Trinity of Four

Lost Again, I think

I lied in the previous post when I said, "..I never felt lost.  Even now, my course seems correct."   The truth is, I've never felt anything but lost.  I can't name a single place I fit except Alone.

I never had a group of friends that felt safe, or a family who provided safety, and without those, it's hard to set sail.  When the family you have goes out of there way to sink you, it's impossible.

No one in my family, or history of friends, is a bad person.  No one is mean-spirited.  In fact, they're beautiful.  But people do what they're taught to do until it stops serving their interests, or until it breaks.  It broke for me eight  years ago, and suffered more damage today.

Two Messages

I received 2 conflicting messages from my family growing up.  The same was true of my group of friends.   Message one said "I love you", and acknowledged that I was somehow....different.  It wasn't  judging the difference as good, or bad.  It was simply sniffing around to confirm a scent.   When they finally got a reading, but couldn't say of what, they grew suspicious. 

I've been met by similar acknowledgements everywhere I've gone, all my life, since leaving home after high school.  I still don't know  what to make of them.  I think that's why I spend so much time alone.  I don't know if what I feel inside is real, or if it's the ghost of a thousand projections placed upon me by others.  And since I don't know who to trust, I don't trust anyone.  Your family can do a number on you. 

Message Two was the polar opposite, and seemed intent upon tearing down whatever Message One  propped up, which was confusing, because they were delivered by the same people.  
Message two told me I was responsible for any break in the forward motion of our family, and the individuals in it.  It told me I'd never amount to anything, and that if I tried to, no one would show up for support.  Message two was delivered twice as often as the other, and usually at full volume.  

To insure this message sunk in, it was granted access to the physical realm. 

• It could take on the form of a beating, if it chose.  
• It could enforce exclusion on one individual. 
• It could appear in an unexpected, inappropriate nuance within a display of affection that sent you away questioning what had occurred, and why.  
• If it really wanted to break you it would organize a mass exodus of family, and refuse to return until your fear, and loneliness, was palpable.  

In my 51 years as a family member I've never witnessed this warfare enacted upon anyone else but me.  It's been their habit since I was a child, and I'm done with it.  

• They beat me when I was 8 years-old, and again at 11, because I took a Twinkie after dinner.  
• They dragged me to counselors when I was 10 (like a 10 year-old has issues), and a few times after. 
• They glued electrodes to my head and looked at my brainwaves when I was 12, and when the results came back normal, they thought up something else.  
• They moved the family 2 hours south when I was 14, and blamed the necessity on me.  
• My sister had me fill in as a father when she tried to kill herself, and again as she played Homecoming Queen. 
• My younger brother did the same as he grew up before coming unglued about my 'disappointing reaction' at his Stanford graduation. 

 So, if it's just as well with you I reject the notion that I'm an evil person, or an incapable one.  I reject the claim that I'm selfish, or insensitive.  And I walk away from any accusation hinting at anything physical.  I've never hit another person in my life.  I've never been in a fight. 

This time when they left, I let myself get demolished. I went through every fear and acknowledgement necessary to understand my life, and once I did, I decided I wouldn't ask them to return.  My therapist said that's what they would wait for because it would be my agreement to maintain my role, and balance.  My therapist also said I shouldn't expect any of them to come back, if I didn't ask.  

He said unless they've done some work on their own they won't see me as a person.  

I'd be just a cog in their system, and I'd be of no use to them if I asked to be seen as something, or someone, else.

So I decided to make this exodus the last.  This time, there's no going back.

This is the 8th year of the exodus that removed my family.  My siblings rejected the few lines of my narrative they couldn't escape, and refused to provide an opportunity to hear the rest.  So they left.Not one or two of them, all of them. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws.  The whole pack.  I know I didn't have grievances with most of them, so their herd-like exodus was a contract.  They stick together, no matter what.So when I'm told one of theirs is dying, and asked to pay a final visit, I'm left wondering if 8 years hasn't been long enough to forget me.  8 years has been plenty of time to mourn all of them.  

  

Common Denominator

It's humbling to discover the common denominator between the friends who treated you with disdain, and the family who did, is you.  It inspires you to dig a little, and find out why you need

that.  I don't want that work left undone.

I need to choke the life out of at least one psychological termite before I go,
and my sister sent a text with a hint how. 

Love Assigned 

 My parents had four children,  three sons, and a daughter.  I know they did their best to give us what they'd been deprived.  I know they both loved us.  And I think both carried more pain than me.  They weren't bad, or evil, they were broken, and that's worse.  

You know why you're hurting someone when you make the choice to do so. Guilt and remorse don't nag at you.  

But you  become shameful when you realize you're incapable of providing love because you don't have the skills to deploy it, because no one showed you how.  Every time you attempt to take the 3 steps between you and your child you sprint 10, and trample him, and have no idea why.  That's simply tragic.  

One explanation you come up with is that somehow you don't deserve a child.  You don't deserve the healing that accompanies loving your own kid, in the manner you weren't.  And if I can be honest, I'm not sure any of us does.  One main objective of a human life is to learn how to give love, not receive.  More specifically, to learn to give it when none was offered to you.  

There isn't a single person living who is entitled to love from anyone, except their parents. Unfortunately, they don't always get it.  What should have been freely given often becomes a bargaining chip you have to win.

Respect, however, comes with the territory of bipedal-ism.  That doesn't mean you have to respect each human.  It means each human is equally entitled to living their narrative in the manner that's necessary.  

Respect of that variety asks that slow drivers pull over, so the faster ones can pass.  It asks that we keep our hands to ourselves, and extend the same courtesies to others we want extended to us. It doesn't require we love anyone, or even like them. 

It just asks that we accept everyone, or at least tolerate them, because we haven't walked in their shoes.  How we'd react to their circumstance is irrelevant if we didn't have their Hush Puppies on.

It's a no brainier.

Love Chosen

Love is more difficult.  It's more complex.

The only person entitled to love from you is the one you chose to bring into the world, and the only one he's entitled to get it from is his parents.  

Siblings are not your parents, and are allowed to choose who they'll love, on their own.

If you decide to create a life remember there's a human being attached.  One you won't really know for about another decade, if ever.  So be prepared to give your love to a cause you don't always agree with, or understand.

It's your job, and my job, as parents to teach our children how to love.  If we give it in pieces, they will too.  If we hand it over, and then take it away, we'll have a generation of Indian givers.

  If you were loved, then model it.  If you weren't, give everything you didn't get, or wanted.  Mostly, remember children don't have to love you.  You weren't a choice.  Creating someone doesn't obligate them to say thank you.

3rd Message Mine

I'm not the way I am because my siblings prayed more, or studied harder, or have hearts a deeper shade of red.  My dance is different because my parents did more horrendous things to me, things I guess I agreed to.  That explains the difference in me, and working it out isn't pretty.  

I responded to the first call when a relative became ill, and was told by the ailing sibling they "felt selfish for wanting me there, because of the way I was abandoned".

I wasn't invited inside, and no one came to the door to say hello.  

I inquired a couple times after that to see how my sibling was, and took note that no one   inquired about me.  Same old shit, and nothing's changed. 

That realization was the cue for my final mourning.  Then I entered a dying year that's begging for something to expire. So my response to the recent information about an ill relative is this: 

I DON'T CARE.  

I won't call, or send condolences.  I won't visit the hospital, or sit in the back at the funeral. And I hope none of them tell a lie, and appear at mine.
It makes no sense to squander a million minutes, and try to reclaim them in those that are the last,
That's a decision you make when you're living.

I won't show up, in any fashion, for people who refuse to show up for me.  

Instead, I'll walk in the woods and say a prayer that whatever comes next for you, comes easy.
I'll apologize for the pain that I caused, and for the time that went wasted.
I'll name the depth of pain, and anger, you left in me, and hand it over, and be done.

Call it insensitive or selfish or whatever.  I don't care.

I call it Growth.

The trinity of four we made as children is no longer necessary.  It's over.
There's nothing left to protect ourselves from, except each other.

And Finally...

The flashlight I received  (Weight of Gravity) wasn't an apology for hurt feelings, or other childhood boo-boo's.  It was an apology for the 'difference' in me, the one that asked I end my life carrying more weight than I came in with.

I carry the burden of my father.

I carry the burden of my mother.  

I carry the burden of what they placed in me.

I carry the burden of what I've done to others.

I won't carry anymore.