Yesterday I ended up crying under the bed.
I'm not kidding. I literally crawled under the bed and bawled like a baby. I have not been in my "crisis" zone in a long time and yesterday while talking to Margo, she took me there. There are three stages to challenge in therapy. "Comfort" "Challenge" and "Crisis."
Yesterday, after already crying while talking to her on the phone, while telling Margo the story she said she understood but she saw both sides. I asked her what she meant and she began talking about how I'm so aggressive, intimidating, etc. that in being upset that they cannot resolve this whole baby issue is me being irrational. I yelled at her and told her I'm NOT being irrational, and NOBODY-including Andrew's family-thinks that what they're doing is excusable. She told me that I'm looking for a specific reaction, and that expecting them to do what I think is right (stop using their baby as a pawn in their pettiness) is irrational because Allie needs to discuss her feelings and such......my head literally felt like it was going to explode.
On top of everything else, which as time passes I have been asking myself if it really is a big deal, my mother-in-law yesterday had a mammogram and they found a tumor. It's benign, so the concern with this one is gone, but now that her body has started the mutations I'm extremely worried. Cancer is almost a guarantee in Andrew's family, and his Aunt (my MIL's sister) has had it five times. She's had a hysterectomy, a double mastectomy after battling breast cancer twice, and skin cancer. I am not making this up, she is a walking miracle.
So Leann's tumor is not only scary, but ominous. Andrew and his younger brother Nathan and their dad handled it well, along with Leann, but it just sucks. Andrew's Great Aunt Mira fell two days ago after a stroke, and her head bled for roughly 20 minutes until 911 got there...she was unconscious when they found her and has been since, they're saying that she will die sometime this week. These two things are very difficult for Andrew, but he's been wearing the brave face for me because I'm broken. I know I need to pull it together, accept that this whole-my in laws will never be the family I don't have, and some people never have mothers who will fight for them-thing and move on.
It just hurts. And it's hard. I wish that someone in the family would just put them in their place and tell them to grow the hell up. That ANYONE would stand up and defend me because this is just ridiculous. I keep waiting for a parent figure in my life to fight for me, to not abandon me when I am hurting.
While laying under the bed yesterday after locking the door Andrew knocked only once. He knows that sometimes I just need time. Margo on the other hand took about two minutes before she realized that maybe I just needed arms to hold me and ears to listen, instead of a rebuke on behalf of poor Allie. She knocked at least five times, but each time I just got more hurt, more angry. I know that I'm abrasive, I know that I'm awkward, I understand that I'm hard to be around. I've been changing as much as I can as quickly as I can without getting lost. I try to listen more and give my opinion less. I have tried to avoid saying the elephant in the room statements. I know that I'm still hard to love but damnit if I don't just need it sometimes! I have a husband, I know, but I just need a mother. Or a nurterer that isn't my sexual partner, I need someone to love me unconditionally and pick me up off the floor. I need friends who can acknowledge my growth without constantly thinking I'm still the same person I was five years ago, eight years ago...
I'm just tired. And hurting. And pissed that I've let my stupid in-laws get to me so much. It was just my last chance for a family, you know? And my stupid selfish hasherownparents sister-in-law thought she'd take it away for fun.
I sometimes just want to say fuck them. No lie. And yesterday Margo even pulled out her trick card: How can you call yourself a woman of Christ and write Allie off?
Answer: I'm not being a bad Christian by choosing to just not subject myself to anymore. I don't have to surround myself with people who are going to make me feel like crap. I'm not a bad Christian because I don't feel like trying with them anymore. It's like with my mom, I could continue to give her the opportunity to tear me down and break me, or I can recognize she's toxic, and I can't be around her.
I was so so so so so so hurt when she pulled the Christian card on me. After I had washed up and come down she hugged me and told me that God told her that she shouldn't have said those things, that I've already been abandoned by enough people in my life, and that she's not abandoning me. After that wasn't enough and I just kind of treated her cordially she told me she didn't want to have one of those situations where things are awkward after a confrontation. I just smiled at her.
I miss my friends. I miss the days when I could call Nicko and he would answer. I miss when my friends didn't all have kids and we could get together and whisper all night about anything. I miss Melissa and everything she was to me when we were younger. I wish that Andrew and his endless attempts to make me happy were enough.
I feel like crap.
2 comments:
Awww... I want to hold you right now. Not just hug you, but hold you. Like my 4 year old.
I love you, Heather.
Life is a confusing myriad of too many things, and isn't it just so easy to feel like you are drowning in it all. For all that hurt that we find ourselves in, or finds itself in us, to seem like the only thing, the most ultimate thing. And I'm not trying to scold or anything. Things that have happened in your life are bullshit. You've had a lot of shitty and toxic people around, and sure sometimes, you might have been shitty and toxic, but I think you can recognize that. So then, how easy would it be to say you have every right to be hurt, and I would love to, because, there is a sense of it that is keenly true. Still, even more than your right to be hurt is your right to be healed.
Oh. God card? Really, Whitney?
Really. Really, because I'm not trying to pull a card. I don't think it's the easy way, in fact, I think it's the hardest way. I don't have any sort of sense as to how healing takes place. I have no clear cut steps. I just have that sort of dangerous seeming "I know" because I've been healed and I am healing and I know it's this long, crazy process. It's a lot of tears and laughter and more tears, and sometimes it's even driving away from seeing someone who's hard to see, and rewarding the ounce of grace you muster with screaming "FUCK YOU!" in your car. It just...is. It's prayer, truth, love, community. It's trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and getting a little bit better and trying and failing and trying and getting a little better still and having a little bit less failure between.
I wish I could offer more. I wish I could come to Portland, knock on your door and hold you and let you cry. Whisper in your ear that you are enough, that none of this takes away your worth. That it's going to, somehow, be all right. And then after a while say, "Heather, we gotta get up. We gotta keep going. People need us out there." And we would. And we would stop when we needed to cry or scream, but we wouldn't give up.
Unfortunately, I live many states and a timezone or two away. Unfortunately, the best I can offer is blog comments, my email address, and my phone number. An awkward internet relationship with the hopes of a little comfort for you and some prayers and the knowledge that it won't be enough.
And I guess that's the funny (but not funny ha ha) and even kind of beautiful thing about being a woman. That we get to be so many things. We get to be wives and mothers and sisters and daughters and friends and all of those things are so important. And when one of them is missing, damn, we feel it keenly. We feel it sharply, and we carry this heavy sadness, this great, long loneliness with us. And even when we have it all, we never have it all. Because someone...a friend, a husband, a child, a sibling, a parent, is going to make that role we need, we want, feel...worthless. We'll feel worthless in it. But, I guess that's why we have God, and I guess God in His infinite wisdom understood we'd need a little loneliness to draw us towards Him. And sometimes I just think that sucks, but other times, I get it. And it's good. After all, I believe in Mother God just as much as Father God, and so far, I haven't been hung for being a witch.
Anyway, that's all I have. Words. A very long prayer for you, really. A hope that you will rise up. You will remember your worth. And your need to be a daughter will be filled.
I love you. I really do.
Whitney
(jhitneywones@gmail.com, I accept emails at any time, in any state, with no preconcieved notions of togetherness or wit).
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