I am not a religious person. I never have been. Back in June, at a routine appointment, they asked me if I was religious or spiritual. I appreciated the distinction because I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I've long since believed in a higher power than myself but that doesn't mean that it has to be a religious figure.
In January of 1998, when I was 19 years old, my maternal grandfather passed away. He was the first person I had ever really been close with who had died. We were in the room when he passed away and I remember being a little afraid to touch his hand afterward to say goodbye because it would mean I was touching a dead person. The loss hit me pretty hard and I was very upset that night. I remember laying in bed with my daughter, Emily, who was 2 1/2 at that time and trying to fall asleep, wondering what life would be like without grandpa in it. Even though I didn't see him super frequently, he had always been there when I needed him to be and knowing he wouldn't be anymore was not an easy concept to accept.
Well, the next thing I knew, I looked over at the door to my bedroom and my grandpa was standing in it. He was wearing his trademark flannel shirt and looked like his old self before he had gotten more sick (he had lung cancer and didn't stop smoking even after losing a lung from it). He told me not to be sad and that he was happier.
Somehow that brought me peace. For quite a few years after that, I would see him sometimes. Even after Jeff and I had gotten married and moved to our current house, where my grandpa had obviously never been, I would see grandpa sometimes. It was like he was just making sure I was okay.
We learned a year or so after we moved here in 2003 that an older gentleman had passed away in our house at some point. I'm not sure what they used our barn for in the time that man had lived here but it's an old carriage barn with a loft. I assume at some point that loft was probably his workspace or something. I mention it because I have felt him up there. People think I'm insane when I tell them that we have a friendly ghost. I swear I've seen him peeking out the upstairs window a few times over the years too, mostly when my kids were smaller. It was like he was happy that a family was living here again. He never felt malevolent or anything. He was just a presence. I haven't felt him in awhile so I'm not sure if he finally moved on or I just stopped feeling his presence.
I can also read people pretty well. There are some people I just don't like being around because they creep me out. (Once when I was dumb enough to teach summer school, we had this paraprofessional working with us. He gave me the absolute willies. I could never understand why because he never did anything untoward around me, it was just a feeling I had. Turns out during that school year, he was accused of inappropriately touching two girls at the school he was assigned to. I remember just thinking "I KNEW IT!" when I saw the news articles about him.) There are plenty of times I just steer clear of certain people because of the vibes they give off.
I trust my gut about these sorts of things and I think that might make me more open to feeling the presence of others sometimes. When Jeff and I had our first child together, we were visiting his uncle and aunt. The aunt who happened to be the twin sister of his mom who passed away when he was 20. Uncle Dick said that when Jeff was sitting in the wing chair holding our daughter, he looked over and Martha, Jeff's mom, was standing behind the chair, smiling down at Jeff and her granddaughter. I never saw her myself and I don't remember ever feeling her but Jeff has told me that she's visited us at times.
I recognize that, to some people, this might sound like we belong in the looney bin. Alas, some people are open to the other side and other people aren't. That's fine and doesn't make us crazy. I am convinced this openness is also one of the reasons I'm so empathic. If there are minimal people in a room with me and they are far enough apart, I can feel their emotions. Sometimes that totally freaking sucks and sometimes it helps me to know when someone needs a little TLC.
Alas, this gift, if that's what you'd like to call it hasn't always been easy to bear. Due to my abusive upbringing, despite the outward appearance of utmost confidence I like to project to the world, I often really struggle with self-esteem a lot of the time. I might sound like the most egotistical person who existed but I say stuff like that trying to convince myself I'm worthy. I remember when I finally told the world the truth about how my oldest was conceived, at one point I said something on FaceBook about not deserving Jeff. I will never, ever forget that my friend Kirstin quite simply commented and said "Yes, you do."
Despite that truth coming out in 2012 and being open and honest about it now, the mental health struggles I have due to the neglect from my narcissistic mother and just downright abusive stepmonster, there are still many times I feel like I don't deserve to be loved and cared for. That's the message that was sent home to me growing up. I was only worth it when they said I was. You can't just get past that. Even with therapy, even having people lift you up, those messages you received during your formative years linger.
On our roadtrip this summer, I was reading a book called "How We Love." It hit me so close to home that there were times I had to put it aside because it was too upsetting to read it. Not because what I was reading wasn't true, but because the truth was helping me to see that I had sabotaged so many things in my own relationships due to how I was imprinted as a kid. The fear of abandonment was and is still very real for me even though I'm 46 years old, have been with Jeff more than half of my life and know deep down he is not leaving me, ever. We have been through some tough shit together and it has always, always been in the back of my mind that he might get sick of my mental health roller coaster and leave me. The fear of abandonment is deeply ingrained in me.
All of this to say that this mastectomy recovery has been difficult for me. I am fiercely independent. I spent so many years of my young life having to tough it out for myself that even knowing Jeff has been unwavering in his support of me for the last 24 years, doesn't mean that it's easy for me to accept his help. This makes me the worst possible candidate to have a medical procedure that flat out requires me to rely on other people and be vulnerable. I hate it. It goes against my very nature. It was imprinted upon me very early that I could really only rely on myself 100% of the time. (I know that is wholly unfair to Jeff but that's where the insecurity puts me.)
On Thursday, I needed his help to take a shower because I cannot lift my arms over my head to wash my hair and standing up in the shower to wash was not practical (it still isn't as I get tired so fast from simple things). As previously mentioned, this was excruciating for me to accept because I hate feeling like I have to rely on anyone else. At one point during this scenario, I said "I don't deserve you." Obviously, you can imagine that would be upsetting for him to hear and he told me it wasn't true and not to say it again.
Fast forward to Saturday night. I have been sleeping in our bed with my mastectomy recovery pillow system and Jeff has been sleeping on the couch. Not because he can't sleep in our bed with me but because the system does take up a lot of space in our queen sized bed and with our dogs, it's simpler and more practical for him to just stay on the couch (again, he man deserves a million dollars because the couch is not comfortable). I was super uncomfortable most of Saturday afternoon and into the evening just in the general sense of my body being in recovery. He got me all set up in bed and tucked me in and I had a super hard time falling asleep and staying asleep.
Somewhere in the night, I had a visitor. Jeff's mom, Martha, came to me in a dream. Keep in mind she passed away like 8 years before I met him. She told me not to say that I don't deserve Jeff because she sent him to me. Needless to say, when I woke up, I was crying. (And for the record, I was not on narcotics.)
Jeff and I used to joke that my grandpa and his mom must have met in Heaven and did some divine intervention to get us to meet because realistically there is not a single reason in the world that our paths ever should have crossed. But they did. And we have been together basically since the night we met.
I think there will always be times when I feel like I don't deserve him and I cannot control that because it's my trauma speaking. But having his momma come to me and tell me she sent him my way is oddly comforting and gives me a sense of peace that I don't know that I have ever experienced before. But I will also accept this gift from her and realize that perhaps I am worthy. Perhaps, despite what my trauma likes to tell me, I am enough and deserve not only Jeff but so much more.
Raye
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