So, the past 3 days have proven to be the most difficult by far.... I told the universe that I wasn't going to let people treat me like crap anymore... and it slapped me in the face and said "oh really?, we'll see" and then thew the most impossible choice in front of me.
So on Thursday I decided to start a meditation course with a friend of mine, Friday nights for 5 weeks. So on Friday evening waiting for the bus my other friend calls we'll call her L. She calls and we talk about thanksgiving (which is this weekend by the way) So.... she asks if I'm going home, and I say, naw, you know I never go home... haven't been home on a holiday in 5 years. thanksgiving not since the year we buried my mother.... i don't feel very wanted there.
So she asked if I thought that was mostly me, or them? And I said, "well I think that its a lot of them, but that it is definitely me holding on to things from years past.... that my step father had told me probably 3 or 4 years prior when I asked if I could come home, he said "I don't think that's a good idea.".. he had told me on that occasion, that because his daughter and I don't get along, then he didn't think it would be a good idea.
I remember being so hurt that day... her and my mother never got along, but in all the years we lived at that farm, it was never even suggested that she wouldn't be invited home for a holiday. And then they all moved into the house, her, her husband, her mother and their 2 kids.... and I am not wanted. I was sooo hurt that day and I have never even asked since.
So in that moment on the phone with L I thought.. you know what maybe it is all in my head, maybe I've just convinced myself that I'm unwanted.... so I started scheming, figuring out how to get home this weekend. My other friend is out of the country so I had access to a car... and I worked on Saturday night, but not Sunday... or Monday. And... well I could drive up there on Saturday night!
On the bus I got super excited.... I haven't seen my step brother in so long, and he's been going through a really rough patch, and I don't know when I'll be able to see him again, so I was so freaking excited about seeing him, my step father.... and my niece and nephew. My step sister, her husband and mother, I didn't really care about, but I knew I could put our differences aside.
So as soon as I got off the bus I called Chris, my brother, and asked what he thought about me driving home for thanksgiving. He said, that he would love to see me! I told him that I was scared that they didn't want me... and he said, "well I can't make that call, that's dad's call, so just call them and ask, or just say you are coming."
I got off the phone and called home.... Frank, my step father got on the phone.
We said a couple lines of basic, how are you, how are things... etc.
and then I asked if I could come home for thanksgiving. and he said.... well A. there's no where to sleep here. and I said, I don't care, I'll sleep on the couch.. or the floor.
"well... pause... um.... pause.... i don't think it's a good idea."
my heart sank, like being tossed into an ocean with no life jacket, my heart just dropped into my chest, and started to cry. I said.. "yup exactly what I thought you would say., Can I talk to Laurie. "
"ok! he said.. with severe apprehension in his voice"
So my step sister Laurie got on the phone.. I figured, for all these years I have always just let Frank do her fucking dirty work, and this time I was going to ask her, and have her actually say to my face that I wasn't allowed to come up on Thanksgiving!" I'll be honest... never thought that she would do that, she plays the I'm-so-perfect card so well, I thought there would be no way she'd actually tell me that I wasn't invited.... boy was I wrong.
She got on the phone and I point blatantly asked if I could come home for Thanksgiving.... she made a slight awkward giggle and said "way to put me on the spot!" I said, well I just thought I would ask, Chris is coming home, and I haven't been home in years, and I just wanted to know if I could come home.... and I know you make the decisions.... "
"well, I'd be never one to say to anyone that they didn't have a home and a healthy meal to come home to on thanksgiving... but.... you've done some number on my little family here!" (she was referring especially to an incident that had happened a few months prior where her husband wrote something on facebook that insulted my step father.... and I called him on it... and he told me to fuck myself. I called my brother cause I was so upset, who then wrote him and told him off, then called the house and told my step father and step sister what happened, what happened next, was apparently that they blamed me.... and he stood up for me and told them that this wasn't my fault.)
I said to her "I know we never talked about this, but the thing that happened with Scott was not my fault, he said something about Frank, and stood up for him, and your husband told me to fuck myself. .. I didn't call and talk to you about it cause I didn't want to stir the pot.... I called Chris cause I was upset....
her"well you and chris deleted Scott from facebook, and Chris and scott are just becoming friendly again.. do you think Scott will ever forgive Chris for that?"
while this conversation is going on the dialogue that is going on in my head is a million miles a second, I want to tell her she's a fucking moron, as if Chris would ever want to be friends with your husband he's an asshole, the only reason he's even nice to him is cause you live in the house with his father and he wants to still see his father... but no I don't say any of that, I start apologizing cause I want to come home sooo badly.
she proceeds to tell me that she has bent over backwards to make me feel welcome in that family, and that I have done everything I can to not feel welcome, referring to the last Christmas I came home and didn't even want my presents cause I left them all there... that I came and then left.... I said, that was 5 years ago! I was a kid, now I'm an adult....I'm thinking are you fucking kidding me, my mother had died, and I had broken up with my boyfriend... and i was fucked you fucking bitch!
anyways, there I was saying, yes I played a role in it, but I'm sorry, and that the last time I came home before Korea that she had said to me that it was a pleasure having me home and that I could come home anytime... how quickly we forget what we have said when we want to make someone feel like crap..
I told her that I knew we never have had a great relationship since I was little, but I respect that Scott is her husband, even though he hates me, and hated my mother... I just thought that you not wanting me home was in my head....
that this is my biggest fear... she proceeded to get angry and saying things like, way to guilt trip me... on thanksgiving... that if I want to fix this, call from time to time... come up for a weekend and we can talk about it... RIGHT.... like you have done absolutely anything in my life to make me want you in my life.... and call you?? are you kidding me, you have never fucking called me in my entire life. My mother died... and you never fucking called me!
Sometime when things weren't happening... I could try and fix this... and then got off the phone.
my step father got on the phone and said "I told you I thought it wasn't a good idea."
At this point I was almost hyperventilating I was so upset.... and I responded... "ya I'm sorry, I just thought we've been talking every week for months, and I stood up for you.. and thought that maybe, just maybe you would be able to stand up for me to her... " to which he responded, "now you are guilt tripping me... " to which I responded.. "I'm done. Good-bye...."
After getting off the phone and having experienced this total excitement at the prospect of actually going home, and then having them tell me that I am unwanted I broke down, and started sobbing standing on the street in downtown Toronto. I didn't care what people thought about me, I was just sooo upset.
I called my best friend.... and my step brother...
when I told Christopher his response was "they did what?" "no they didn't say that to you..." "are you kidding me?" "well you'll always have me....my heart is bleeding for you right now.... I'm so sorry."
I have spent 3 days in a state of shock.. so much is going through my mind... I am trying to purge the shit in my life.... but to realize that part of that are people you have thought were family.. is unbelievably difficult.
For the first time in my life I finally feel like I am not crazy... that every time I thought I was overreacting, and convincing myself that they didn't want me.... I was actually right.... realizing that and not playing the poor me, victim role is sooo difficult.
I ended up going to a meditation workshop o Friday night which was very helpful.. and then after my friend and I went to dinner... I felt ok... and I know that I can get through this... its just so freaking hard.
I ended up telling her the entire story of Laurie treating my mother like crap... of the guilt trips and the power struggle that existed over the years... of how her husband is a complete waste of space, and treated my mother like fucking crap.. then the hatred really started when I was 14 and one of Scott's friends who was 15 years older, had befriended me, and my mother didn't approve, so when I wanted to hang out with him.... she asked Scott to chaperon.... he dumped the duty on his sister and accused my mother of not trusting him.... looking back on it, she had every right to be worried, it was a fucked up relationship.. he was incredibly creepy.. and at 17 when he called after a couple years of not talking, I told him that I didn't think we should ever talk again.... It was sick that this man wanted to be my friend at 14, and my mother had every right to be worried, but no Scott had to turn it around and convince my mother she was the crazy one... and my poor mother with no self esteem..... believed him.
She never stood up for herself, and frank, her husband never stood up for her either.
I told my friend about how after my mother had died that despite the fact that my mother had invited them all to our family functions every year, and they had always an excuse, the year she died they came to our family reunion, to our Christmas dinner.... and how mad it made me.... that all my mother ever wanted was for their kids to call her Grandma, and how they had refused to allow their kids to do that, and the day she died, the day my mother died, those kids were saying grandma Dana...
I told her about how when I was in the relationship with C. and I knew things were ending, I had asked to come home when I was done school and had been told that my step father had lived on his own for 2 years and didn't think it was a good idea to live with someone else....
I told her about how my mother hadn't written me in the will, but had written Laurie and her children.... and because of that I spent 4 years fighting for a portion of the money that would pay for my school..... that I'm sure my mother just assumed that I would be taken care of, but her trust in them totally backfired...
I told her about the day I read the will, to realize this and then was told that Laurie, her husband, her two kids and her mother were moving back into the house....
too much for one little mind to digest.
I told her about calling home one night because it had gotten to the point at home where I knew C. was cheating on me... and it was awful... and I asked if I could come home, and my step father had said "I don't want you being here for 6 months, so you can come home for a week, pack everything up... "
That the week I broke up with C. I had come home and spent the week packing up all mine and my mother's belongings... and putting them in the barn.
Her response was "you never had a chance... you never had a chance with them... you and your mother never had a chance... she made sure that you always knew that he would never love you as much as he loved her.... and she has power over you because she got everything she ever wanted...and she's the one that got to keep her parent, and you didn't"
yup.. and I have given her that power because I am so freaking jealous that she's a total bitch and got everything she ever wanted.
where's the karma in that????
I am sooo jealous she got to keep her parent.
my friend said.... knowing all the shit you've been through, I would have lost my mind too.. no wonder you are so fucked up over men! These people do not treat you like family... they are not family, they are not blood, and you need to let them go out of your life.... they do not treat you properly... let them win... they just want you around cause they can abuse you. They have power over you and you let them.
FUCK!
I want so badly for this to be a figment of my imagination. I want so badly to have a functioning family, where I have parents and siblings who love me....
accepting this is really difficult.. I find myself, saying, "no, they didn't really mean that!" I don't want to let them go.... I don't want to admit that I don't have parents.... and no home to go home to.... I don't want to admit that to myself at all.
but I have to.. I have to say... you were sold a total load of bullshit and you bought into it... they convinced you you would never be good enough, that you weren't ever good enough..and you believed them, and its NOT TRUE! that you have a family, and a home to go to.... its just your friend's house... and not the house you grew up in....
That he wasn't a good father and wasn't a good husband, he never stood up for your mother, and your poor mother didn't know any better.... cause she didn't think she deserved any better...
and this time things are going to change... you will never let that happen to you, and you will not teach your children that they don't deserve the very best, because you will love yourself and show them that that's all that matters....
have compassion for them, because how little they must love themselves if they have to prove their power by treating you like crap... someone who just loves and wants their acceptance....
That you deserve people in your life that adore you....
I'm trying to tell myself that this time is different because you don't have to feel sorry for yourself, feel liberated that you can see it all for what it really is.. a total sham... that you are so loved, and adored and wanted, and just cause they don't treat you like that, or feel that way doesn't challenge the validity of your love.
You have to let them go.... you have to stop seeking approval from them..... you HAVE TO STOP.
So...... through all this, I have wanted nothing more than to go get drunk, and find a man who wants to sleep with me... I just don't want to feel this rejection, I want to sleep with a man that proves to me that I am wanted.. even if it is for just one night....
This man that I have slept with a couple of times wrote me on Friday night at 2:30 in the morning... ironically the last time he wrote I was in Toronto too.... and thank-god I was this time, cause I feel like my world just got put into a blender and I am so freaking vulnerable, I wouldn't have been able to say no....
but I am sooo committed to this change in my life.... so committed, that I didn't tell him that I was in Toronto.... I simply wrote "sorry I've decided no more casual sex." he wrote " what if it wasn't casual" and I wrote "no more sex with anyone I'm not dating, that doesn't care about me" he wrote... "well what if I cater to you?" and I wrote "sorry no dice. night"
I can't even tell you how difficult that was. by saying that I have eliminated all the other times he may want to write me...
How I've always dealt with rejection, pain, sadness, loneliness is to get drunk and find a guy... that's the only way I know how to make the pain subside.... and here I am, at this point in my life where I am purging people that I absolutely have loved... and called family for years... and I'm not going to have sex to rid the sadness....
So yesterday the heaviness and the sorrow from this whole thing crept in and I was supposed to go to Oktoberfest with my cousin, and I realized that I was thinking about the men I'd see, and fantasizing about picking up, and realized I am sick.
I have this parasite in my thought process that has convinced me that that's all I can get, and that I don't deserve any better... and that I believe it.... that I can't go, I have to protect myself.... so I decided to come back to Toronto and be with a good friend so that I don't do anything stupid.... I need to protect myself from myself...so I did...
So its Sunday morning... and I am struggling this morning. I am sad.. I'm so sad.
I'm sad for the little girl inside me that never got the love she deserved... I am sad that I couldn't have known any better... I am sad to admit that I will never go back to the farm. That I will never have a father. I am sad to admit to myself that I really am an orphan.... and adult orphan, but nonetheless. I'm grieving this... and all the years I have wasted trying to get them to love me.
and yet.. I am so hopeful. I am hopeful because I am only 28, and I am seeing the truth, I am seeing that it all comes from self love... and I see the endless possibilities if I get to a point where I truly, madly, deeply love myself.... and how unbelievably that will manifest itself in my life... I am excited at creating this love around me, and eliminating the people that bring me down... I am excited about being able to not only tell, and teach, but show my children the difference between someone who loves themselves and someone who doesn't. I'm excited about being a Naturopathic doctor and actually being able to show people how to really love themselves... cause I know what its like to be put through the ringer......
Today... what am I thankful for today??
I am so thankful that I have the strength and the disposition to have never given up.. to finally be able to see the illusion for what it is, and for starting to accept love into my life.
I am so thankful that I am learning all this stuff in my 20s.
I am so thankful to have the friends and family I have.
I am so thankful for the beauty that surrounds us all in the changing leaves, the sun shining down, in rainbows, and thunderstorms.... the sound of walking through fallen leaves, and the smell of fall.
I am thankful for myself. I am so thankful that I am who I am, and not stuck on the roller coaster ride for another millenia.
I love myself.
today I love myself.
and I forgive those that don't know any better.... I forgive myself for not knowing any better.
week 2? can it get any harder? lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment