My last post I mention a former friend that I ran into in the nursery department at Lowes well last night I was told he is getting married this weekend. This made me sad today and triggered a lot of feelings about what I have lost or more importantly who I have lost along the way.
I try hard not to indulge in these thoughts except when I come here. It takes me down the road that I am somehow I am the only person that feels sad and that has suffered loss. It makes me wallow in the idea that something is wrong with me that I am mostly alone. Everyone feels sadness and most people don't get what they want in life.
I think to wallow in the "I am not enough" mind song is something we have to fight.
Today I drowned my sorrow with shopping. I bought more plants and went to a few antique stores looking for containers for my new plants. It was a good distraction but tonight I am facing the feelings of being left out and telling myself stories about how great my life was when I was part of the group. Even though that group doesn't even exist anymore.
These are just stories and it wasn't so great a lot of the time. Life is just like that. I use to believe that there was a destination happiness. With the right person - with the right job - finishing the next project - all those things would bring me permanent happiness. They did bring me many moments of happiness but now I know that life is one day at a time and you just have to work with what is in front of you. Don't visit the past too often or imagine a fantasy future just be where you are now.
I know I am not the person I was before. I can't play the part I use to in hopes that I would be loved by the people I loved. I have only trusted a few people with my heart and it hasn't worked out so good for me. I think I want something that doesn't exist I want to feel safe.
So this is my sad tale for today. Giving into the feelings of loss and accepting that this is my life. I am not unique in my suffering. In fact my life is good and I am content most of time. Even though I may be dead to the people in my past tomorrow I will face another day and play with my new plants.
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Putting my story to bed - maturity
I am back from the big a event and a longer than usual visit with my sister. It all went perfectly and the happy couple are happily honeymooning in a secret location on the coast of Mexico.
The first night as I sat at a table with my life size version of Cruella Deville I felt like I was having an out of body experience. She talked to me between barking orders to her own daughter about how she should be minding her great granddaughter. This is my stepmother of course the one who forced me out of my own home at 16 with my dad standing by her side silent.
I sat there staring at her for awhile she still looks 20 years younger than her age. This for sure is not an accident many hours and many thousands of dollars on beauty products have made her the person she is today. I don't think she has had surgery just hours of pampering.
Okay that is about only the venom I can come up with about her. Truthfully and thankfully this was a final chapter of closure for me. Her daughter, from the marriage before my dad, talked to me about the fun times we had together. She was six when they married and was uncontrollable and pulled a knife on me once when I was babysitting her. She would get so mad that she turned purple. I would beg my dad to not leave me alone with her. Fun times for sure.
My sister and I were talking about how bad she was and she mention the time I tried to throw her down the stairs. I corrected this story she had about me. I told her she was throwing my stuff down the basement stairs and it was crashing and breaking. I did tell her if she threw one more thing down the steps she would be going down too. This was the first time I stood up to her physically.
I know I always harp on the idea that everyone has their story. The stories we have about other people and even the stories we have about ourselves are distortions of the truth. A memory of an incident that we have rehearsed over and over in our own mind tweaking it ever so slightly each time. We carry this with us and attach either happy thoughts or resentments to these memories. It is just our version of what happened and seen through the eyes of in this case two people that were eleven and fifteen.
The idea of my step mother is my final story. The one person I had stories around that still hurt me. It is time I put them to bed. Over the course of our visit she told her own story several times of how her first husband cheated on her and left her. She didn't date for six years until she met my dad. When she was telling this to me I thought "you have never gotten over that have you?" Just like I have never gotten over my story of her the way she treated me and the fact that her rejection changed the course of my life forever.
It isn't easy for me to let this go and to forgive her, not that she is asking, for the part she played in alienating me from my family. I do take responsibility for building on that alienation instead of returning to the scene of the crime as an adult and demanding my rightful place in my family.
I have spent most of my life with the child inside wanting them especially my dad to see my worth and tell me he loved me and wanted me to be a part of the family. He never knew how his indifference to me has made me spend a lifetime trying to feel worthy of love. He did love me and said it the few times we spoke but he was shut down emotionally. His family are all like that people of few words or emotions and I knew I would never get what I wanted from him. I accepted this.
In our minds we carry versions of our stories. Our own versions and clinging to those versions can keep us locked in a darkroom. It can keep us busy not living for today and we can find other people that are stuck in the same kinds of hurts that make us feel it is okay to stay stuck. It does feel comfortable and familiar. We definitely have a right to feel hurt and what happened to us is unfair but now it is time to move on.
This has been a process of maturity for me I didn't want to admit that I was the one keeping this going. I have given up most of my story and don't tell it too often these days if it might help someone, like here or if someone ask me. This I feel is the last piece of the past holding me back.
It isn't easy living without a story and for some it is unthinkable. I had someone ask me once "I am my story where would I be without it?" I said "free maybe". This idea of life without a story means for me that I have to find something else to fill that space. My life feels a little lighter since I got back. I did have grieve the loss of my stepmother story more lettling go and I may have to put it to bed again at some point but for now I feel free.
The first night as I sat at a table with my life size version of Cruella Deville I felt like I was having an out of body experience. She talked to me between barking orders to her own daughter about how she should be minding her great granddaughter. This is my stepmother of course the one who forced me out of my own home at 16 with my dad standing by her side silent.
I sat there staring at her for awhile she still looks 20 years younger than her age. This for sure is not an accident many hours and many thousands of dollars on beauty products have made her the person she is today. I don't think she has had surgery just hours of pampering.
Okay that is about only the venom I can come up with about her. Truthfully and thankfully this was a final chapter of closure for me. Her daughter, from the marriage before my dad, talked to me about the fun times we had together. She was six when they married and was uncontrollable and pulled a knife on me once when I was babysitting her. She would get so mad that she turned purple. I would beg my dad to not leave me alone with her. Fun times for sure.
My sister and I were talking about how bad she was and she mention the time I tried to throw her down the stairs. I corrected this story she had about me. I told her she was throwing my stuff down the basement stairs and it was crashing and breaking. I did tell her if she threw one more thing down the steps she would be going down too. This was the first time I stood up to her physically.
I know I always harp on the idea that everyone has their story. The stories we have about other people and even the stories we have about ourselves are distortions of the truth. A memory of an incident that we have rehearsed over and over in our own mind tweaking it ever so slightly each time. We carry this with us and attach either happy thoughts or resentments to these memories. It is just our version of what happened and seen through the eyes of in this case two people that were eleven and fifteen.
The idea of my step mother is my final story. The one person I had stories around that still hurt me. It is time I put them to bed. Over the course of our visit she told her own story several times of how her first husband cheated on her and left her. She didn't date for six years until she met my dad. When she was telling this to me I thought "you have never gotten over that have you?" Just like I have never gotten over my story of her the way she treated me and the fact that her rejection changed the course of my life forever.
It isn't easy for me to let this go and to forgive her, not that she is asking, for the part she played in alienating me from my family. I do take responsibility for building on that alienation instead of returning to the scene of the crime as an adult and demanding my rightful place in my family.
I have spent most of my life with the child inside wanting them especially my dad to see my worth and tell me he loved me and wanted me to be a part of the family. He never knew how his indifference to me has made me spend a lifetime trying to feel worthy of love. He did love me and said it the few times we spoke but he was shut down emotionally. His family are all like that people of few words or emotions and I knew I would never get what I wanted from him. I accepted this.
In our minds we carry versions of our stories. Our own versions and clinging to those versions can keep us locked in a darkroom. It can keep us busy not living for today and we can find other people that are stuck in the same kinds of hurts that make us feel it is okay to stay stuck. It does feel comfortable and familiar. We definitely have a right to feel hurt and what happened to us is unfair but now it is time to move on.
This has been a process of maturity for me I didn't want to admit that I was the one keeping this going. I have given up most of my story and don't tell it too often these days if it might help someone, like here or if someone ask me. This I feel is the last piece of the past holding me back.
It isn't easy living without a story and for some it is unthinkable. I had someone ask me once "I am my story where would I be without it?" I said "free maybe". This idea of life without a story means for me that I have to find something else to fill that space. My life feels a little lighter since I got back. I did have grieve the loss of my stepmother story more lettling go and I may have to put it to bed again at some point but for now I feel free.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Real conversations - stories
I attended another memorial today. It seems I am at the age where my friends parents are starting to make their exits. My sister informed me last week that it has been 12 years this month since our own father passed. Sadly more like 32 years for me.
It was weird we had our first real talk this past week. The first time we discussed anything as equals. Usually our conversations are sermons from her to me spouting off all the answers to life's questions and telling me how she has done everything right and pointing where I went wrong and what I need to do to get back on track.
Of course this is from my little sister perspective. She sounds like she has it all together but this is just denial on her part. She has lived with addition since she met her husband at 16 first her in-laws and then her husband taking pills to deal with the in-laws. We don't talk about this.
Our talk this week was about our childhood. How she thought it was a mistake when we left the inner city and moved to the suburbs. I was four and she was ten. She left great friends when we moved and she never fit in in our new neighborhood. I remember her spending most of her time locked in her room reading.
The discussion started after I told her about the death of my friends mother. She reminded me there were three friends my mother, my friends mother and Grace. I had forgotten about Grace she had cancer and died the year before my mother was diagnosed. I remember Grace being pale and very thin and very put together. Her house was perfectly decorated and she had a lot of rules. Kids had to quiet and we had to eat in the kitchen. When she got sick she retired to her bedroom and she wouldn't let anyone see her not even her kids.
It was weird re-living my childhood with my sister. I told her how I felt abandoned by her and my dad right after my moms death. She said I had my grandmother who adored me and didn't like her. The adored part was true I have to admit. But my grandmother had relationships that more like possessions. You were in or out depending on what you could offer her.
My mother and grandmother fought over me a lot. She always got her way and used every weapon in her arsenal to wear down your resistance. I think we moved to get away from her but it didn't work we just had to drive further when we got those so called emergencies. My mother was the baby and was trapped. When she died my grandmother cried for three years. My dad severed his relationship with her almost immediately after my mothers death.
Seeing things from my sisters perspective reminds me once again we all have our own stories. They are just that stories but to us they are perfect in every detail. The idea that my grandmother didn't like never would have crossed my mind. Not part of my story.
I have been doing a lot of reminiscing about the past. Wondering how much was real and how much was my colorful rendition of the truth. At this point I guess it isn't important unless I want to make it important.
It was weird we had our first real talk this past week. The first time we discussed anything as equals. Usually our conversations are sermons from her to me spouting off all the answers to life's questions and telling me how she has done everything right and pointing where I went wrong and what I need to do to get back on track.
Of course this is from my little sister perspective. She sounds like she has it all together but this is just denial on her part. She has lived with addition since she met her husband at 16 first her in-laws and then her husband taking pills to deal with the in-laws. We don't talk about this.
Our talk this week was about our childhood. How she thought it was a mistake when we left the inner city and moved to the suburbs. I was four and she was ten. She left great friends when we moved and she never fit in in our new neighborhood. I remember her spending most of her time locked in her room reading.
The discussion started after I told her about the death of my friends mother. She reminded me there were three friends my mother, my friends mother and Grace. I had forgotten about Grace she had cancer and died the year before my mother was diagnosed. I remember Grace being pale and very thin and very put together. Her house was perfectly decorated and she had a lot of rules. Kids had to quiet and we had to eat in the kitchen. When she got sick she retired to her bedroom and she wouldn't let anyone see her not even her kids.
It was weird re-living my childhood with my sister. I told her how I felt abandoned by her and my dad right after my moms death. She said I had my grandmother who adored me and didn't like her. The adored part was true I have to admit. But my grandmother had relationships that more like possessions. You were in or out depending on what you could offer her.
My mother and grandmother fought over me a lot. She always got her way and used every weapon in her arsenal to wear down your resistance. I think we moved to get away from her but it didn't work we just had to drive further when we got those so called emergencies. My mother was the baby and was trapped. When she died my grandmother cried for three years. My dad severed his relationship with her almost immediately after my mothers death.
Seeing things from my sisters perspective reminds me once again we all have our own stories. They are just that stories but to us they are perfect in every detail. The idea that my grandmother didn't like never would have crossed my mind. Not part of my story.
I have been doing a lot of reminiscing about the past. Wondering how much was real and how much was my colorful rendition of the truth. At this point I guess it isn't important unless I want to make it important.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Telling Stories
I have been reading about the idea of each of us having our own story. A story that we have created by own perception of the circumstances of our lives. The ideas that we came up with on our own and some that were handed to us.
The book was written by the author of The Four Agreements. A very life changing book for me. I will have to leave that for another time.
This idea that it is our own minds that hurt us. That it is the reliving of the past in our own minds that keeps the pain alive. I think I finally understand this for myself. Could it really be that simple?
It made me think how in the morning we wake up and are free to begin again or we go over to the closet and put our old labels on. Our heavy coats covered with the labels we have given ourselves. The labels related to not being enough for ourselves or others. Everybody living within their own story.
Can I give up the novel that I have written about my life good and bad? Is it possible to live without the constant dialogue. The commentary or is it too scary to see how the words in my head are just that words in my head.
Can I go back to childhood before I knew too much to be happy.
The book was written by the author of The Four Agreements. A very life changing book for me. I will have to leave that for another time.
This idea that it is our own minds that hurt us. That it is the reliving of the past in our own minds that keeps the pain alive. I think I finally understand this for myself. Could it really be that simple?
It made me think how in the morning we wake up and are free to begin again or we go over to the closet and put our old labels on. Our heavy coats covered with the labels we have given ourselves. The labels related to not being enough for ourselves or others. Everybody living within their own story.
Can I give up the novel that I have written about my life good and bad? Is it possible to live without the constant dialogue. The commentary or is it too scary to see how the words in my head are just that words in my head.
Can I go back to childhood before I knew too much to be happy.
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