I go to therapy.
I’m cool with it. I don’t feel shame. After the tumultuous life I’ve lived, I need guidance on how to love myself. I struggle, but I’m getting there. However, sometimes something that’s said sticks out & I weigh it out @ 3am listening to Ron Pope.
This week’s problem; why I do not cry.
That’s not true; I cry when I’m frustrated & don’t know how to express my point. I cry when my favourite characters die in The Hunger Games. I cry when I fail a test. I cried at the end of Final Fantasy X. I cry in every moment in life, except when I should cry.
When my dad died, I barely cried. I did for a minute, but then I didn’t. When I left my beloved kitten in an alley to go to the homeless shelter, I didn’t cry. When I moved to the foster home, I got mad, but I didn’t cry. When I lost my oldest child, when I was raped, when I walked out of my marriage; I did not shed a single tear. I stood there, rigid, back straight & rationalized it all away. I cried tears of frustration and anger, but I never mourned for the marriage. I just rationalized all of it away like I have since I was a small child. Cancer kills people. Mommy has no money & bad things happen here. I’m a 21 year old girl who has no idea how to raise a child and lives with her rapist. These actions have consequences & I wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of crying. So I didn’t. I stood tall & held it in & was labelled strong. Good for me.
Then one day, after I was dealt a loss & my heart was broken, I went by the river, the place I always go & I cried. I bawled. I cried until I threw up. I cried until I couldn’t even cry tears anymore. I cried until I literally could not cry anymore…& for months, I kept on crying.
Was this the most traumatic thing I ever lived through? Nope, not even close. Was I crying decades of tears that I never shed? Was I like the chipped windshield that finally cracked from the pebble? When my best friend & I had a falling out, I didn’t shed a single tear. I embraced my anger, oh I HATED him. I rationalized it made sense; he was dishonest & I was a broken human being. I was a bad friend because I was weak. He deserved better & so did I. But I didn’t cry. I simply walked along, thinking he’s a great person, but I wasn’t always good to him nor he to me & I needed to carry on so I could be the superhuman person I’m meant to be. Sometimes, now that I’m not angry, I miss him. I don’t hate him anymore, because it’s not who I am. I am a person who prefers to be positive, not negative and I refuse to give people power over me to hurt me.
So I asked my counsellor why was I able to summon the strength to get through the worst of times, but during the one two punch, I broke down. Why did I break? She asked me the question that’s bugged me:
“Could it be you always expected to lose everything else, but you didn’t expect this?”
Maybe she’s right. All of my life I’ve waited for the shoe to drop. I always rationalized bad stuff away, but for once, I honestly didn’t understand & much like Sandra Bullock said; “Painfully, you learn quickly in life that sometimes there are no answers.”
I truly believed with all that I was that I couldn’t lose that thing that I loved so much & meant so much to me but (much like I am not worthy to be my children’s mother & I work to earn that honour every day) I did not deserve. It couldn’t happen. I would have bet my life on it. This thing, that was so good, I couldn’t lose this time. I’ve lost every prominent male in my life, including my only male child, but this time, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t lose my living Tal Bachman song. I couldn’t screw it up because it was too good and the right thing. This was just how it was supposed to be & we’d get the ending right eventually. I refused to see the shoe. I wouldn’t see the shoe. Then I got smacked with the shoe & for the first time in my life, I surveyed the mess around me; the college course I hated, the two dear friends I’d burdened, my heartbroken girls & the loss that cut me to my core & didn’t care what anyone thought, who got satisfaction, I broke. But maybe we all need to break to realize who we are. I’m still strong. I’m still me. By putting myself back together, I learned I could do it. I can be in control & I won’t eff it all up…much. I can still be the positive beacon, just smarter. I may not have everything I want out of life; I miss some close friends & I will likely always be on my own waiting for Superman but I have a great life. I’m raising my three girls completely on my own with no financial help and minimal parental support from their father, and they are thriving, with good grades and advanced developmental skills. They are gentle and loving and that’s because of my influence. I’m good @ my job & I’m pretty good @ this writing thing. Maybe I’m not going to have happily ever after in the conventional sense, but I have my girls & my goals & I put my broken self back together on my own & no one can take any of that from me. For the first time in my entire life, I am 100% in control of my life, my choices, with no one to second guess me or take credit for what I do well and I’m doing just fine.
I don’t want to spend my life looking for the shoe, which for the most part, I have always done. I also can’t bottle up pain anymore. I need to find the middle ground & as I phase into the next chapter of my crazy life (another impulsive decision), it’s what I’ll figure out. I’ll stand tall in adversity and cry when I’m hurting. I’ll be less oak tree & more willow tree.
Maybe that’s part of life. Maybe we need to break sometimes. Maybe we need to be utterly destroyed so we can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes & build ourselves back up into something better. We can appreciate what we truly want out of life when it’s all been taken from us. Would I be the mom I am if I hadn’t had to literally earn the right to be one? Would my work ethic be what it is had I not had to fight for what I have? Who knows? But perhaps we need to break to learn to bend. So I’ll bend & I’ll continue on my life’s journey.
The Misadventures of MHC 