Today, my writing may be less poetic than previously.
I genuinely find myself in a predicament (this isn’t new for me) anyway i wanted to write about it. Maybe you too, often find yourself in predicaments.
Ever heard of a sh*t sandwich? It’s where you layout the good, then the bad, then some more good. It’s how I like to view most things, or word them sometimes as it focuses less on the negative and allows for a natural and abundant way of bringing to light the crap but also acknowledging the good that exists, so lets start there.
The good? Well, I survived. I always had a roof over my head growing up, i had beautiful aunties that were always around, and 2 grandmothers that i adored as much as they adored me. I was lucky to have 4 siblings, all older than me and all who did provide a sense of safety at one time or another. I had food on my plate for every meal, i could go outside and ride my bike or look for fairies, and birthdays were joyful and i never went without beautiful and thoughtful gifts. I was able to go to school, and i had many beautiful and interesting friendships.
To continue, life wasn’t always amazing. My mother was a child herself when she had me and my brother. At age 21 and 24 is when she had us. While she carries trauma of her own, and in her imperfections she was a good mum. But she was explosive, immature, and grew to be a whirlwind of a woman. I had to run from her at 16 and 17 (it would’ve been earlier i guess but the age matters). She was narcissistic, dismissive of feelings that weren’t her own, and as the years went on it only got worse. I felt alone, mostly all of the time. I turned to self harm and running and self isolation due to the way i was treated. My Dad, present but absent, generous and yet entirely unkind. He wasn’t really around from age 6-8 onwards as we had moved across the state, and even before that. He was and is an alcoholic, you could nearly say by trade god that man can drink, I actually think he keeps the alcohol industry going.
I thought to go into more detail… and the details are ugly. They’re confronting, even for me to sit here and type it as though i didn’t live it, the sh*t part is really just that I didn’t have parents that nurtured me and taught me to have a healthy sense of identity or emotional regulation or real intimate connections and so on and so forth.
The good part? I survived, and as i sit here and tell you about the predicament I am in, well I long for connection, a partner, friends, community just like us all. And while i long, I don’t just sit and hope and long, I try. I put myself out there, i try dating and making friends and being a villager so as to have a village. I just have so many cracks and bends and wobbles in everything that I do that i just… nothing sticks. Friendships don’t always last and if they do we stop talking and we just don’t talk again so did they really last? Partners and potential partners come and go and I go to sleep knowing that I am the problem and also that I am the solution.
With every lesson and mistake I always take my time to understand why things happen and my trauma patterns, how i show up and what makes me who I am and how i can be better and heal and do good.
I recently reconnected with an ex partner. God when i tell you this relationship was tumultuous much like my others. Such connection and yet disconnection. So much love and yet so much absence of the stuff. Kindness and consideration with so much hatred and indifference. I used to say, to him and to others, that he is the kindest man I’ve ever met. He’s strong, but he’s gentle. He’s loving and yet he’s in his own world. He helps others and shows his empathy and yet there are so many times I needed him and he didn’t show up. And the lesson above all that i took was that I needed me more, I needed to show up, I needed to take care of myself. Not because I deserve to be alone or carry heavy things without support but because that is what I am meant for. To be the parent I didn’t have, to learn to love myself in all the ways I was taught not to.
And so in our reconnection I find myself questioning him, as I always have. And gaslighting myself wondering whether I am following a trauma pattern, or if I’m genuinely connected and interested in this man. OR the complete opposite. Naturally, I have trust issues and high standards. Not because I’m full of myself or conceited, I just want to give myself and allow myself to have good, true, authentic beautiful things in life including the person who I will spend just as much time with if not more than I do with myself.
He’s indecisive about me I can feel it, like he’s always been. Cautious of me, because I tend to express myself authentically and openly, although he’s taught me that it’s not always safe. I’d like to talk to him about how I’m feeling, but i almost feel like it’s not up for discussion, is it worth it? Bringing up that he makes me feel insecure, unvalued, judged at times. I always wonder why does he hang around me if it puts him in that state and I ask myself all the time why do i hang around him if he puts me in this state? Of questioning and wondering why and feeling the things i feel. And then I jump on Pinterest and it’s all, “Don’t settle for a man who’s not obsessed with you”, or “ wait for the one who holds the door and buys you flowers”. I do feel like I’m constantly auditioning for a place, and its such a paradox because in my healing I have found i am always worthy, and enough, and a valuable human to have around even when no one tells me or makes me feel that way.
So is it my pattern or are we not meant to be? Am i avoiding facing something or is he not the one? Am i selfish for wanting flowers and for my love language to grant him the title of being bilingual? Does he deserve better or do I? Do we both? Is real connection based on the majority of the good feelings and working through the not so good ones? Do I walk away or do i try one last time? I wish i knew.