From how my life is looking, I’m confident my fall from the tree embarrassed gravity for not working hard enough.
There’s a day where you wake up and realize that you are just like your parent. You grow up in denial with the fairy tale of thinking you’ll be different, you’ll do this, this, and this, which your parent never did; therefore, you’ve got to be the exception to the “like-mother-like-daughter” and “like-father-like-son” majority. The realization innocently starts… with a subtle notice of your face scrunching up the same way as your mother’s or when you look at the mirror and see your smile favors your father’s in every way. Gradually, you start noticing behavioral similarities, such as how you always laugh to avoid conflict, or how you always expect the worst from others.
When you finally come to grips that becoming your parent is an inevitable part of life, you rationalize that it’s not so bad as long as the negative traits you acquired don’t affect your well being.
Then…you spend your Friday night staring at the bottom of your mason jar, refilling it with some orange juice and Hennessy, tears cascading down your face, because your worst fear is your reality.
You are your parent.
Constant pattern that I’ve noticed of myself is that I always default to assuming the worst. I either think no one loves me, or I think my friends really don’t care about me, they have ulterior motives so that’s the only reason they tolerate me. Or if today was a really good day, something fucked up is definitely about to happen soon.
It’s a nagging pain that I go through on a consistent basis, but I was stopped in my tracks the other day when I finally connected the origin of this behavior to my mother.
(If there were no negative consequences, would you join me without hesitation?)
You would enjoy our time together, which may be your fear.
Sometimes I think you hesitate because you know deep down that you would enjoy yourself in a whole new way if you let go of your inhibitions with me… and that is one of your biggest fears. That is what keeps you up at night. That is what makes you feel guilty even though you haven’t even done anything. The fact that you know this to be true is what keeps you questioning your every action around me.
Well I don’t want to be your source of guilt or restriction…
You were my escape…my sweet, sexy escape from dealing with the broken pieces of me. Instead of learning how to put my pieces together on my own, I would focus all of my energy putting your pieces together in the hopes you’d return the favor.
Oh, how foolish. Oh, how naive. Oh, how hurt I was.
How silly of me to depend on someone else to put my pieces together, when I’m the one who knows where all the pieces need to go. You were stuck with the job of putting a puzzle together but not knowing what the final product should look like. I now know that I should be in charge of assembly. Then frustration arises when you don’t know how to fix me. Ha! Shame on me for putting that pressure on you. Shame unfairly on you for making you “the reason” for my moods, my emotions, my level of self-worth. I gave you a responsibility that did not belong to you. In fact, you had no power over it at all. But I convinced myself you did. And the truth of it all, I had the power over my self-worth, but I assigned you that power so I didn’t have to deal with the trauma and pain I’ve buried inside.
You were great support, but I wanted a dictator. You were the love I never had, but I wanted abuse. You were the security I didn’t know existed, but I wanted uncertainty. Silly me. Silly me. What I wanted, I didn’t need. What I thought I needed was merely born from ignorance.
And now I pause and wonder…how many times have I let my ignorance stop me from obtaining greatness, my full potential, and ultimate joy? My ignorance of thought, the limits I’ve created when boundaries weren’t set, the prolonged beats of overcompensation may have blocked me from an alternate life of joy.
With these revelations, I apologize to you. I apologize for unrealistically expecting you to be my hero who would rescue me from the torture chamber of my mind. For I must be my own hero in order to live my happily ever after. I apologize for imposing my insecurities on you. Maybe if I would have learned this back then, my happily-ever-after would feature you as my co-star.
No love ever lost in my heart for you. I continue to love you from a distance. Thank you for being my first love and helping me grow and learn.
I feel like I should pre-warn every encounter we have with an apology.
See here’s the thing: I do not like myself. To be honest, I have a deep hatred of myself.
This self-hate didn’t just occur recently. It’s a deep rooted seed that’s been growing in my thoughts since as young as I can remember. It started innocently with myself realizing at a young age that I don’t really have anything important to say, so maybe I should be quiet. I began to not trust that my ideas were of any value. They later morphed into me realizing that I, as a person, don’t have much value.
Once my brain held onto this core belief, the trust issues flourished. I question why people love me. I question why people bother to spend time with me. Since I can’t understand what I like about myself, I damn sure have raised eyebrows to you all who claim to like me when you don’t have to.
The times when my brain’s paranoia breaks down and asks you, “what do you even like about me,” your response is the polar opposite of the perception I have of myself. That’s when my mind tweaks out of control. I feel as though my brain has a malfunction when I hear your response because it’s been telling me for so long how horrible, unimportant, and worthless I am; hearing you, a friend, debunk my perception of myself causes a glitch in my brain trying to make sense of it.
And my preferred response to anyone debunking the perception of my worthlessness includes becoming defensive and proving you wrong. My method of proving you wrong ranges from becoming a selfish brat who has to get her way, to killing the vibe with my silence and not being in the present moment.
I guess it’s how turtles climb in their shell when they feel scared. And yes, hanging out with you scares me.
It scares me because I feel you’re going to finally “come to your senses” and see me how I see myself.
The fear of you seeing me the way I see me is the reason I cry. It’s the reason I begin to distance myself from you. It’s the reason I sometimes do and say asshole shit to you. It’s the reason I can’t sleep most nights.
So, that’s why I’m working on rewiring my brain to see the positive traits of myself and to accept the negative traits of myself but not enlarge them to immense proportions while I work to improve on them.
As I’m working on this, please be patient with me. Remind me to speak up for myself when I trail off when I talk. Let me know when I start becoming a selfish toddler and try to control every thing we watch or do. Call me out on when you feel I am hiding how I feel and think with euphemisms and double entendres. And definitely reassure me that you still love my crazy ass even after I get on your nerves with my weirdness.
I strongly believe I don’t deserve your friendship. But I know that I need your friendship.
Your friendship holds so much value to me. Our friendship is the most valuable thing I have, and I damn sure don’t want to lose it because of a conviction based on deep rooted issues that are based on insecurities in the alternate reality in my head.
Imagine going to bed with someone you can call your best friend.
Imagine the first touch you wake up to is from the person who knows you just as well as, maybe even more than, you know yourself…
The scent that you have become accustomed to that doesn’t belong to you…
Knowing that any dispute or argument you two have doesn’t have an expiration date to the entire relationship that lurks in the shadows…
The safe space to share every weird quirk, or unexplainable boundary that your mind can go, with a person who accepts it and still loves you for it
Someone who understands your worth and treats you how you know you should be treated
Imagine being with someone who respects you to the point where they wouldn’t even dare fathom the thought of disrespecting your time, energy, and being.
Imagine realizing there is someone who exudes the same emotion & energy when a particular song comes on.
Imagine coming home to tell someone about your day everyday…..and they show interest in it…..every day!
Imagine the peace you get with just a warm embrace from the person.
Imagine having someone who can sense your every emotion without you uttering a word.
Imagine being in a room together in silence, and it doesn’t bother either party or mean trouble because THAT’S how comfortable y’all are with each other.
Imagine you can always rely on good conversation whenever y’all speak.
Imagine dying knowing that you’ve lived a life where you found true love.
…
..
.
Yeah, I can’t imagine it for me, but I do appreciate the fact that there is still a glimmer of hope in my brain that looks forward to the chance of this someday being my reality.
Mild and Free 