It's been almost a month since the hole in my heart appeared. When my father looked at me for the last time and drew his last ragged breath. He was truly my best friend. I felt his absence immediately and felt the fear of going on without him behind me. He was the only one that ever supported me and every crazy idea I had. He used to tell me that my problem wasn't that I was inept and unable to do something, it was that I could do EVERYTHING but the hard part was deciding WHAT I really wanted to do. I knew I was going to miss him. I already missed his voice. His voice - the second thing in this world that put a smile on my face automatically (the first is my kids faces). I let myself cry, I let myself be mad, sad, anti-social, emo, moody and finally smile at his memory. I thought I would be ok because I wasn't holding it in, I was doing what everyone says you should do.
Then came today.
Today was "date day" with my husband-well, everything went to shit. We fought to the point where I walked out on him at lunch. He told me that I push everyone away, and I'm pushing him and the kids away. This came after a lengthy fight that led me to ask why I couldn't ever just be the center of his attention, and it's apparently all my fault. I know I push people away, but I never felt I did it to my kids. Hubs, yeah. There's so much history that I don't know what to do with other than lock it away, which is probably why I push him to arms length from me. I was taken back to a time where I was so alone in my life, it almost killed me. I walked out because to feel so very isolated in a restaurant full of people is worse than being truly by yourself.
I realized just HOW alone I really felt. We're talking prisoners in solitary have more connections than I do. I've never had a person who really wanted me around, just because they liked me. Anyone who was in my life was there by MY choice, and that was that. I didn't NEED them, just liked them. I like doing things by myself, I like being able to think and create and reason. I really realized today WHY. There has never been a person in my life, save one, who didn't want me there for their own personal agenda, punching bag, or doormat. The only one who ever made it clear that he had no agenda, just loved me for me, is now gone. I realized he was the only one who ever actually believed in me - not even I believed in me. All this time I thought I was finally confident in who I've become and who I was before and who I will be. It became clear that I relied on him to provide that to me, rather than it coming from within myself. I push people away not because I want to be alone, but because I'm so afraid of getting hurt yet again, of failing yet again, that it's the only way to minimize then pain of such a thing. The pain of loss. Now I face the biggest loss yet. The cracks have begun to show in my stupid facade. I don't know how to fix them, how to allow people in. I can't even let myself in - I put every idea back on a shelf and decide immediately that they won't work. Practicality is all that matters. I will travel to the ends of the earth to make my children's dreams come true, but mine - mine don't mean anything.
When did I become this person? This hardened, cold, defeatist? I look at where I am now and I see that all that I've created, all the mess I've created. I work in a job that usually people half my age do, yet I don't expect to move up anywhere or be paid more. (Do I think I should be? Absolutely, but what do I do about it? Nada.) I come up with these great ideas, things that would be great, but then I tell myself I'm delusional and shove them aside. I have created my own prison of nothing special. I can't even hold my own husband's attention, how do I expect to hold anyone else's? A royal mess I've made.
I know it won't be an instantaneous fix, that it will take time to patch up these cracks. Tear down the walls, more accurately. I've never been devoid of passion, that I'm sure of. It's just finally time I realize that such passion is best put to use rather than put down. Even though I feel as if I have no one else on this earth but myself right now, I know that if I fix this, I will. I will believe in myself no matter what and allow others to share in that with me. I don't have to be by myself and it's alright to depend on someone else once in awhile. My biggest cheerleader may be gone, but he won't be the last of them.
I know, much easier said than done, but it's said and out there. Now, I just have to believe that I can and will follow through with putting it all into action. A lifetime of separating myself will need work. Point is, I'm worth the work.
