~ Who Is Going To Love Me?~
Over the 38 years of my life I have entrusted and shared my soul and friendship with too many people who have taken what I've given and thrown it out into the abyss of darkness...There are too many people to count for whom I have given myself completely, whether as a friend or more, who acted like what I gave them, what secrets and trust I shared, was worth little more than a broken gift. I am sick and I am tired and I feel like I have nothing left to give. I ache for familiarity and the ease of what trusting someone over a long period of time feels like. I have nothing left inside to give and no way to know how to trust again. While I know I should not live in the past, I should be able to draw happy memories from it and be able to look at the same people in the present who helped get me those moments of happiness...I search and search but there are few people left. The ones who are around I can only talk to via the internet.. Its said we should learn from the past so we don't repeat our mistakes. If the past is any proof of my future, then it should worry me that the people who I am trusting and loving now are simply friends who will let me down and drop me at any moment.
It started in childhood. When I look back I can remember a half dozen really good and close friendships. Friends who I spent days and sometimes, even weeks, at their homes...I watched as one Mom tore into and gutted her daughter's self esteem as she constantly put her on a new (and often unhealthy) diet. The last time I saw her she was very thin and I bet it was to spite her mom and not because of her...Still, I may never know because all I get from her is a wave and a smile. I guess our many years of friendship didn't mean much to her.
My very first and longest friendship was with a girl who lived next to us. She was and is the most giving and loving person but her "only child' mentality caused us arguments day after day. Her parents divorced just as we were becoming teenagers. She moved and bounced between their houses. Her childhood could not have been easy since both parents rushed to remarry others and both had kids almost immediately. She went from being an only child to the oldest who was suddenly changing diapers and playing nanny while her Mom worked hard. Through the changes I tried so hard to maintain contact. I continually gave into whatever our friendship needed, just as I always have. We have spoken on the phone in the past few months...While we both would love to get together we don't....There are always things coming up...
Very often the friendships I've had have had no benefit for me either because I was always doing whatever made them happy and hardly asking for my own needs to be met or because we suddenly had little in common (and once again I caved to their wants and needs over my own). Maybe the sudden changes in my own life caused some of the problems. One day I was a kid, happy go lucky and stress free for the most part and then within one night I was lost and scared of men and what becoming a woman meant to how boys were treating me. The night I speak of is when my very good friend and I went to her Grandparents house for an overnight. Her Grandfather molested us that night...I went home full of confusing, shame and pain and then at school turned to her hoping that we could figure out what happened and why but she wouldn't even look at me...She ended up changing schools at some point and when I would see her here and there she rarely spoke to me. Even now when I see her out at a store or some place by coincidence she pretends to not remember me. I try to attribute her loss of memory to the possibility that she is feeling embarrassment or guilt over our horrific experience. I try to put myself into her shoes to imagine how I would feel if I had invited a friend to my home or that of a relative only to have one sleepover turn into 30 years of distrust of men and horrible night and day dreams... I don't know how I would react or if I could have maintained a friendship with me if I were her after that. Still, it hurts that she won't at least say hello. It makes me feel like she feels that I am to blame somehow. Another friendship stolen away.
Later on I met friends in middle school who I felt quite close to. I was an easy going, trusting and giving person to all. I liked all people and I couldn't understand if someone who didn't even know me yet decided not to like me. My classmates and I grew up in a very small "bedroom" town where we went to school with the same 200 kids from kindergarten to 6th grade. In 7th grade we were bused a half hour to a neighboring town and put into a somewhat bigger school that was a middle and high school all in one. We went from being with friends we knew from kindergarten to being integrated with 3 other towns in one high school. It wasn't easy. Talk about peer pressure. Here we were in 7th and 8th grade going to another town, a whole other school and meeting a hundred or so new kids from my own grade and on top of that we were meeting hundreds of kids in grades 8th through 12th. I was already feeling like an outside to my own familiar classmates for several reasons and suddenly we all had to get to know hundreds of new kids.. The school was scary enough and tough to understand the lay out but the teachers tried to keep us separated from the older kids. Some of the day we were closed off from them and then the other part of the day we were sharing time in the library, cafeteria and bathroom. That was when I was first pressured to try a cigarette, to skip class and to break rules. For the most part I held my own and pushed passed the pressure. It wasn't in my nature to be "bad" (to spite what people believed as they compared me to my older brother who was known for stealing and lying) but it was difficult for me sometimes to say no when a 12th grader is suddenly trying to be my "friend" and is excited to show me the darker side of being a teenager. It only lasted a lunch period or two. Once I figured it out I didn't go into that bathroom outside our junior high hall. I was not popular in school but I was friends with people from all kinds of groups. Everything from the drama and sports kids to the kids who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths to the ones who I knew from the age of 2. I just never felt like I fit in. I liked more to be with teenagers who were older than me. Actually, I enjoyed more being around adults. I just didn't get the whole thing about going to the mall to check out boys or clothes and shoes. I much rather be writing poetry, doing a play or musical or having conversations with my English teachers about poetry and other forms of art. I really can't say I was bullied a whole lot....A few annoyances here and there but nothing like the horrific things I hear other kids have gone through. I even bullied a girl once. That is a story for another day. But trust me, I still live with the shame of that and the look on the girls face.
Still, being popular was never really my thing. I thought about it of course but I was resigned to the fact that it wasn't going to happen. More than that I just wanted what most kids and adults want-Friends who I could trust, who I could be myself around and who I don't have to apologize for who I am. I thought I had found that friendship in the 8th grade. I met a girl who seemed to be alot like me...We went onto be friends until just a few months ago. I will admit that our breakdown was probably all my fault. I put my foot down and claimed and demanded respect for myself after her husband once again did things to hurt me. That was when our friendship seemed to end. How dare I want to be respected?
So here I am at the end of a 15 year marriage...My Mom has died, my brother in and out of jail and my sister and I always on the brink of a disaster. My father has had several strokes that have affected his memory. Jesse, while being very supportive and understanding, is not from this area so its always difficult to explain things to him...And often he seems to want to block out my past. What new boy or girlfriend wants to hear about other relationships? Its just tough. My husband was my memory. I often told him that. Where I would forget details and dates, he could put it all together for me. Now I have no one from those years...I can't talk to my husband to ask him unless he is at war with his on again off again girlfriend. When they are ok he is not allowed to talk to me and when they break up I am the first person he runs to to tell me all the bad things she has done. Once again I am having a relationship with someone where I am not benefiting at all and he is taking all he can get from me---And all I want is for him to be respectful while doing everything in his power to be a better Dad.
Still its lonely here in this place where I have no one from my past to piece together things..Even ex boyfriends only seem to want to have a sexual relationship but only after they have lured me in with a promise of renewed friendship. I don't feel like I trust anyone from my past...either because of their own problems, diseases or selfishness.
I am alone.
It started in childhood. When I look back I can remember a half dozen really good and close friendships. Friends who I spent days and sometimes, even weeks, at their homes...I watched as one Mom tore into and gutted her daughter's self esteem as she constantly put her on a new (and often unhealthy) diet. The last time I saw her she was very thin and I bet it was to spite her mom and not because of her...Still, I may never know because all I get from her is a wave and a smile. I guess our many years of friendship didn't mean much to her.
My very first and longest friendship was with a girl who lived next to us. She was and is the most giving and loving person but her "only child' mentality caused us arguments day after day. Her parents divorced just as we were becoming teenagers. She moved and bounced between their houses. Her childhood could not have been easy since both parents rushed to remarry others and both had kids almost immediately. She went from being an only child to the oldest who was suddenly changing diapers and playing nanny while her Mom worked hard. Through the changes I tried so hard to maintain contact. I continually gave into whatever our friendship needed, just as I always have. We have spoken on the phone in the past few months...While we both would love to get together we don't....There are always things coming up...
Very often the friendships I've had have had no benefit for me either because I was always doing whatever made them happy and hardly asking for my own needs to be met or because we suddenly had little in common (and once again I caved to their wants and needs over my own). Maybe the sudden changes in my own life caused some of the problems. One day I was a kid, happy go lucky and stress free for the most part and then within one night I was lost and scared of men and what becoming a woman meant to how boys were treating me. The night I speak of is when my very good friend and I went to her Grandparents house for an overnight. Her Grandfather molested us that night...I went home full of confusing, shame and pain and then at school turned to her hoping that we could figure out what happened and why but she wouldn't even look at me...She ended up changing schools at some point and when I would see her here and there she rarely spoke to me. Even now when I see her out at a store or some place by coincidence she pretends to not remember me. I try to attribute her loss of memory to the possibility that she is feeling embarrassment or guilt over our horrific experience. I try to put myself into her shoes to imagine how I would feel if I had invited a friend to my home or that of a relative only to have one sleepover turn into 30 years of distrust of men and horrible night and day dreams... I don't know how I would react or if I could have maintained a friendship with me if I were her after that. Still, it hurts that she won't at least say hello. It makes me feel like she feels that I am to blame somehow. Another friendship stolen away.
Later on I met friends in middle school who I felt quite close to. I was an easy going, trusting and giving person to all. I liked all people and I couldn't understand if someone who didn't even know me yet decided not to like me. My classmates and I grew up in a very small "bedroom" town where we went to school with the same 200 kids from kindergarten to 6th grade. In 7th grade we were bused a half hour to a neighboring town and put into a somewhat bigger school that was a middle and high school all in one. We went from being with friends we knew from kindergarten to being integrated with 3 other towns in one high school. It wasn't easy. Talk about peer pressure. Here we were in 7th and 8th grade going to another town, a whole other school and meeting a hundred or so new kids from my own grade and on top of that we were meeting hundreds of kids in grades 8th through 12th. I was already feeling like an outside to my own familiar classmates for several reasons and suddenly we all had to get to know hundreds of new kids.. The school was scary enough and tough to understand the lay out but the teachers tried to keep us separated from the older kids. Some of the day we were closed off from them and then the other part of the day we were sharing time in the library, cafeteria and bathroom. That was when I was first pressured to try a cigarette, to skip class and to break rules. For the most part I held my own and pushed passed the pressure. It wasn't in my nature to be "bad" (to spite what people believed as they compared me to my older brother who was known for stealing and lying) but it was difficult for me sometimes to say no when a 12th grader is suddenly trying to be my "friend" and is excited to show me the darker side of being a teenager. It only lasted a lunch period or two. Once I figured it out I didn't go into that bathroom outside our junior high hall. I was not popular in school but I was friends with people from all kinds of groups. Everything from the drama and sports kids to the kids who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths to the ones who I knew from the age of 2. I just never felt like I fit in. I liked more to be with teenagers who were older than me. Actually, I enjoyed more being around adults. I just didn't get the whole thing about going to the mall to check out boys or clothes and shoes. I much rather be writing poetry, doing a play or musical or having conversations with my English teachers about poetry and other forms of art. I really can't say I was bullied a whole lot....A few annoyances here and there but nothing like the horrific things I hear other kids have gone through. I even bullied a girl once. That is a story for another day. But trust me, I still live with the shame of that and the look on the girls face.
Still, being popular was never really my thing. I thought about it of course but I was resigned to the fact that it wasn't going to happen. More than that I just wanted what most kids and adults want-Friends who I could trust, who I could be myself around and who I don't have to apologize for who I am. I thought I had found that friendship in the 8th grade. I met a girl who seemed to be alot like me...We went onto be friends until just a few months ago. I will admit that our breakdown was probably all my fault. I put my foot down and claimed and demanded respect for myself after her husband once again did things to hurt me. That was when our friendship seemed to end. How dare I want to be respected?
So here I am at the end of a 15 year marriage...My Mom has died, my brother in and out of jail and my sister and I always on the brink of a disaster. My father has had several strokes that have affected his memory. Jesse, while being very supportive and understanding, is not from this area so its always difficult to explain things to him...And often he seems to want to block out my past. What new boy or girlfriend wants to hear about other relationships? Its just tough. My husband was my memory. I often told him that. Where I would forget details and dates, he could put it all together for me. Now I have no one from those years...I can't talk to my husband to ask him unless he is at war with his on again off again girlfriend. When they are ok he is not allowed to talk to me and when they break up I am the first person he runs to to tell me all the bad things she has done. Once again I am having a relationship with someone where I am not benefiting at all and he is taking all he can get from me---And all I want is for him to be respectful while doing everything in his power to be a better Dad.
Still its lonely here in this place where I have no one from my past to piece together things..Even ex boyfriends only seem to want to have a sexual relationship but only after they have lured me in with a promise of renewed friendship. I don't feel like I trust anyone from my past...either because of their own problems, diseases or selfishness.
I am alone.
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