't want to push him there....because I am a pusher. I am a "salesman". I didn't want to do that to him or even make him feel that's what I was doing. So....I just pushed him away. Not far. Just far enough that he couldn't get close to my heart to see the pain but not so far that I pushed him out of my life. It didn't work though, because when someone loves you - truly loves you - they see through those things, and he did.
We had a long talk this morning, and I had to admit my feelings. I had to apologize for pushing him away. It was horrible and embarrassing, but then.....I felt loved. He reminded me that embracing my pain with me does not tax him beyond what he is able. It does not deplete him. What depletes him is being pushed away being left alone and confused. Then he used the word "partners". He could not see me, but tears welled up in my eyes and then spilled over. I have a partner. Come what may, I have a partner. Until death do us part, I have someone to travel this human journey with me. I have someone who loves me. I have someone to love.
I am a lucky girl.
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