Parts of a Whole: The Collage of Who we Are

I have written a great deal about the struggle I have with the relationship with my parents, my father in particular. A lot of the words I have written were almost therapy, a way for me to explore things I remembered, turn them over and over and try to make sense of them. It is easy in an overview to see things as black and white, with a hero and a victim. There are many reasons I have struggled over the years, battled depression, and questioned myself. I do believe with all of my heart that the foundation I was given led me to a struggle with my self esteem and gave me more obstacles to overcome at a young age. However, I do know I can’t blame everything on my upbringing or my father’s alcoholism. I know that I am still responsible for choices I have made, and paths I have chosen.

I have never been good with money. I can remember so vividly being in Mrs. McCune’s math class in middle school crying my eyes out because I could not balance my imaginary checkbook that was given to us as a class assignment. This wasn’t Algebra or Calculus. It was addition and subtraction. And I wasn’t a stupid kid. Outside of the checkbook register, addition and subtraction were easy. Put in the context of paying bills and shopping, I couldn’t make it work.

Some of my struggles over the years with money have been just not having enough of it, working three jobs trying to make ends meet, eating spaghettios almost every night to survive. But as I found career success and made a great salary, I still had issues. Some of it was due to retail therapy and comforting myself because other things were lacking, and some of it was just my lack of money management skills.

My relationship choices did have a predestination quality, we learn what we live—how we are taught to love. But at some point, you have to say to yourself people who hurt me are bad, those who don’t are good, and learn from it. I was a slow learner to say the least.

So, yes, I know that my childhood shaped me, maybe more than I would have liked. But even amidst the pain and at times, bitterness, I know I gained some things from my parents that are the better parts of me.

I have my mother’s heart. My mother’s compassion is a gift I am thankful for, even though it causes me to feel things 100 times more deeply than I should, causes me to cry over small injustices every day. I sometimes wish I didn’t feel things so deeply, and have, over the years, wished I didn’t form such intense strong attachments to people, but I know that the opposite would be worse. I have watched my mother love without worrying about anything in return for much of her life. Although I know it isn’t healthy, it is at times still amazing to watch.

I have my father’s wit and sense of comic timing. In times of stress, I learned to borrow this gift from him to ease tension, or divert everyone away from the negative forces in our lives. Though shy outside the house when I was younger, I could be a clown and a performer at home when I needed to be. Although the circumstances may not have been ideal to grow this trait, I am thankful I have honed my sarcasm over the years, and my ability to always laugh at myself. I think that in particular has helped save me at times.

The weird thing is, all of us grow up in completely different circumstances, some good, some bad, and you can’t ever completely predict how any one person will turn out. There are some psychological profiles that we can expect given certain things, but truthfully, it all seems like a weird lottery to me. Someone who grows up in a family of abuse, neglect, and horror can grow up to be successful, warm, giving, and healthy, while someone from a seemingly healthy, loving home can grow up and lose their way or worse, find a life of crime.

The best and worst of the two people who raised me is the collage of the person I have become. While some people deal with pain by withdrawing, I have expressed it openly in various ways including writing. And writing is like breathing to me. I cannot imagine my life without this need and love for words. I don’t know if I was born to write, or if my circumstances carved this notion into me. Probably a little bit of both. Out of everything I have and am, and even if I never find true success at it, I would not want to lose my love of writing or the ability to do so. Do I wish there were things I didn’t have to see, endure, learn or know to get where I am? Definitely. Are there things I regret and wish I could have handled differently? God yes.

But there is no way to pick and choose the parts you can delete and still remain yourself. Even in my lowest times, when the world seemed so dark to me—I would ask myself—do you wish you were someone else? And I could never answer that question affirmatively. I knew I didn’t want to be in the pain I was in, battling what I was battling, but at the core of it all, I didn’t want to change who I was. Sometimes that still amazes me. That even as flawed and hopeless as I have felt, I wanted this heart, this mind, this body, this face, these gifts, these burdens.

And today as I try to reconcile so many things, I still do. All the pieces, flawed and unblemished, broken and repaired, silent and screaming, loved and forgotten...are why I am here today, finally happy and whole. Loved by myself and others for all those reasons.

What a gift that is.

~~~
The amazing collage pictured above was done by Gloria Martin at
 http://barefootmuse.blogspot.com/2010/01/paper-collage-portrait.html.

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Being Seen

If anyone had told me a year ago I would be madly in love and heading into the next chapter of my life with such excitement and confidence, I would have told them they were crazy. I might have even been rude about it. But, here I am, now taking a second look at my cynical view of fate—as too many things keep working out and proving me wrong. At times I feel as if there are pieces of a large puzzle being rearranged, sliding together, locking into place, slowly forming the picture of my life as it is supposed to be—maybe as it was always supposed to be.

Saying that I have struggled in the past is a gross understatement. From this lofty spot I am in now, I look back and wonder how I could have made some of the choices I have made, how I couldn’t see what was so clearly bad for me—or a mistake about to happen. It is hard for me to fully remember the fog I was in for awhile and how it hindered more than just my vision but also my ability to reason, to make the right choices, to put myself first. It is difficult to remember how cloudy it was when you are standing under a clear blue sky on a sunny day. But, I do remember.

Some of the questions I have asked myself in quiet moments are – How could I have ever been with someone who treated me the way “x” did (insert any one of a list of ex-boyfriends)? How could I have made THAT choice? What was I thinking? I am fully aware that I struggle with my self esteem –I have for a long time. And I hold onto the adage that you can’t truly love someone else until you love yourself.

I had done a great deal of healing before meeting my current boyfriend, and was at a turning point in my life as far as understanding the need to surround myself with positive people who cared about me. But, I had only begun to see myself the way I needed to. I am 40 years old, and the sad fact is—until this relationship, I don’t think I have been loved—truly loved-- for myself for everything that I am—all the good and bad, the in-between, the things no one else knows. It is sad in that sense that it took this long, but it is beautiful in the sense that at the age of 40, there is a rebirth in my life—something brand new that some people never get in a lifetime.

In looking back at all my errors in judgment, missteps and wrong turns, I realize more than ever that it was how I saw myself that was the guiding force. This reflection in the mirror was created by my childhood, and my own experiences, and also by the people I let into my life—and all my insecurities led me to settling for less in relationships and friendships—basically, not valuing myself.

The thing is, it is a downward spiral. If you already doubt yourself, and let someone in your life who won’t value you either, you are deeper in the pit than before. It can be a succession of trips down a painful path, until you are so far gone that finding your way back is almost too long a journey to face. And I have been in that spot. That very spot when there seems to be no map to guide where you are headed, no compass to steer you.

I would never have believed I could be in this place now, not so long after being so lost.

Being seen is a tricky thing. Truly being seen for who you are without any games, masks, or hidden agendas is scary and beautiful all at once. It is disarming and comforting at the same time. I realize over the years all the things I have tried to hide that now I don’t worry about. I am truly myself in all the hours of the day.

I have had to share things I didn’t want to, let go of habits for protecting myself, and believe in tomorrow when it used to be all I could do to get through today. It has not been easy. At the heart of all this is trust-which has been such a foreign concept for me. It is not only trust that this person won’t betray me, but also trust that when I bare my soul, he will still be there accepting me after I tell him some long-held secret. I feel as if I am holding my breath each time I do—taking this huge leap and praying to land safely.

So far, so good. I think the bravest thing we can do is love completely. Letting go and believing in the best of all things. Even as I am in it, I can’t write the equation or pass along the secret. I can’t point anyone else in the right direction.

But I can tell you that there is a way back from the darkest path. You don’t need a compass, you don’t need a map. You need to believe that at the end of it all, with each step... you are worth it.

The real you is worth being seen.

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For Better or Worse?

I have been told before by a very talented therapist that I have terribly negative “self talk”. By this, she meant the things we say to ourselves—that tiny little voice we hear when asking ourselves what to do or what is right. Mine has always been negative, not on purpose and not as much as it used to be. But it is sometimes humbling to know that even my own little voice doubts me.

I worry about the choices I have made in my life. What if I hadn’t loved him, moved there, taken that job? What if I had done something wiser, safer, or riskier? What if I had actually believed in myself all these years—what could I have done then?

I know I haven’t lived up to my potential. I don’t know a lot of people that would say they feel they have. I understand that part of that doubt is being Type A, and just being human.
But the biggest issue I wonder about often is children. I am 40, not at all where I thought I would be in my life now. On my own, still wondering what the end result is supposed to look like.

There are days when I am with my friend’s children, or even when they talk about their kids, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t have that responsibility, that burden. Even along with the joy I see, it is a level of accountability that awes me.

However, it is easy to say that from this side of things. How will I feel 20 years down the line? Will I feel a huge loss, a huge emptiness?

From the time I can remember playing with dolls as a little girl, I wanted to be a mom. All through high school and college, I saw myself as a lot of things, hoped things for myself, but being married and having kids seemed a given. I had no idea how much nothing is a given then. How could I? I see kids that are high school and college age, and they seem so much younger than I felt then. And I look at them and think of what I thought then, what I believed were facts and expectations, and I now know that in all their eagerness, their beauty, their yearning—they can’t know. It is too much to know the pain that life can hand you, the disappointment. But it is also too much to know the beauty and the realization of a dream. All are grand in measure, at opposite ends of the spectrum. And however you imagine both with a young heart, the reality is still a shock.

What terrifies me is that, at this moment, I am not ready to be a parent. I am barely keeping myself afloat. But at 40, how the hell am I still here—at this point? Why haven’t I gotten it together? I know I have been given gifts in this life, things about me I wouldn’t change…but it all seems so thrown together—scarcely keeping a shape, held together with remnants of tape and fraying thread.

Most of the time, I tell myself I am really ok with the idea of not being a mom. And the certainty I felt about it so long ago definitely began to fade, not just because of reasoning, but as I saw that I wasn’t going to meet the right person in time. Today, even as I write this doubting all of it, I am ok with that not happening for me. I worry more about the future than I do right now.

But one aching, powerful reality does comfort me. Even in times of great longing to know the joys and bittersweet moments of being a parent, I have felt protective of a child that doesn’t even exist. I know that a child is “of” his or her parents. And to be “of” me is a concern. I believe I am a fairly good person (most days), and halfway intelligent (most days), but the pain I take to heart, and the depth to which I feel things is more than I would wish upon anyone coming new into the world. Even though this child’s upbringing would not be the same as mine was, I am a carrier of that upbringing. I know all patterns don’t have to repeat themselves, but the emotional scars I carry would translate somehow.

So even as I worry or rationalize, fret or envision, the larger feeling is protectiveness. Not wanting to spread the doubting small voice any further. Letting it fade, whisper and end with me.

Artwork by Selma Albasini- "Sometimes I Feel Like a Childless Mother". To view more of her beautful work, click here.

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