Part II
Whenever my heart has shattered in life, I’ve taken a while to bathe in my depression. I submerge myself in it until I find what I didn’t know I was looking for. In my youth, I would drown before realizing it. With age I have gotten better at navigating through the darkness. What I have learned is that there is always a light. There is always something or someone waiting for you to grab hold to guide you back. It isn’t always easy to find, especially if you see the hands that are intending to pull you up, are really dragging you down.
Sometimes you must let go…and that’s okay.
In a lifetime you will meet countless people. A very small fraction of them will remain with you for the duration. It’s disheartening to think about it in those terms, but it is the reality of it. As we age into adulthood, the fleetingness of time becomes more difficult to ignore. Each moment becoming more precious than the last. We get busy, our lives become fuller, and our time becomes more valuable. We start to pay closer attention to the people we are surrounding ourselves with, questioning whether they are worth the time and energy, or if they’ve become excess baggage that may need to be checked at the gate.
As someone who, for many years, was made to feel undeserving of love/affection/connection, I craved it voraciously…leaving me with an inability to turn anyone away. Part of it was upbringing. My parents may have been severely flawed, but fundamentally they were good people. They encouraged us to befriend EVERYONE, instilling me with an aspiration to accept and include anyone who may cross my path. We all deserved love. We all deserved friendship. We all deserved to be heard, and supported, and seen. So I tried my best to be that, and do that, for any soul in need of it. For a significant portion of my life I succeeded in that regard. I was your most trusted confidant, your strongest advocate, your endless supply of comfort and understanding. I was for you what I wanted most for myself. It was many years before I began to find anyone who even wanted to return the favor. I was so afraid to miss out on genuine connection, I sought it in every relationship formed. I allowed myself to be used, mistreated, and taken advantage of, in the name of love, and the quest to capture it.
I have put my trust and faith in the wrong people more times than I care to remember. Hope can be blinding, but it wasn’t without purpose. There were experiences that needed to be had, life lessons necessary to learn. By keeping such a vast circle of deep, though often one-sided relationships, my instincts about people have grown razor sharp. Just as my journey shaped me, your journey shaped you. For that, I will still be a friend to anyone in need. I don’t buy tickets to the show any more though. I do my part and disengage. I’m not there to serve your ego or applaud your narrative. I don’t want or seek anything in return. I give of myself when it’s needed, because it’s needed, for your benefit, not mine.
For better or worse, I see people. It has led to difficult decisions in my life, letting go of people who were comfortable, or had been there so long I wasn’t sure the foundation would hold without them. I’ve had to learn that some people will always be a part of us, but that doesn’t mean we have to allow them to take parts of us. After 36 years filled with relationships of all kinds, at any given time I can only count on one hand the number of people I feel truly connected to…the people who make me feel heard, and understood, and loved. They weather the storms of my emotions, tell me what I don’t want to hear when I need to hear it, and show tolerance and patience when I’m overwhelmed, and overwhelming.
Long ago I was told that I can be difficult to love. After many years of agonizing over it, I’ve come to a place of acceptance. If you’re one of those courageous few who truly sees me, and loves me anyway, thank you. You’re probably stark-raving mad, but my love and gratitude for you knows no bounds. You are the peace in the chaos of my mind, and the home I fight my way back to when I am lost.
History had to repeat itself an embarrassing amount of times for this lesson to be learned. You shouldn’t have to try to convince yourself that someone is worth having in your life, you shouldn’t have to justify keeping someone around. If they do not enrich your life, if they don’t lift you up unconditionally, if they don’t push you to make the best decisions for you, even when it isn’t the best decision for them, whose purpose are they really serving?
We don’t need every relationship in our lives to be deep and meaningful, it’s true. At the very least though, if you are pouring any bit of your time and energy…any bit of yourself, into someone else, they should be making positive contributions to your existence in return.
My hope for you, Dear Reader, is that you know your worth.
Those who truly love, appreciate, and accept you, will never tear you down.
If they do, let them go.
