I have experienced a lot in my 28 years of life. Some incredible things and some not so incredible. I have felt some of the deepest betrayals and some of the hugest heartbreaks. I have experienced so much loss over the course of my life that at times, it seems normal. I am almost numb to some types of loss because I have experienced so much. It is practically laughable when bad things happen in my life, because it seems as though if it can go wrong, it will go wrong... in my life.
When I was getting ready to go away to college, my mother told me that she feared that I would be taken advantage of and hurt as a result because of my warm heart and giving nature. I felt that people were good hearted in nature and were out for the same basic good in life that I was. Over the years, I have learned the hard way that not all people are like me as people have continuously taken advantage of my good hearted and caring nature.
Recently when contacted by one of my exes, he admitted what so many have done to me over the course of my life. "I used you." He finally admitted that he used me after all this time. For what, who knows and who cares. He played me like a fool. He was not the first but hopefully the last! I have also had best friends that have done the same thing. Use me for what I can provide for them and walk out the moment I am no longer considered viable.
When you are used and walked all over to the extent that I have been, you start to question everything. You question if it is you. You question why. You question if you truly deserve it. You question if you will ever find better. You question if you are worthy of being treated otherwise. You question those who are still in your life and if/when they are going to do the same thing.
When I was recently contacted by my ex, it wasn't that his contact bothered me, it was the reminder of not only how poorly he treated me for so long, but it reminded me of all the times I have been treated similarly by different people throughout my life. It brought me back to that place mentally that makes me think that I will never be good enough. Never good enough for true love. Never good enough for true friendship. Never good enough for true happiness.
That place inside me that questions if I am ever going to be good enough has been pushed aside for a long time. I have worked on myself a great deal after moving up north. I worked on who I am, who I want to become, and I have worked on accepting who and what I am now. I have learned to love myself in a way to not allow to be treated poorly by others. It has taken a great deal of work and energy to get to the place that I am now in my life and to have someone from my past walk in and bring me back to that place of Never Good Enough wasn't fair. Not only was it not fair, it devastated me. It destroyed me to think that I allowed people to treat me so poorly because I wanted to believe that they had good intentions when that was far from the case. It crushed me and brought me back to the place of pain and sorrow for what I, on some level, have allowed others to do to me. You control your own destiny. Did I see red flags? Most of the time, yes. Did I try to rationalize them? Absolutely. Should I have run? Most definitely!
Slipping back to the place in my soul that questions if I will ever good enough happened so quickly recently that I feared that the work I have done was possibly a facade. Perhaps I wasn't where I thought I was. It reminded me that the work is ongoing. That the work will never be done. I will always have to keep my eyes open and my guard up to make sure that I not let the shitbags in like Steven B. Young of the greater Chicago, Illinois area into my life and into my heart.
I think what this did for me more than anything was remind me that even when I have self doubt about being good enough, I need to remind myself that I do deserve better. I do deserve to find true love. I do deserve true friendship. And I do deserve true happiness. If you don't believe in those things for yourself, who will believe in those things for you? People say you have to love yourself before you can truly love someone else or be loved by someone else. I didn't get that for so much of my life. I thought, ya ya, I love myself, bring on the love. But someone who truly loves themselves, doesn't allow themselves to be treated the way I allowed myself to be treated. Do I take responsibility for others' actions? Heck no! But do I need to take responsibility of my part in those relationships and for allowing them to continue for the lengths of time that I did? Yes!
So here is to another day of working on myself and teaching myself, that I do deserve better and that I am Good Enough! Good Enough for Love, Friendship, and Happiness!
"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." ~Abraham Lincoln
No comments:
Post a Comment