Matter

Today I really wished I mattered to someone. Anyone. I wish that someone wanted to spend time with me. Someone arrange and excited about seeing me. Sadly, it is not happening that way. The one I want to be with does not want to just be with me. His choice. His loss. But is it really? Should I be living a life where I can just fuck around and not have feeling or emotion with it? Do I take life so seriously that I can not even let loose for a while? Will a good cry get me to the healing place I need to be? All questions I have no answers for.

But here I sit, in my bed, on a saturday wishing to be with someone, anyone. To have someone listen to me, to hear and ask about my week. I don’t need a man for that. I do not need a man to complete me. I just need a friend that actually cares. Someone who will be there for me, as I have been there for so many in the past. Life doesn’t seem very fair sometimes. This season of really being alone is not my favorite.

Decided to join a womens group on Thursday night, it was recommended by a coworker. I did not go to the group this past week and no one reached out. Another church function. Another group of people that are going to not be there for me. I think I will just cut it off. The whole church thing. I do not matter, I do not fit it. What do you do with someone who has no natural place in the church. You leave them and let them figure out their own sin. I told those women I have a hard time trusting women and Christian women. They did not hear me. They will not be the first and I am sure they will not be the last. Tomorrow is Sunday again. I will not be sitting in a church tomorrow. I will create my own place for serenity and connection with God. I can not sit around people who I know are going to hurt me any longer. Who doesn’t check on someone when they do not come to group? Maybe I expect people to actually give a shit, and they don’t. Let go of any expectation of others. Easier said than done.

Yet, I go back to being alone. I have to figure out how to be okay with being alone. I have to look at the things I may want to do and just do them alone. This is all new to me. So many things I wanted to do while married and did not get to do them. Now I have the chance and I do not know what to do with myself. I am scared. Scared of being hurt, scared of being rejected yet again. Scared of being ashamed to be who I am. Where is that girl who used to laugh? Where is that girl who used to take life so lightly? She is in me somewhere. I used to laugh and have fun. I used to be with women who really loved me and lived life with me. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe it was all in my head. I miss having peace in my life. I miss being able to sit and not have 8,000 thoughts stirring in my mind. Why wasn’t I good enough for them? What was it about me that made them run the other way? Was it me?

All things that make me feel like I do not matter to anyone. No one checks on me. I check on others, although the list is getting smaller and smaller of people to check on. It is Saturday, I should want to be out with people, doing all the things. But my body wants to just stay in bed. I want to be able to not feel fucking pain in my body. I want to be able to sleep through the night without waking up bombarded by so many negative things. It always goes back to the same thought. Not being good enough. I could make a list a mile long of people who I wasn’t enough for. But when does that end? When do I look in the mirror and love who I see? When do I love me for being who I am. I have survived some serious shit in my life. I have pressed through and pressed on through so much. I have been hurt by so many. The very place that I feel the most hurt is in a church building surrounded by people who are supposed to love you wherever you are. So how come once again I feel dismissed by people who I have not even really let in yet? Why? Because they did not reach out, not one of them. It is not my group and it is not my thing. I am not valued there and I am not, “friend.” That word means something entirely different these days.

I think the basic human value of life is to feel like you matter. When you wake up in the morning, does someone, anyone think about you? Wish you good thoughts? Wish you a good day? I have always been that type of person to the friends I have had in the past. To be honest, it was all a waste of my energy. I feel like I have nothing to show for any of that anymore. No friends over the years that have been there for me. Maybe COVID changed everyone, but the main core of being a friend and excusing being there for someone because of a sickness is just stupid. Friends do not let you go things alone. They are there for you. They let you know they are there for you. They show up. The show the fuck up! They help you move when you yet again have to move. They listen when you need them. Sadly, all of that is gone now. Did I ever have it? Or just think I did, because I was that friend to everyone else? I am tired. Tired of feeling like I could die tomorrow and no one would give a shit. I am in a terrible big transition of my life right now and I am the one to decide which way it will go. I can rise up and say fuck it and fuck all of them and just be my best, or I can give up.

What does it look like to rise up? Does it mean cry when you need to cry? Curl up in a ball and sleep like there is no tomorrow? Healing looks like so many things. I am yet at a place where I do not want to go out as Halloween. Let’s just say I am not a fan of being scared, in any way. I will keep to myself and keep home until Halloween passes. Maybe after that I will do all the things to start building my life. Buy another plant, go to farmers markets, go to beach and watch the sunset. That I can do and will do tonight. I will go alone, leave the dog at home and watch the sunset. I will clear out my car of the things I do not need to carry with me and move forward. I can not do this alone. I do not want to do this alone. But yet, I will do it alone. I can not continue to just feel sorry for myself and let the depression get to me. I matter to someone, even if is only to my dog at this point. I do not matter to anyone else. And what a relief of obligation to them. I will go to work and do my job and come home. Rest and do it again. I will take each day as it comes as that is all I can do. All I can do.

I can not step foot in a church with people who can not check on me when I do not show up. Those are not my people. I can not compete with women whose main focus is their children. Those are not my people. I can not sit and listen to someone take a phone call and then blast it for all of us to talk to her kid. I can’t. Those are not my people. You do not ask why the divorce, you just give me that glance. No, I am not okay with being labeled single again. I am not okay with that label or the connotation that somehow it was all my fault. I will not buy into the label or the idea that it was my fault. I take full ownership of my part in my life. I will not blame others for all of their faults. I have plenty of my own to deal with. I have been dealing with them. I will continue to deal with them. But I am not, “single again.” May as well say “divorced.” Or better yet, say what you are thinking and say you were dumped, rejected, not enough, let go, or someone else just moved on from you. Just say what you think, you didnt blank blank blank enough to be in your marriage so your partner left you.

This is not my first time with the judgements and harshness of all people, church people. It is what I know, but it is not safe for me anymore. It is not a safe place anymore for me. Church or its people. I hope for or expect a little more from church people. I should have learned by now to not, maybe they will extend more grace, more mercy, more hope. They do not. They are human first and behave like humans first. They are selfish and judgemental and being who they are. Somehow because they are “forgiven,” its allowed and even accepted. I can not do it anymore. I can not be fake. You do not check on me when I do not show up? I will not beg you to like me or even care. I will not chase you down. I will walk away. Walk away on my own. I will not ask. I will not give anymore to those that can not give back. I do not have the mental or emotional strength anymore to do it. I can not just think that God will speak to you about being a compassionate human being. I can not assume you are anything like Jesus. No one is. No one in this world. There I said it, the church and their people have failed me.

Do I still beleive that I “matter,” to God? I can not say that I feel like I am even on his radar anymore. I can go through the motions of saying what I need to say about God at work. I can pretend with the best of them. But do I really beleive it? I do not know anymore. I do not know what I believe. I have a really hard time thinking that a God that loves me and died for me would allow me to go through so much pain. I have a really hard time with that. Why would a loving, caring God not surround me with people that will help me get through this massive change in my life? Maybe he does not want me to count on people to help me through. Maybe it is about just seeking him. But what do you do when you can not find him anywhere? Like he has hidden from you because he is ashamed to call you daughter as well? What do you do when you have those thoughts that you do not even matter to God? Everything you beleived as an adult, everything you thought got you through the worst parts of your life, could it all be a lie? Where the hell is God now? Where is he when my heart is broken yet again by “his” people? Where is he when I need him to hold me and tell me I am precious to him? He is no where to be found. He is not for me. He is not even a part of my life. He turned his back on me. I do not matter to even him.

Father, my earth father, well he just sucks. He has never had my back. He has never defended me. He knows I would be there for him, but he has never been there for me. He does not have my best interest at heart, he never has. It is all about the feeling he gets that he is reunited with his children after years of him being a complete asshole and abandoning all of us. Leaving his daughter with a monster of a mom, meanwhile him following his dick and fucking the married woman. Listened to her over being with his children. Abandoned his daughter when she needed him the most. Not being there. Not being present. Not protecting me from a mother who beat the shit out of me. All the while, him pursuing and being with some lady who was married and doing all that she said for him to do. What a bunch of shit. He not only abandoned me, but left me to fight off the woman who knew would hurt me. What a fucking coward of a man. Why do I bother with him? He then retired and chose another sibling to be there for. Helped him raise his children. Chose someone else again. Dismissed and forgotten again. And now, I sit here willing to leave my life to help him. Why? He has already rejected me. Over and over again, I did not matter to him. His choice, he chose his life. He chose to put everyone else above me. I can not bend for him anymore. I am sad that he is sick. But when I look at reality, I am nothing to him. I am nothing to him. I am not valued or important or anything to him. He speaks to me out of his own guilt. He is not sorry for anything he has done. He continues in his life and he can continue with the brother that runs his life. I am done with it all. I can not be my brother who he loves more. I can not be anyone I am not. To him, I was never worth the fight, he has shown me this over and over again. I keep hoping and wishing that I would matter to him. But the truth of it all is that I do not. I am just a check box. He feels guilt but I will never be able to change how he was not there for me. I needed him and he chose someone else. I will never be able to undo that.

I have issues, I know it. My dad, fuck my parents were not there for me at all. They did not instill in me the love that I so desperately needed to feel from them. They were not equipped for the job. I can not continue to blame them. My mom is dead, I can not do anything about it now. My dad, well, my dad, I need to establish some boundaries with him. I need to establish the fact that I am worth something, even if he thinks I am not. I do not need to prove it to him and I would not be capable at this point in my life to change his mind. He is who he is. He wasn’t and hasn’t been there for me. He will not be there for me. He has his son who will move him close to him and take care of him. I am out. I am not an option anymore. I am not valuable enough in his eyes and I will never be. I am not that daughter, I am not that child. He has chosen long ago who that child is. It is not me. Time to move on. I will not base my life choices on someone who does not love me for me and battle for me. I will not forget the times I needed you and you were not there. You could have been there, but you chose not to be. You are released from any expectation moving forward. I will not beg you for your second hand of love. You give it freely to others but not to me. Its conditional based on what I can bring to you.

My dog is all that matters to me, he is the one I fight to get out of the hospital for. He is the one that I make myself walk for. He is the one I look forward to seeing at the end of my day. He is the one. He is the one thing that matters to me. I matter to him. He counts on me to be there for him. He needs me. He drives me crazy but he loves hard and loves me. He has been through so much the last few years. The moment I saw him I knew I needed him and he needed me. I do not know what I would do without him. I wouldn’t be here. I love that dog. I think about how my life would be over the last few years without him. He is the only thing that has not changed in my life. That is very sad for me to think about. The people have walked away, the family have walked away. The dog has stayed, he does not really have a choice. I could have given him away to a good home. But what would that do? Maybe give him a better life.

But what about me? How much more do I have to give up to live a life that I can be proud of? When am I going to be able to look in the mirror and smile and like that girl that looks back at me? When is that going to happen? How much longer will it be? I am so ashamed of being married and divorced twice. I feel like I have been rejected by so many over the last few years of my life because of the decisions I made. Things I can not undo. Relationships I thought would last, left. Abandoned. Other people were more important. Other relationships were more important. Oh, will the pain ever be less? Will I ever be able to smile and be happy again? Will I ever have a best friend? Someone who gets me? Someone who challenges me to be better with each day I have been gifted? What am I doing with my days? How can I become better? Wholer, more complete? When will it happen for me? Why does this life I am in just keep spinning out of control? Why do I keep getting hurt? Why do people hurt me?

My heart wants to heal. My head wants to heal. My body wants to heal. I am constantly looking for ways I can heal from all the hurt. But then more hurt comes on board. I can not love others this way. I can not be in a relationship hoping that another person will help me be whole. I can not keep thinking that way. I have to find wholeness on my own. Through the tears and the pain. Through unpacking what has been built up for years of my life that I have been afraid to let out. I do not need a drink or a hit of something to feel better. I have to work towards being better. Read the books. Take the notes. Finish the damn classes and learn. I will not find healing in a bar, hooking up with some guy. I will not find peace and grace to myself through kissing someone and being able to forget about the pain that keeps me up at night. I have to process and get through. I have to figure it out. I can not rely on anyone else to do this work for me. I have to get there. I will get there. I have some resources and need to dive in. Cry though it, scream through it.

Hang on with my fingertips to this life I have been given. It will not always hurt like it has the last few years. I was married for 19 years. That pain and damage does not just go away. I had to survive, now I need to live. I need to live if only for my damn dog who loves me. I need to live. I need to dance and sing again. I need to learn to play the piano and the peace it will bring to my past. I need to be able to be free to laugh and run and jump and be. I need to fight for my life. I need to live. I matter to me, if to no one else I matter to me! I have lived through enough to know that there is a reason I am here. Many times have been close to ending it all. But I am still here. I have to fight for me. To be able to live and love me again. She is in there. That fiesty determined girl. That girl who has a spirit of her grandmother in her. I will fight to make me proud of me.

I am damn good at what I do. I am a teacher and I am damn good at it. I will not let anyone take that from me. I earned it on my own. My life has created me to be that way for those children. I will not take it for granted, nor will I be lost in the shuffle of making others uncomfortable. I will continue to fight for what I know is right for the children in my care. I can not undo that passion in me. I will continue to what is right. I will speak gracefully and informed. I will not be intimidated by those that think they are better than me. I am the best me I can be and I have been placed with the children I serve for a reason. I will not back down. It is what I do right. I will figure out what my relationship is with God and what that will look like moving forward. But I will not justify or let anymore of the christians judge me. You have not asked me what my story is. You will not dictate to me what my life should have been or things I should have done. I did pray for that man and I sacrificed EVERYTHING for my marriage. He gave up. God let him make that choice. You do not know me and you can not judge me any longer. I will meet God elsewhere. I will not put my hope in finding the right place to find God. I do not need that validation. I matter to me, I matter to some tiny humans I get to teach. My worth is not based on a title that man made up. My worth is based on who I am and I think I am doing the best job I can with what I am up against at this time. I matter.