Complete culpability

Thank you for loving me, Daddy.

It’s pity party time. I’ve officially spent my second birthday and the second anniversary of my dad’s death alone. Without one single phone call on either day…not a “checking in to see how you are”, not a “hey, I’m thinkin of you”…not a single friend or family member thought of me on the two most significant days of my life: my birth and the day I lost the only love I was ever going to know.

After 44 years of life, millions of friends, several boyfriends, one husband, and two children of my own, I now realize what I feared most from my earliest days is literally true. My mother, my sister and all those other people over 44 years couldn’t ALL be wrong about me; I’m not someone who can be loved. I’m just not…
I suppose I could write of how it’s my mother’s fault. How being raised by a narcissistic sociopathic woman damaged me so cruelly, left me with huge holes in my soul that can’t be filled, making me so desperate and needy for the one thing that scared me most, love. I found it crazy ironic to discover at 26 that I have a flap in my heart which doesn’t close properly. What a perfect description of me…it was almost an explanation at last for what I am that I can’t seem to help or change. The pieces of me that are so just wrong that they’ll never be right finally made literal, physical sense when the doctors told me that back when I was pregnant with Savannah Grace.

I suppose I could write how it’s other people’s fault, as well. How being so painfully insecure and desperately needy for love and approval for as long as I can remember being alive led me directly to the kinds of people who would manipulate and abuse that…furthering the unlovable clause I was born with. Seriously, WHO gets molested as a 6 year old by a teacher and a babysitter? And WHO is ridiculous enough to get raped *three* times in 44 years? And WHO is blessed enough to have had so many wonderful men profess the most beautiful depths of undying love and still ends up alone? What kind of idiot runs so fast and so often over a lifetime from the very thing she has been praying for since the tender age of 4? I certainly could never convince myself that it was all THEM…that there was something inadequate with every one of THEM. No, the common denominator there is me…and only me. I chased, pushed, argued, and crazied every one of them away from me, even the most tenacious of them. I could try to blame any one of a hundred girlfriends who shit on me, stabbed me in the back, devastated and used me…..but again, who’s the common denominator there? Me.

And what about my daddy? I was fortunate that my mother kicked me out with just a trash bag full of clothes at 16 for lying about smoking a cigarette. Thus, I spent the majority of my life, from 16 to 42, with a most amazing parent who demonstrated love, acceptance, kindness, honesty, integrity, and joy. So many children don’t have that kind of example or love in their life from ANY where growing up, at ANY age. Hell, I was fortunate that my daddy somehow always found the strength and ability to love me at all. Why didn’t that fix those fucking holes I was born and raised with? Not everyone who is unloved by her mother is blessed enough to be unconditionally loved by her father. If the cause of this unending and irreparable unlovability issue isn’t ME, at my very core, then that shower of my daddy’s true blessings would have repaired that. It should have, right?

Yes, it should have. It would have. If it wasn’t me, my fault, my issue, my fault, my inadequacy…mine, mine, MINE.

I’ve never felt good trying to blame any of this on other people anyway. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, I’ve just never been the person who could blame someone for anything at all really and feel confident it wasn’t really my fault. When the teacher molested me at 6, I even felt guilty when he got in trouble…even at that tender age; I felt it was me, my fault. After all, I had actually appreciated the special attention he had always given me, hadn’t I? I had looked forward to his smiles in the elementary school hallways that made his face beam whenever he saw me….it actually made me think of my daddy’s huge grin whenever I got to see HIM! And my favorite was the day he lifted me up to drink from the big drinking fountain. I had appreciated feeling special to a grown-up who saw me every day and still seemed to think I was someone special in this world. I would have never told on him intentionally. Not EVER! And I really didn’t want him to get in so much trouble either. Somehow, even way back then, at such a young and innocent age, I just knew it was my fault. Everything was my fault, so that had to be too. All three times I was raped, no matter how cruelly, I still felt deep down it was my fault…that I HAD gotten what I deserved. And I think I was always afraid to tell my mother because I knew she would be sure to bring that to my attention immediately and then all doubt of me “not deserving” to be raped would be totally eliminated. Hell, somehow I’ve been “asking for it” since the age of 6! I’m sure at 17 and older, I was REALLY asking for it. I just wanted to blame them because I never figured out HOW I “asked for it” and thus, couldn’t figure out how to stop “asking for it”. I only blamed them in my own mind out of frustration that I couldn’t fix what had always been wrong with me.

I’ve never minded taking the blame for things, actually I usually prefer it. After all, if it’s MY fault, then I can fix it. If it’s not, then I’m powerless to ever get it right. And yet, in spite of years of therapy, and so many wonderful years with a loving father, a zillion self-help books and strategies, I’ve never been successful at fixing it. And I still don’t feel satisfied trying to put the blame on other people for anything really… It’s been my life problem as long as I can remember; therefore, it’s still MY problem. My ex-husband even said to me once, “NO one in this world has such chronic shitty luck as you. The shit that happens to you regularly, just doesn’t happen to anyone…not even one of then usually, much less a lifetime of them!?” He was so right. I’ve always known that deep inside too. It’s me…it’s GOT to be. There is no other logical explanation. Hell, my mother abused the hell out of me physically, mentally, and verbally for 26 years and I was STILL desperate for her to love me. I’ve counseled so many children whose parents were fiercely abusive and still, they loved them and would do anything for their love. Me? I have two children who tossed me AND my love in the garbage without a second thought or one single look back to just wave good-bye….just threw me in the trash like the worthless garbage I’ve always been. And in spite of all my mistakes and failings as a mother and a human being, I gave those two children the very best of anything good I have ever had inside me to give, which was still apparently utterly worthless.

And since it seems to get worse the harder I’ve tried to repair whatever this is I was born with, what does that even really mean? If I own it all, I still can’t fix it; if I blame everyone else, I can’t fix it either.
I have so many of my daddy’s amazing qualities…deep down I think, where most can’t see them, but I have them dammit! So, why don’t they make me and my life even a fraction as valuable as my daddy was in this world to almost everyone who ever met him? Why can’t I fix what’s wrong with me?

Why?

I realized recently that I’ve never really been afraid to die… Well, as a mom I was because I felt my children deserved to know the love and nurturing of a mother…the love I never knew and started my desperate journey toward a life of failure lacking. Other than that, I never was afraid to die though. Obviously, my greatest fear is living. And figuring out why I’ve been forced to do something for 44 years that I’m just not able to do well. I’d rather not do something at all, than try for 44 years just to get worse and worse at the effort.

I did always hope that someday, before he passed or I did, I’d have the opportunity to deserve to matter in this world by giving back to my daddy somehow. I always told him, “someday Daddy, I’m going to get myself together and do something REALLY amazing for you to repay all you’ve ben and done for me over my life time”. It still wouldn’t have ever been enough, but I really always hoped I’d have that opportunity and ability someday. I didn’t. He is gone and I’m still fucking alive and every bit as unworthy, useless, and unlovable as the day I was born.

I’m sorry Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t get it together in time to return your wonderfulness to you even a little bit. I’m really sorry. I know it made no difference to you whatsoever, but it really would have made the world of difference to me.

It seems so cruel. So much death all around me over the last two years since my daddy passed. All these beloved people and children dying and leaving behind heartbroken masses of hurting folks who loved and admired them. Yet, on and on and on I go…. 44 years of nothing but worthless efforts to somehow give the world what I always dreamed of. A life of nothing; worth nothing, for nothing, meaning nothing. No one notices or cares I’m alive and who can blame them? I don’t. So, why does God take the cherished ones and leave the insignificant failures to continue being a burden.

Yet, on I go…

The Death of Muchness

It’s all empty.

It is a cruel irony that after 43 years of begging for love, begging to be deemed “worthy” of love, life, existence, the right to have feelings and thoughts, to count as a human being in this world I never requested to be brought into….
That I give up because I don’t. I don’t deserve those things. I can’t even give birth to anyone who will believe the nonsense hope I’ve been holding onto since my earliest memory… That I, too, am worthwhile.
I don’t know why God or whoever, put me here…a punching bag of regret and ridiculous dreams I guess…a cautionary tale in why not to love or hope or believe we all matter, each and every one. I make the easiest target. Hell, it’s not even sport!
He came to me last night… out of the very same deep blue abyss from where I starting losing my muchness. Imagine that?
I think it’s been since October that I saw him last… No communication whatsoever between then and now. …until last night. Until last night…gosh, that could be THE defining description of the past eight years of him! Until last night… Until last night… Until last night…
And I can’t possibly know why. I know how – via cab. I know what – nothing but a moment. I know where – right here. I will never know why though. Why last night? Why after all this time again? Why…? Why me? Why not she? Or that one? Or this one here? Why?
And that defining moment of which I’ve now had 1,462,892 and chosen the same definition again and again. Ugh…fuck that moment dammit AND my stuck-like-a-skipping-record repeated choice.
And driving him to his truck this morning, I ask myself the question, why? Do I even feel anything anymore? Once upon a time, I was simply trying to hold desperately to my muchness. My muchness is long gone now, so why?
The physical element isn’t totally gone…so is that my why? Without my muchness, even that physical aspect is altered from before. It is good, but not the phenomenon it was with my love, hope, faith, and muchness. Now, it is simply what it is, which is nothing. Nothing whatsoever.
The good part is, I can take it or leave it finally…so “taking it” actually feels like a choice, an option. And, it is good to feel it won’t kill me either way. Can’t kill that which is already dead.
Yes, I am dead. At this point, it is all just borrowed moments. Tiny flashing moments borrowed from a collection of my muchness memorabilia. So… why?
Why not? What matters is gone and the rest…well, it just doesn’t matter either way.

Spring morning and tragedy

After the long dead silence of winter, I love waking up, snug in my bed, to the sound of birds chirping… It sounds like renewal, a fresh slate.  Out with the old, wet, heavy, drudgery of snow and ice and in slides the hint of soft green grass under my naked feet and sunshine that longs to warm my skin.  It’s incredible!

This morning, I wake up just a few glorious moments before my alarm yells at me (and that is one of my favorites by the way…waking up naturally) and I think of the recent tragedy.  It’s ironically the beautiful renewal of spring which brings me to this horrible question…

Why would such a successful, talented young man with a beautiful young family, choose to end his life?  This tragedy weighs heavily on my heart because of my own fights against the tyranny of depression and the weariness that sometimes takes hold, telling me I don’t have  the strength, desire or reason to keep trudging along through this life.  Now, I think of him, where he is now, what created such a tragic degree of sadness in him…….and his family….  What he has left his family with gnaws at my insides like sharp little teeth of would-be guilt for my own indulgence in sometimes thinking of that kind of thing as a solution.

I wish I had known him better, although under the circumstances I can’t imagine that would ever have been appropriate in my society.  Had I known him better, would I have recognized the similar burden of dark thought that we shared, the danger zone we both visited?  Could I have made any difference? Would I have even seen or been able to help, if I had? 

This is the fourth suicide that has touched my life.  This one just hides along the edges, close enough to touch me, yet too far away still to feel any literal responsibility.  Suicide hurts so many, so much more than the actual victim.  Its like a ripple of darkness through an already messed-up world…a ripple of darkness so solid and massive that it trips all who merely know of it, like waking in the night and stumbling over an unseen object that’s not supposed to be there.  And although my own toe feels like I stumbled directly on it even just in my safe perimeter (a subtle throbbing my mind returns to again and again), I can’t possibly imagine how his family feels.

God, please wrap that family in love, compassion, and a massive healing light of  white and an energy of warm, yellow hope.  Please send them the hope of hummingbirds.