Periodically throughout my life I have moments of great
clarity, where I think I have magically solved one or more issues and I have
moved forward. Sometimes I have, and
other times I have not. While am
woefully aware of my issues and shortcomings I have come to accept that I am
human, and as such not perfect. Really I
am nobody, I am going nowhere, I read a book titled something similar on Buddhism. Don’t misunderstand me, I am very successful
in the eyes of some of my peers, I overcame obstacles and bought a home, a car
and a motorcycle the three things I always wanted. Still, even with all the “things” I set goals
for achieved, I was empty, missing something, I always wanted to be a singer
and songwriter, maybe that was it, so I made a point to focus more on my
passions. Still, something always seems
like it is missing. I’ve looked to the
outside for it when I ought to have been looking within.
I’ve a strange past with trauma and loss, don’t we all, and
it can be easy to disregard or overemphasize the importance of this past and
the events within it. Yet, you cannot
easily move forward if you do not learn from your past, in fact you may not
move forward at all if you cannot learn. So you learn, or you think you learn,
you try to learn, and sometimes you relearn.
I’ve taken a look at my past in an effort to heal and learn
and leave the past in the past.
Everything you experience leaves an imprint on you, the more significant
the event the larger the imprint. I
used to say my mom was the only person that was with me since birth, until her
death, but even that is not true, not if I am honest about it and how I feel . My mother was there since I was born that was
true, and she left the state seeking to heal and grow herself, my biological
father had next to no contact with me, he came to visit one time, and I was too
little to remember. So right away I was
abandoned by my biological father, but I was taken in by my Dad, but later
after Nana and Papa died when I was 11 or 12 Dad left. He would take his two children to visit him
but not me, I was abandoned again. I
couldn’t know, as a child of 12 to 13 much more than how things appeared and
how I felt. When I was 13 my mom packed
me up and sent me away to meet my father, it took two hours, I was devastated. My mother had abandoned me too. Now I was acting out, I wanted my dad back, I
wanted my normal life back, I hated the guy she started dating, I hated that my
dad was gone, I hated everything. I was
thirteen, what would anyone expect.
So I went to a new state, losing everything I had ever known
for all of my life that I could remember, and I went to live with my sister and
her mother at first and not my father, until she didn’t want me there, and so I
felt abandoned all over again. In my now
somewhat grown up mind I can understand she was 13 and wanted her things and
her space, but as a thirteen year old I couldn’t understand that then.
It seemed the sky would fall on me, everything kept going
wrong, bad things happened all the time, I couldn’t figure out what a
relationship should really be, I just wanted to be loved. For YEARS I just wanted to be loved. I didn’t realize that the emptiness I was
feeling couldn’t be filled from outside, I didn’t know it had to come from me.
Finally I reached a point with my Dad where we began to
heal, and I felt loved, and part of a family again, and though the emptiness
and doubt remained the healing was steadily working. I was able to see what I had been missing and
the loss and how it affected me, but I still had not learned my lesson
yet. I was still looking for someone
else to, my family, to help fill that void.
I have great sisters and brothers, some are spoiled, some are punks,
some are eccentric and some think themselves better but I love them, I will
never not love them, they are all different and all love differently, they can’t
love me the same way, but they do love me.
Even if they don’t does it matter, should it matter? If my dad didn’t love me, if he didn’t want
me as his child would it matter. I’ve
carried this abandonment for most of my life.
For once I reflected on it all, and I realized, I was my worst
enemy. I hadn’t been looking into myself
for love. It was crazy, I’ve been
feeling alone, like I didn’t belong anywhere, like I was an orphan for about 10
years before my family in NOLA helped get me on the path of healing, they did
that by being there, not giving up on me, and encouraging me. Then my other family really began to heal as
well, but all that healing means nothing if you hold on to the
abandonment. Of course you don’t mean
to, you don’t even know you are doing it, but you are. I often go between feeling like I am all
alone, and completely blessed to have such a large and wonderful network of
family and friends. I had to address the
issue.
So I decided to abandon my abandonment issues, because they
do nothing but hold me back, and because I can only find true peace within
myself. I am the only person who truly
knows me, no one else has been there, I am the only one who can decide to heal,
move on, or let go. How do you abandon
abandonment, you just have to make a choice.
There is no doubt that it shapes you, it does, but don’t let it have
you, take yourself back. Because,
everyone feels abandoned and the people that did the leaving might have no idea
the damage they did, so it is up to you to heal. It is up to you to say to yourself, yes I
felt abandoned and yes I am afraid it will happen again but I won’t let it
change me, and I won’t live in fear, and in the end I will find solitude and
peace within myself, I will love myself, because no one else can give that to
me. I am abandoning abandonment, I will
find my solitude and my peace, because only I can give it to myself.
People will come and go in time, nothing is promised for
tomorrow, so let go, free yourself.
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