Tag: mourning

Insecurities and trust

JenLeave a comment

insecurity

I learned something very interesting about myself this weekend.  Grief brings out my insecurities.  It makes sense when I think about it.  When I’m grieving, I am in a very lost, lonely, sad kind of state.  That is typically when I feel like I need my support system the most.  It’s also when I feel guilt over needing my support system.  It feels needy and clingy and stupid. 

What I learned this weekend wasn’t that I’m insecure.  I already knew that.  🙂  What I learned this weekend is that sometimes, you have to learn to let go, and trust in those you love.  If someone tells you they love you, and they’ve done nothing to really make you doubt or deny that, then trust that they actually do love you as they say they do. 

I don’t know when I got to be like this.  Maybe they are a side effect of grief, or maybe I’ve always had issues with it in some respects.  I give love to others.  I’m generous (overly so in some cases), I go out of my way to make sure that the people I love KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that I love them.  And yet, I sometimes fail to recognize the love that others give to me.  It’s not done intentionally.  I would be devastated if someone I loved didn’t recognize that and feel that from me, and yet, sometimes, I don’t see it.  And I should.  How do you learn to see the love and affection that others give?  Is it because I’m so focused on making sure I don’t screw up that I fail to enjoy what’s given to me?  Ding Ding Ding!  Holy crap what a realization to come to.  Why do I do that?  I think … to be honest, I think it’s somewhat out of guilt.  I don’t feel that I deserve it, or I’m scared it’s going to go away.  I’m done being scared.  I want to love with all my heart.  I want to allow myself to be loved in return.  Because I deserve it.  Because I’m a good, honorable, passionate, smart, sexy woman who sometimes fails to recognize those traits in herself.  I’m worthy.  I swear, I need to write that somewhere I can see it every day. 

I.  Am.  Worthy. 

love

I’ve had some bad recurring nightmares in the last week.  I’ve also had a few good dreams, which is unusual and inspires a bit of hope in me that maybe the nightmares can be made to go away.  I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid.  My mother has very vivid dreams as well, so part of me wonders if dreaming is somehow hereditary.  One dream I’ve had for many many years involves everyone I know and love disappearing before my eyes.  I’ve always thought the meaning of that dream pointed to my insecurities, and my fear of abandonment, and I’m probably right.  This new dream, it involves the death of my children.  And I can point to grief on that, maybe a bit of PTSD after losing Ben, but I could also say that maybe I’m grieving something else too.  My friend R pointed out this weekend that perhaps, besides mourning the loss of my son, I’m also mourning the loss of a dream.  I sometimes look around me and think about how I never planned for this.  I never planned to raise my children alone.  I never planned to be a corporate career woman.  I never planned to be living with a roommate at 32, divorced.  According to R, I need to mourn the change of my vision for myself in the future, and then I may be able to move on and dream new things.  It’s not a bad idea.  I suppose that’s why I’m writing on the subject.  Usually, writing helps me process the things I’m working through in my head. 

What was my vision before?  To have a good job, be a amazing wife, be a good mom.  To be a family.  To be fiercely loved by those closest to me.  To feel inspired and happy.

Where am I now? 

I have a good job.  I’m a good mom.  We are a family.  I am fiercely loved by those closest to me.  I AM inspired and happy.   Well I’ll be…. 🙂  Maybe it’s not mourning that should be happening.  Maybe it’s celebrating.  6/7 items on my vision’s list are happening on a daily basis and I have achieved.  Why am I beating myself up then?  I’ve done it.  Ok so the painting doesn’t look QUITE as I’d imagined it 10 years ago.  But when you really look at it, I did get everything I wanted. 

It’s amazing.  It’s inspiring.  It’s refreshing to look at it in a different perspective.  I really beat myself up this weekend.  It was an emotional rollercoaster of a weekend, that I brought on myself.  And now that it’s over…. I can still say I had an amazingly good weekend, I got a lot of things accomplished that I needed to, AND… somehow, I’m starting a new week clearer.  A bit stronger.  Prouder.  A few years ago, a weekend of tears would have left me feeling pretty mad at myself.  Now?  I feel like maybe it was time.  It was needed.  And now, I can move forward again.  It’s unlike me to have such an emotional moment.  I don’t see it becoming a trend, but I’ll embrace this weekend for what it was.  Me getting much needed “stuff” out of my system in order to process it and learn from it.

Much love to you neverland.  Goodnight.  XXO!

rc

Goodbye friendship

JenLeave a comment

It’s sad when a friendship ends.  In some respects, we’ve all lost many friends over the course of our lives, some had bigger impact than others though.  I have a few friendships that have stuck for what seems like forever and cherish them even more because of it.  One friendship I have had for 15 years.  It’s my longest friendship.  It was, I should say.  Once a month I’ve been sending a text and shooting an email… a smile or a hope you and yours are well kind of thing.  Very light.  It’s been 8 months since we last spoke.  And it turns out, the end of the friendship isn’t over what I thought it was.  It was because I said something that was taken in a mean light.  I had said I deserved better… and trailed off.  He took this in the worst way possible – in a way I certainly would NEVER mean.  What I meant was I deserve better – in that I don’t deserve to have a ton of additional drama thrown in my lap.  No.. dang … Even that’s not right.  What I should have said… was how scared I was.  How I had every single person piling every single stress and problem on me all at once.  How I couldn’t take anything more.  That the straw the camel was already carrying was threatening to break it’s back, and taking on anything additional would be suicide.  And that I had already handled soo much… I felt I deserved better than to constantly deal with all the stress of everyone’s problems.  I didn’t say it that way then.  I fumbled over my words.  I assumed he understood – he usually did.  I said it the right way tonight.  I said a lot tonight.  I apologized and explained what I meant.  I said how my feelings and goals and direction hasn’t changed, that I’m finding happiness, that I’ve learned a lot about communication since then, that I’ve grown and matured from the lessons I learned from him, but that I miss his friendship.  I miss having that person to talk to who’d never judge or think poorly of you.  Who learned how you think and act, and understood.  Now, had he returned any of my communication, I could have said all of this a lot sooner… but it doesn’t matter now.  He is walking away from a 15 year friendship.  He is Broken.  I could almost feel the cold in his voice.  And I feel, truly, awful about it.  I tried to remind him that it’s when your world is in the darkest depths that you have to try and make your own light.  Believe you’ll find your way through.  Life can be cruel with it’s timing.  His life has been a whirl wind of tests thrown at him, so I can’t blame him for it entirely.

But….

I’m not upset.  I’ve known for 6 months that our friendship was over – I’ve mourned it for a while. In fact, I’m shocked to find out it was my big mouth fumbling that was the nail in the coffin.  I mean – this is me!  Sometimes, I fumble… those closest to me, know it’s never with ill intent.  And here’s the strange thing… i’m also kind of annoyed.  He pointed out that he knew me better than anyone… well if that’s true – then wouldn’t you have thought – gee, Jen’s never cruel, she’s not going to say I’m worthless..she must mean something else… hence she’s calling me and trying to explain.  We’ve never had this kind of thing happen before…. but nooooo.  His solution is to walk away and pretend that the friendship just wasn’t there.  That hurts.  UGH.  Communication will be the death of me I swear.  LOL.

Perhaps it’s time…

JenLeave a comment

I re-arranged my bedroom tonight.  It was nice to refresh the room a bit.  Think I needed it.  But something dawned on me as I was shifting furniture around.  I have a LOT of pictures of Ben.  They are scattered in frames throughout my room, and then there’s a large frame with a collage of them on the wall.  It used to be where I needed these pictures up.  I felt like I wanted them to surround me; Like it somehow kept me connected with the son I loved and lost.

ben_feet

Now, though, I find that looking at these pictures doesn’t give me the same feeling anymore.  Some of them still do.  I will likely always want a picture of his cute baby feet around.  There’s something so adorably sweet about baby feet.  But… suddenly, I want to keep my focus on the happy and positive.  The forward motion that I’m so desperately trying to continue.  The pictures now give me both a smile and an ache.  I wouldn’t take any of it back.  Somehow, even his death, was likely for the best.  Who knows what kind of life he’d have led.  His conception, his birth, his life and his death all had dramatic impacts on me, my family, my children and my friends in different ways and for different reasons.  We are all – in many ways – better people because of him.  I could never thank him for that gift.  If I take the pictures down tho, am I somehow dishonoring him?  Or will it somehow seem to signal that he doesn’t hold such a large place in my mind and heart?  I’m inclined to say no.  I honor him in other ways too, but the idea of pulling those pictures down, or even simply adding others to the collage frame feels off too.  I just don’t know.  Maybe I’ll take a staged approach with this.  One at a time until I find a balance that is right for me.  But how do you find balance with something like this?  How do you know what’s right when everyone handles these things differently?

Oh magic 8 ball of life… why must you keep giving such cryptic answers?

● Reply hazy try again
● Ask again later
● Better not tell you now
● Cannot predict now
● Concentrate and ask again