Life

Failure to launch

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You got to learn how to fall
Before you learn to fly
And mama, mama it ain’t no lie
Before you learn to fly
Learn how to fall. 

~Paul Simon

I heard this song on my way into work this morning, and I thought, “Okay, I’ve got the falling part down, when does the flying lesson start?”

In fact, I’m sick of falling. I’m bruised and broken, and slow to get up again these days. When I look back on my life, I see only the falls, no flying. Depression, failure at relationships, jobs and dreams – falling, falling, falling.

I’ve stumbled again, and this time I don’t want to get up. I don’t see the point. I’m tired and I don’t think I’ll ever get where I want to be. I’ll never fly. I flap my wings to exhaustion, but I never leave the ground.

Today I’m laying here in the dirt again, my back broken, looking up at the sky, and it looks as unattainable as always. I see others flying around up there, but I know I’ll never join them. It just doesn’t seem to be my place. I’m no more suited to the sky than a bear. My place is with the earth-dwellers, working hard for every morsel of sustenance, trudging along, making my way on the path, dodging the holes and the rocks.

The long way around.

I’m not the only one. I see others ahead and behind, looking up at the sky wistfully, tripping over their own feet occasionally, or a stick or a stone, struggling to get back up. We’ve got falling – failing – down pat. It’s the flying that eludes us. Broken wings, or too much weight…whatever.

Nothing to see here, folks, just another body on the path. One of the casualties, ill-equipped and not particularly bright. Didn’t have what it takes. C’mon now, nothing to see.

Move along.

Living accordingly

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“Maybe the reason nothing seems to be ‘fixing you’ is because you’re not broken. Let today be the day you stop living within the confines of how others define or judge you. You have a unique beauty and purpose; live accordingly.” ~Steve Maraboli

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I’ve been beating myself up pretty good the past couple of days, feeling like a failure, abnormal, an alien. Feeling like an idiot for getting myself in such a desperate place again. Thinking about how hard I’ve worked to get well, to accept myself as I am, to have compassion for the trials I’ve faced and the ways in which they have shaped my journey. Berating myself for throwing all that away by willingly putting myself in a situation that has brought me to my knees once again.

What was I thinking?

Well, I thought for once I could do something meaningful for someone else. I wasn’t thinking of myself, necessarily. I was challenging myself to feel compassion for the one person in my life I felt least deserved it, but probably needed it the most. I knew I would be challenged, but I felt like I was up to the challenge and that it was almost pre-ordained by the universe. Major karma between me and my mother all these years, and I felt this would be the end.

I had no idea it would take this long. Honestly, if I had known I would still be here 6 years later with no end in sight, I might have run away screaming when she asked me to move in with her. Really, though, there was no other choice. She couldn’t live alone. What else could I have done? Looked my then 80 year-old mother, recently widowed after 60 years with the same man, living on meager Social Security and in poor health as always, in the eye and said, “no?”

Well, yes, in theory I could have. She would have died in a short time, probably, and I would have gone on with my life. I wouldn’t have felt good about that, though, and in some ways that might have been more challenging anyway. I’d still be around, and she would have called on me constantly no matter where I was.

Ultimately I would have felt like there was something more I could have done. So instead of feeling bad, I did that something more. I wasn’t being true to her so much as I was being true to myself. This is who I am, who I always have been – loyal to a fault. Like a dog. To my detriment, almost always, especially where my family is concerned.

So now I’m a better, if not happier person. I have never believed that the purpose of life is to be happy. I believe the purpose of life is to be of use. I believe in the Golden Rule. I think if there is a god, that’s really all the bible needs to say: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Treat others with love, acceptance and understanding. Even your worst enemy is a human being worthy of respect and kindness. Everyone is deserving of forgiveness, love and care.

Even my mother. I forgave her a long time ago, and now I’m working on the “love and care” part. Everyday. Mostly it’s on-the-job training, but I’m getting through. It’s so hard, especially the last few months when she has been so ill and my life has been turned upside down again, much as it was over and over as a kid by her poor health, and then later by depression. I’m tempted over and over again to question my decision to be here, and the life that led me here.

Over and over, however, I find that the answer to those questions is simply that “this is who I am.” This is who I’ve always been. I believe I have lived my life according to my purpose, even when I wasn’t really sure what that was. This is the family I got, and they are and have been my path to enlightenment. The path has been arduous – strewn with rocks and pits, over mountains and deep valleys – just like everyone else’s. I’ve been tempted to lay down my pack and stop so many times.

But I haven’t yet, and I hope I won’t. As I have gone on I’ve become stronger, better equipped, and better at seeing the way ahead. I can’t see where the path ends, but the next step is clear, and maybe the next step after that. I try to stay in the moment, and I find I’m happier if I don’t think about what’s ahead. I’m tired, but I focus on putting one foot in front of the other and that’s all. Just keep moving I tell myself every morning when the alarm goes off.

Get up, and just keep moving. I’ll be where I need to go soon enough.

Wasting Away

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“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

I caught up with a childhood friend yesterday on Facebook. She and I were best friends and neighbors until she moved away when we were both 14. I’ve seen her once since then – 30 years or so ago when she came back to town to visit her mother – but then we lost touch. It was nice to see pictures of her now and to hear about her life, but it made me sad, too.

When asked to superficially describe my life I find the only thing I’m comfortable talking about is my work. I don’t want to admit that much of my life was determined by the severity and duration of the chronic depression I’ve struggled with since high school, and the rest by my obligation to my parents. I feel good about myself and the fact that I’ve survived the depression and done right by my family, until I’m talking to someone else, especially someone I grew up with. Then I find that I feel that – compared to them – I’ve wasted my life. Or, at least, that I have nothing to show for it.

On the face of it, anyway. In the condensed Facebook version you can’t see how much I’ve grown as a human, or what I went through just to be alive now. On the surface, it seems like maybe I took the “easy way out” by staying in my hometown and living a “small” life by myself. Maybe I was lazy or scared and couldn’t manage anything more important or exciting. Or more normal. 

What’s not clear is that my life has been the hardest way out, for me, anyway, because none of it is what I wanted or dreamed of. I’ve had to deal with the worst things I could imagine as a child – never getting away from my family and being alone all my life. I didn’t ask for depression; it just took over. I didn’t ask to have the parents I got or to feel obligated to them. I didn’t choose any of the things that made other choices impossible as my life went on. I have always just made the best of what I was given, which in terms of freedom to choose, was not a lot.

In the vast realm of human suffering, my life doesn’t even register on the scale, but it was hard for me. It’s been a struggle. I don’t have anything to show for it except that I AM STILL HERE. Still getting out of bed every morning and facing the days as they come. Going through a very difficult time right now and hoping that things will get better, but knowing they may not for a while, and still getting out of bed.

Every. Single. Day.

That’s worth something, isn’t it? Not giving up? Still trying to be a good person, and trying to do the right thing. Isn’t that valuable? I think so. But it doesn’t condense well, and that will always be a problem for me, as much of what goes on between people never goes below the surface.

I know, though. I know the whole story and I know I’m alright. My life has been worthwhile. I haven’t wasted anything. Most importantly, the ending hasn’t been written yet. There is more to come and I will keep showing up for whatever it is with the best that I have to offer.

 

Journeying on

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I struggle to remember this everyday now. I have every reason to believe my life will go on after my current situation is over, and that belief is what keeps me going. If I thought this situation with my mother would be unchanged for the rest of my life I think I would give up.

It’s hard and I look forward to the end, while trying to stay in the present. Not an easy task when the present is so unpleasant and difficult in so many ways, and life beyond it is freedom.  The end is not in sight, though, so I try to remember that living in the future and wanting something different than what is happening now is the very definition of unhappiness.

This is what is, and this is what I have to deal with. It’s not permanent, but some days it seems so, and I guess that’s what’s hard. I can’t see the end, and though I keep telling myself, this too shall pass, it doesn’t.

Over and over things seem to get better – I might have part of a day in which mom is feeling pretty good and work is okay and all the housework is done – but in an instant it’s gone. Mom is calling for me with some problem, and/or, as in the case last weekend, we get 2 feet of snow that I had to deal with for 5 days. Or I feel like I’m pretty on top of things at work and catching up from all the time I missed in the last two weeks, and I get an email that in an instant changes everything and I’m behind again.

I wake up in a panic every morning thinking about the day and all the problems that could be waiting for me, anxiety crushing my chest. I’m tired before I even start. In the shower, in the car, at my desk, in my chair in the living room in the evening, I tell myself: Everything ends. This is not forever. I know that’s true, but it doesn’t feel like that, and I’m tempted to lose heart.

I’m just so tired.

So at those times I allow myself to think about my hope for the future: About a time after my mother is gone and I can move back into my little house, and have only myself and the cats to worry about. I could travel again, and have time out with friends, go for walks and bike rides; do the things I enjoy doing. The things that make life enjoyable for me.

But I can’t linger there. That’s not reality now and while it does give me hope to think about that time, I have to be present in this time to do what needs to be done. This is all there is right now. Until it’s over, this is where my energy belongs.

This is my journey, not my permanent destination, so the only thing I can do is keep moving. It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?

JUST KEEP MOVING.

 

 

Looking back, looking ahead

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When I was younger I lost huge blocks of time – days, sometimes weeks – lost in the fog of depression. Everything just stopped for a while and then when the depression lifted, I went back to doing the things I liked to do – the things that made life worth living. My life.

I couldn’t lose my job, so I put every bit of what little energy I had into getting there most days during those times. Some days I did nothing but sit in my office and stare at the wall for 8 hours, but I was there, and I stayed employed.

That’s what life during those times boiled down to: focus on that one thing – the thing that had to happen so I could go back to my life when I was well again. Most days when I got home from work I went to bed. The next day I would do it again, and the next, and the next, until slowly, as the depression lifted, I could begin living fully again.

This time I’m spending caring for my mother feels like that time again, and it scares me. I find myself using some of the same techniques I used in those days to maintain my life so I can go back to it when things get better. I don’t have time, opportunity, or energy to do any of the things I enjoy; the things that keep me healthy. I have to postpone appointments, get-togethers with friends, daily walks, posting on this blog – the list is long.

My focus this time is trying to eat properly and working as much as I can. This last week 1/2 days, next week, hopefully 6 hours per day. I keep telling myself I survived all those years with the depression, and I will survive this. I will survive this, and then I will have to rebuild my life just as I did before.

What’s different this time is that I don’t have to hide what’s going on. There is nothing shameful about caring for a family member, and everyone has been very supportive, and for that I’m grateful, especially at work. There was nothing shameful about the depression, either, but I didn’t know that then, and I had no support.

There weren’t drugs then like there are now, and I didn’t know anyone else who struggled as I did. I felt broken and different, and I did everything I could to conceal what I was going through from everyone I knew. Sooner or later that deception ended most of my relationships, so I was even more isolated, but that actually made it all easier.

I don’t have to do any of that now, and I’m very grateful for that difference. This is hard, but it isn’t as hard as that was, and I’m so much better-equipped to deal with the disruption now. I’m ready to get back to my life, but it’s not time yet, so I’m just hanging on. I know someday I’ll get back to it all and then I will be able to enjoy it all the more knowing that’s it all for a reason, and that I’ve spent the time away doing something worthwhile. My mother will be better (I hope), and I will be better for the experience.

So it’s the same in some ways, but very different also, and I have to keep reminding myself of that. I’m going forward, not backward, and it’s okay.

This too shall pass.

 

Not going down

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I have never liked the idea of “every man for himself.” I’m an Aquarian. I’m much more of a “we’re all in this together” kind of girl. I’m beginning to understand the concept of “every man (or woman)” though. You can’t let someone drag you under if saving them will kill you, too. There is no point in dying for a principle. Life is too precious.

If you can save the other person and yourself – awesome. That’s noble. If saving them endangers you, however, no dice, especially if they’re not willing to try to save themselves. Remember the Poseidon Adventure? It was so sad when Shelley Winters died. That haunted me for weeks. Now I realize that ultimately it was her choices in life that led to her demise – because of the way she had lived her health was too poor to survive swimming to safety. Her husband couldn’t save her, so he had to go on alone.

That’s really sad, but the reality of life is that there are consequences to our decisions and actions. There isn’t always going to be a happy ending. There is no script. There is only what is and how you deal with what is and if you choose not to deal with what is then nothing can be done for you.

That seems harsh, doesn’t it? But…THAT’S LIFE. Everyone has to face that fact sooner or later. I can’t change that reality for anyone and they can’t change it for me. Pretending that something isn’t happening, or wishing it was happening differently are behaviors we have to leave behind in childhood, or we make ineffective adults. We hurt ourselves and those around us. The only way to deal with life and its struggles is head on, eyes wide open; with compassion for ourselves, because, man, is it hard.

Straight ahead, nonetheless.

Do I feel compassion for someone who is struggling? Absolutely. My heart breaks with compassion and empathy. I will try to help if I can, but if I can’t, either because it’s not within my power or because the person won’t accept help, then I have to let go. Especially if I am to keep moving on. If I get stuck in that heartbreak then I’m doomed, too.

I intend to survive for as long as I can on my own terms, dealing with my own stuff. Period. This is the only life I get, and I mean to protect it. I’ll help you if I can, brothers and sisters, cuz that’s the Aquarian way. If it takes too much out of me, though, you’re on your own. I’ll be over here cheering you on, but I’m not going to risk my life to save yours. You make your choice and I make mine:

I want to live.

Throw me a line

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I spent most of yesterday at the hospital with my nearly 86 year-old mother. First we were in the Emergency Department, then later she was admitted for an overnight stay and some tests this morning. (She’s home again now and everything’s going to be okay.)

What struck me most about the day when I finally got home last night and thought about it was the waiting. There is no sense of urgency in the ED these days. We’ve been fairly frequent visitors since I moved in with mom 5+ years ago, and it doesn’t seem to me that it has always been as bad as it was yesterday, but waiting is definitely a big part of that experience.

There’s no choice but to gut it out, though, cuz the fact that you’re miserable and that it might be their job to ease your misery as if it were an emergency, clearly does not seem to register with anyone there. It makes me wonder how these people are being trained, and maybe even why they wanted to be in a “helping” profession in the first place. Didn’t they know they were going to have to deal with sick people?

The most helpful thing they did in the 5+ hours we were there was to admit mom into the actual hospital, which was a completely different experience. Thank goodness.

Anyway, that’s another blog. Back to waiting…

I had an epiphany sitting in the uncomfortable chair in the little room in the ED in which my mother was on a gurney writhing and moaning in pain, and we were waiting for someone to decide to do something. I realized that I’ve been waiting for my mother all of my life. Waiting for her to let me go. Waiting for her to grow up and realize that she was the parent. Waiting to begin the life I dreamed of, not the life she envisioned for me with her as the center and my own needs secondary (read: non-existent).

There are a lot of dynamics at play in our relationship, adoptee guilt, fear of abandonment and need to please not being the least of them. I take responsibility for my choices – I could have walked away and never looked back, certainly. That’s not my nature, though, and there were other reasons I gave in to the manipulation, so I own my decisions. I spent a fair amount of time in therapy a while ago working through the resentment, so that’s not really an issue anymore, and I am certainly here now with her since my dad died by choice. I have been a good daughter to her and my dad and I feel good about that. I think it matters. 

But I realized yesterday that now instead of waiting and hoping she will change, I am waiting for her to die. I think about the changes I’ll make in my life after she passes and that makes me feel hopeful about the future in a way I’ve never experienced before. Being tied to her and her needs has always been a given, a limiting factor in my life, and the end of that is in sight now. I’m not wishing for her death, and it is most likely years away, but it’s no longer a lifetime away.

It seems a little ghoulish, but I’m making plans for my life without her and looking forward to that time, much the same way I’m looking forward to retirement. To me both those things represent the freedom – the liberation – I’ve been hoping for all of my life.

I felt a little guilty last night when I realized I was thinking in those terms, but there it is. It’s probably just rationalization, but I feel like I have done my time, and it’s not horrible for me to be thinking about my mother’s demise as a good thing. My parents have lived good long lives, and in a lot of ways I eased the way for them, certainly for my mother. I served my parents well and when that service comes to an end, I will be free and clear. All debts paid, and a clean slate before me on which to write the rest of my story.

No more waiting then – for anything or anyone. I have a lot to catch up on!

 

Trust in me

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Trust is hard for me. I suppose it is for most people. For the most part throughout my life I didn’t trust anyone or anything – not people, not circumstances, not even myself sometimes. It’s something I’ve worked on over the years, and I think I’m better at trusting now then I ever have been before, but still it’s hard.

I’ve worked especially on trusting myself; being someone I can count on even if everyone else lets me down. I try not to take anything personally, I try not to beat myself up when I make a mistake, and I give myself permission not to know everything.

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t expect to anymore. I no longer compare myself to other people, nor do I care what they might think of me. I would like to be liked, of course, but I get that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, nor are they mine. That’s okay. There’s room for all of us here, and though we do have to get along and be kind to each other, we don’t have to like each other.

The Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” It doesn’t say, be like everyone else, or that other people have to be like you. We just have to treat others as though they matter to us as much as we matter to ourselves. Be nice. Be patient. Be compassionate – to others, and to yourself.

Human beings are complex. With a couple of notable exceptions, no one is all good or all bad. In my experience, given a chance, everyone will let you down at some point, including and especially yourself. Humans are fallible. We can do better, probably, but mostly we don’t. We talk a lot about it, usually in reference to a book about a god, but mostly we do what we want, what feels good. That’s okay, we’re human. We’re not perfect.

 

What I really have trouble with, though, is in trusting God, or the Universe, or the angels/spirit guides/life energy – whatever you want to call it. I recognize there is a force in the world, and that there is order in the world that emanates from that force.

I feel it, I see it in nature, and I have to admit sometimes I have been witness to small miracles, for which the only explanation could be incredible luck or other worldly intervention. Other times, not at all, usually when it is most needed, unfortunately. So surprise – it’s not Santa Claus – you can’t just ask for what you want and get it.

So my feeling is that it’s no more trustworthy than humans, and usually, downright not trustworthy at all. Not perfect either, apparently. It seems to be random, and that’s fine. Sometimes I’ve been given a gift, and I’m deeply grateful, and I benefit. Other times – no dice.

So okay, that’s fine, but how do I trust that? Believe in it? Maybe. Probably, even. But trust? No way. What good is a god/spirit guide/force in the universe that’s no more reliable or helpful than us? Honestly? If I’m here on my own and can only count on myself and other humans, well then, okay. At least I know that.

But so many people believe in the Santa Claus God, (Christian, Hindu, Muslim – it doesn’t matter) and I’m thinking, if they’re right, then what’s wrong with me? What could I have done to piss that god off so badly that I’d be the only one not on the “nice” list?

Oh, right, it’s not just me. How about kids with cancer? How about all the people who lose their homes and/or their lives everyday in weather-related disasters – “Acts of God.” The list goes on. What’d they all do?

If believing in and trusting in god is the same as not believing in and trusting god, then what difference does it make? So far, I can’t see where believing in a god does any good, but it definitely seems to do a lot of bad. So much evil is perpetuated in the name of one god or another. Really, is god as petty and horrible as the worst in human beings? Doesn’t it seem like any god worth its salt would be a little more evolved? Doesn’t it seem that such a being would be all about LOVE and nothing else?

Do you see love at work in the world on a daily basis? In your life? In the life of anyone you know? Yes, maybe. Is it winning? It doesn’t seem so to me. So where’s the loving god who’s going to make everything okay? Where’s the Perfect God?

Believe it or not, I’m not a cynic. Really. I’m not. I just think chasing our tails trusting in a god “out there” is killing us. I think we need to trust ourselves and each other. We have to become people who are worthy of trust. Our only hope as a society and as a species is to stop looking “out there” and start looking “in here.”

Find the good within you, and within me. Be kind to yourself and then to someone else. Then be kind to the Earth. Live gently. Take your eyes off heaven and look around here now. Nurture yourself, your fellow human beings, and our Mother Earth. Not because of a rule, but because it’s the right thing to do.

It’s the only thing to do.

The innocence of youth?

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Via on Instagram “More Books. L̶e̶s̶s̶ Fewer Guns. (Grammar is important.) – Mae 8 yrs old”

So what were you doing when you were 8 years old? I was playing with Barbies, riding my bike and fighting with my mother about not letting me have long hair. Did I even know what was going on outside of my household or school? In my town? Maybe, but I doubt it. Certainly not in the country. I watched cartoons, not the news.

It was a different time. I was 8 years old in 1970. I had a vague idea about a war somewhere that people weren’t happy about, but I didn’t know where it was or what it was about, really. I also knew my parents didn’t like the President, but that didn’t seem to matter that much to me on a day-to-day basis, either – certainly not as much as the spelling test I had on Friday or the characters in the book I was completely immersed in at any given time.

Like Mae pictured above, I was smart and a good student. I loved school. I liked to write poetry and stories. (I knew the difference between “less” and “fewer.”) My friends and I played hopscotch and jumped rope outside. We didn’t have phones or computers. We played Kick the Can and Red Rover. I thought a lot about what it would be like to be an adult. I wondered about sex and fantasized about having a boyfriend someday. I worshiped high school girls.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be an 8 year old now. They are aware of so much more than I was at that age. They have to deal with so much more. I feared nuclear war, but it didn’t even occur to me that I might not be safe at school – that someone could, or would even want to, come in my school and shoot me or my friends and teachers.

Was I naive? Was I sheltered? Yes, probably, but no more than most other white kids living in a small town at that time, and maybe some black kids, too. I get now it was harder for people of color and women then – for anyone who was not white and male and straight really – but I didn’t know that then. I’m sure life in the inner cities was not as sedate as the one I experienced in the Midwest, either, but none of that registered with me then. I was pretty happily clueless about the world outside of my immediate realm.

Kids don’t get to be clueless now. The whole world comes at them day and night on TV and the internet. 24/7 panic over something somewhere. But here’s the amazing thing about these kids: they haven’t been desensitized or paralyzed by fear. They seem to feel empowered. They are smart and creative, and brave.

They are rising to the challenge of living in this frightening world. Literally. The kids who marched this weekend have risen up and said to all of us and to our elected officials, “Enough.” They should be home doing homework and going to the prom this spring. What they’re doing instead is schooling us. They are taking charge because the adults aren’t.

I haven’t felt this hopeful in a long time. I hate to see the way they’ve been vilified on the internet, but it doesn’t seem to phase them. They are doing what needs to be done, saying what needs to be said, and they don’t seem to mind that some people think they don’t have the right.

Of course they have the right. If they are old enough to be killed in cold blood, they certainly have the right to express how that makes them feel. And soon they will have the right to vote. Marching is awesome and inspiring, but voting is what ultimately matters. They are working within the system to effect change. That is the heart of democracy. While our President is in Florida playing golf and his clueless cronies are cuddling up to the NRA, these kids are changing our country.

And they’re leading all the other folks who have been overlooked for too long: people of color, women, gay and trans people. But this isn’t about money or politics. It’s not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s not about religion or race, straight or gay or other. It’s simply about our human community and the way we have a right to live.

God bless those beautiful kids for the gift they’re giving us: HOPE. They are standing up so that we may all rise. I’m so proud of all of them, and I have hope for the future in a way I haven’t for a long time. They are giving us back our country. Wrenching it right out of the hands of the adults who have allowed it to get so off track by greed, self-interest and short-sightedness. They are standing up for the future – for their future, and saying to the rest of us, “You’re not doing it right. Do better.”

So we have been called out, folks. How will we respond?

 

Let it be

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I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about something someone “did” to me yesterday. I went over and over in my head all the things I wanted to say, the letter I was going to write, and how I was going to right the wrong. I kept telling myself to just let it go and go to sleep, but I wasn’t listening to myself. I was “listening” to my humiliation.

That’s where the anger (and the anxiety) was coming from: someone questioned my integrity, but even worse than that, they treated me as if what I need doesn’t matter. Yep. That’s right where it is, in my gut, in my head. That desperate feeling of being less than. What a horrible, sickening feeling that is. It hits me where I live.

They made a decision they knew would hurt me, denying my request for something I need and that they have the power to give. That’s really what it comes down to: I am powerless in this situation and that makes me feel horrible. They treated me callously and dismissively and that’s hard to take. No one should ever be treated that way.

Happens all the time, though, doesn’t it? I treat people thoughtlessly sometimes; not usually because I mean to, but because what they feel doesn’t seem as important to me as what I’m feeling. It’s really that simple. I treat you differently than I want to be treated because I think my needs are more important than yours. Not that hard to understand.

Hard to accept, though, when you don’t get what you want because someone didn’t give you the consideration you feel you deserve. Being treated as less than, as if you don’t matter, that to me is the hardest to take. It’s my “red” button. Press it and it’s instant anger.

But I have to let it go. The anger, the anxiety, the hurt.  I don’t want to be carrying this around any longer than I have already, in fact. If I hang on to it for very long it’ll eat me alive.

So, there’s nothing for it but to forgive. If I am going to get any sleep for the foreseeable future, I’m going to have to forgive the person who has done me wrong. Not for their sake – they don’t care. For my sake. Because there’s nothing else I can do to and keep going on.

It has to be sincere. It won’t work unless I really open my heart and let it out. All the vengeance, the humiliation, the blame. The “you did this to me, and how dare you!” All of it. Fully accepting that they did it on purpose, knowing it would hurt me, and that they didn’t care about that. All the ugliness – out. It has to go. It’s the only way to have peace.

Then I can heal from this, and then I can sleep. That’s how I take care of myself in this – by dumping it all back in their lap:

I forgive you for not treating me as you would want to be treated.

I forgive you for not trying to understand the ramifications of your decision, and/or understanding and not caring.

I forgive you for using your power to hurt me rather than help me.

I forgive you for being human.