What it means to be a BRAVE GIRL

I’ve spent most of my 38 years feeling broken. My parents split when I was 7. Before that, I had always been a daddy’s girl. I idolized my dad, he was everything to me. When my parents split, though, he didn’t make much effort to see me. At first it was once a month, then once every few months, then a card on my birthday… by the time I was 10, I rarely heard from him at all. When I was in high school I reconnected with him for a little bit because I walked past his house everyday on the way home from school — I found that out when I was walking home and saw him mowing the lawn, but he moved out of the house within a year, and disappeared again. I didn’t talk to him, hear from him.. nothing. he just disappeared.

My life went on… I went away to college, got a degree, met my husband and got married, moved around the country a bit, and finally settled in Denver, where we’ve been for the last 10 years. A few months ago I got a message on Facebook from my stepbrother. He told me my dad was very ill and had been searching for my half-brother and me for a long time. He wanted to talk to us both soon, not knowing how long he was going to be alive.

That was really difficult. I have spent my entire life feeling like something was wrong with me because my own father didn’t want anything to do with me. I have lived my life always trying to please others in order to feel some level of approval from someone…. anyone… so that I could feel whole again. It’s never worked. I live this life of desperately trying to make others like me, while keeping them at a distance so that they can never hurt me the way my father hurt me. It’s a hard life to live because there is never any balance.

Anyway, it was then that I found Brave Girls. I signed up almost immediately for Soul Restoration and couldn’t wait to start! But I have spent the entire course feeling like I was lying to myself and everyone else about being brave because I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my dad. I was so afraid that he would tell me I wasn’t worth the time, or that he would suck me in again, only to abandon me all over again. I was living in constant fear, but also jealousy, because I knew my brother was having conversations with our father and was working through their issues.

But I finally feel BRAVE!!! First, I came to realization during week 1 of Soul Restoration that I have a pretty awesome life, and that I have done some amazing things, and he missed out. It was his CHOICE to miss out, not mine. Second, during week 2 I sat down and wrote him a letter. By the time I was done, it was 3, single-spaced, typed pages that not only told him how I felt my entire life because of his crappy choices, but also all about everything he has missed out on because of it. And Sunday, feeling the bravest I have ever felt, I called him. I was terrified at first, but we spoke for nearly an hour, and it was quite good. In fact, the call ended with him telling me that he loved me. And in that moment, I forgave. I will not forget, but I forgave him, and I forgave myself.

I was truly BRAVE.

Sunday Scribblings: A Thousand Years

In a thousand years, the only thing that will matter to me is the only thing that matters right now...

You and me.

The rest is all mundane detail.

Sunday Scribblings: Food

I have been working on my relationship with food as of late. In the beginning, we had so much fun together. We had this spontaneous, free relationship, but now it's so needy! It gets so angry with me when I spend too much time on the elliptical. But then, when I give it the attention it keeps bugging me about, it rolls over and ignores me, leaving me feeling bloated and lonely. I asked food to go to couple's counseling with me, but it refuses to get off the couch, and, instead, beckons me to snuggle with it and watch Golden Girls. I dunno... I thought I loved food, but the less I see of it, the better I feel. What would food say if I told it we needed to take a break because I needed some space?

Sunday Scribblings: Safe

OK -- really?? Who is over at Sunday Scribblings that can read my mind lately?

This week's topic is "safe." Oh boy... this entry is for my fellow Brave Girls.

I have never felt safe in a relationship. I have had one, unconditional, "safe" relationship in my entire life -- with my grandparents. Every other relationship has always felt like it has had some strings attached. Most of those strings are probably perceived, but that isn't really helpful in my mind.

Without getting into the blame part of it, and where this fear comes from, the most important part of this lesson is that because I never feel 100% safe, it is 100% impossible for me to both trust completely, and forgive completely. And forget? Uhm, no. I don't think so. Due to these fears I am really adept at self sabotage. When I feel like someone is getting too close, I push them away, all without my own knowledge. I realize it after the fact, of course, but then it's often too late. The fact that poor Jason has been through this process an uncountable number of times, and is still here, is a testament to either his capacity for love, or his love of self punishment.

Within the Brave Girl process is a process of forgiveness -- both of self and of others. But I am finding it SO HARD to forgive others without first hearing some level of an admittance of guilt. Of course, in most cases, this is never going to happen, but I am glued to this feeling of "you don't deserve my forgiveness if you can't at least admit wrong-doing." I am not sure how to get past this. I know that until I can get past it, let it all go, that I will never be able to forgive, which means all of this life stuff is just going to follow me around.

Safety. I don't know what that feels like. But I long for it. Somewhere besides the confines of my own head, it must exist for me somewhere.

Sunday Scribblings: Eternity

I feel like I have spent an eternity being the person other people have wanted or expected me to be. Not every moment, mind you, but enough that the real me has become a muddied version of reality and expectations. In fact, I am finding through the Brave Girl process that when you spend so much time trying to be everything to everyone, you forget yourself. I have spent so much of my life thinking that the loss I have experienced was my own fault, and that I somehow deserved it. I have devalued my self, my authentic self, to try to be what others want me to be, and I am left asking myself the all-important question of, "why?"

It has taken me this long, 30+ years, to realize, and start to truly believe, that none of it was my fault or my burden to bear. And now I mourn the time I have spent trying to be someone I am not. I mourn the time I spent worrying and believing that I wasn't worth the happiness or gifts that life has presented to me.

But my eternity is about to change.

First, I have allowed a certain person in my life WAY too much power. I have allowed them to define my value in a particular portion of my life, and I am taking that power away. I am, in fact, walking away as soon as I can, so that person no longer has any power, perceived or real, in my life ever again. That was a tough decision because it means being confronted with certain consequences, but it is my belief that the consequences will be healthier and easier to face than the day-to-day doubt that currently confronts me at every turn.

I believe I am ready for a new chapter in my eternity. And I believe my eternity will be as close to happily ever after as it can be.

Soul Restoration Week 2

This week's project for BGs is a timeline of our lives. I also started my timeline last night. I honestly just glued down the timeline itself, and while it dried, wrote down all of the "things" that I want to mark as an important event in my life.

First, I felt overwhelmed with the thought of trying to come up with a bunch of important events that have shaped me as a person. I thought, "Events? I only have a couple really horrific events, and that's about all..." But then, as I started writing, more and more bubbled to the surface, and I realized how much good has also happened. In fact, my guess (without looking at the list and matching it all up) is that for every hurt I listed, there was also a celebration -- maybe connected, maybe not, but at least the ratio was 1:1.

So then I got to thinking... why is it that when I think of who I am, I always think to the negative? Abandonment... abuse... neglect... pain in every sense of the word. Why doesn't my brain remember of all of the GOOD things? Why am I so eager to own the pain, and look past the light? And don't say "human nature," because I don't buy that.

My head says that good and bad are even, and to be happy because it should all even out in the end, but my heart says that the bad stuff was SO BAD that it would take double the happy, or more, to truly even out. Sigh. And, of course, some of the "bad" turned in to a blessing in disguise, but not until much later.

I suppose this is why reflection is so important... to take stock and learn and marvel at all that we've learned in our lives. But, as a wise woman once said, I think people should leave their livestock alone.

On that note... happy weekend, everyone.

Sunday Scribblings: A Walk in the Park

Ugh.

I'm not a fan of this topic. Lemme just start there.

I'm not going the literal route here (though let's be honest, walking = exercise, so I am morally opposed to it) rather, I am going the idiom route... when something is easy, it is "a walk in the park." Or something.

I'm frustrated with myself. Back in college and high school, words used to flow so easily (a walk in the park...). I used to be able to journal for hours, make all sorts of vivid connections... now I struggle. I suppose it's like anything else, practice would help, and the more I do it, the easier it would become, but it leaves me feeling like I don't have an interesting word to say.

Actually, the bigger problem is that my trust was violated a few years ago on a different incarnation of this blog, so it leaves me concerned with saying too much, being too open. Yes, I get that one should not post private thoughts on the web... that's not what it was about... it was more about someone reading what I had written and twisting it for their benefit.

Anyway, I would like writing to again be a walk in the park for me. I would like it to be a release, rather than a job. Any advice besides practice makes perfect? :)