Tuesday, March 23, 2010

snip, snip

I swore that I would never get rid of the stuffed dog that he won me at King's Island. He had invested at least 50 dollars in winning it for me. I had never owned such an expensive stuffed animal.
Yesterday, as I lay in my bed staring out the window while Deanna and Julianna chatted on the couch, I thought once more about my emotionally eventful Spring Break. Deanna held the giant stuffed dog in her lap, fiddling with the red plastic collar and the floppy ears. I suddenly loathed the dog. I wished I could destroy it. Instead I offered it to Deanna, who seemed to enjoy it and saw its value as a good pillow. I looked at the pictures on my wall, pictures that I thought that I could look at without feeling pain. However, knowing that Andrew now has a new girlfriend has opened old wounds and brought on a whole new realm of feelings that I have never experienced before.
There is a picture of us kissing in the snow, a few pictures of us at the zoo, pictures of Christmas, and one of my favorite pictures of just him.
Now when I look at the pictures of him, I thought of all the time that was invested in him, in the relationship, and all the many memories that accumulated over the two and a half years we spent together. That coupled with the two bridal magazines on my book shelf has become too much for me. Especially since there is some new girl in his life that is filling my shoes. I hate what this is doing to me, this nasty side of me that it is slowly and methodically revealing. I know with total conviction that marrying Andrew would have been a horrible mistake for both of us. I know that he is not the best guy for me. I have since met many guys that I know would be better suited for me. Yet I do not like the idea that there is anyone out there that is better for him than me. I am such a bitch.
I know that these feelings are wrong, that they are foolish, selfish, and jealous. I cannot squelch them though. I can't stand the thought that after all that I invested in him, in that relationship, that someone else can just step in where I left off and make him happier than I ever did. There is also a lot of angst over the fact that he has moved on and is happily in a new relationship when all I have had is three guys in my life who "like me", but apparently not enough to do anything about it. All around me happy relationships are springing up and I am stuck in the same rut dealing with my trashed emotions and wondering when some man is going to come in my life and remind me that they do really exist.
I write this with a lot of bitterness. I write this from a very wrong state of heart and mind. I write this because all I have seen as far as relationships go with family and guys is failure after failure after failure. I am sick of constantly being let down. And I am sick of just being able to think and say, "Lord, be my everything," when I honestly feel no sincerity behind it. I know what my life should look like. Why can't I make it happen?

In other news, I just got a text message from my mother. Incredibly predictable. The same old story that makes me realize that I have even more removal to deal with in my life. I mentioned in my last post that I have to be done with home. I have to be done with that entire unhealthy community. The thought terrifies me, but also brings me a great sense of freedom. With my mother, things happen the same way. She always initiates contact, and after much prayer and thought, I reciprocate. There has been so much pain and so much shit that has happened, and the abyss between myself and my mother is increasing. I have muddled my way through trying to understand forgiveness, but I am slowly but surely learning that forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation, especially if there is abuse present in the relationship. And there is so much abuse between my mother and I. I cannot even fathom a relationship with her at this point. That doesn't mean never, but it does mean right now, I cannot have relationship with her for my own sanity and my own safety. However, I wish that it could be simple, that I could just step back from her and forgive her and then move on for a time in my life when there isn't that self destructive relationship present. Even just recently, my attempts to let my mother into my life has twice blown up in my face and led to the usual hateful and abusive retaliations on her part, followed by an attempt to ask for forgiveness and manipulate me into a relationship with her.
Yet even as I write this, my heart is breaking. I know that my mom doesn't have any friends. I know that she is entirely alone. She has lost her whole family. She is not in a loving relationship with any of her kids. She has two ex husbands now. How can I resign myself to this and be okay with this much suffering in my mothers life and not try to reach out to her and love her? Yet how can I constantly subject myself to the abuse of being in a relationship with her?

Today in chapel we sang the song "This Is My Father's World". One of the lines that we kept repeating was, "This is my Father's world, why should my heart be sad?"
I can think of more reasons than I can count that I should be sad. This world is such a shitty place. There is heartache everywhere. I am certain that God is not happy all the time about the state of His creation, the state of His children. This is His world, and He is sovereign, but sorrow and heartache is a tangible result of the fall, and that is in fact, the world that we live in.

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