As I begin to move towards starting this next juncture in my life I feel a pressing need to share. To share a lot about my struggle because I'm beginning to realize it is your struggle too.
I was born into your pretty average American family. We weren't perfect but we did what we could with the tools we were given. Growing up a small town boy in a lot of ways I think was a benefit even if I have spent most my life trying to kill that very part of me. But the things about growing up in a small town and the values it instilled in me...honor, courage, honesty, love, togetherness...even if they weren't always there were still things I knew had value and have been core to my life. I look upon being a little boy as being the last truly honest portions of my life where I can say I've been happy.
But as time went on we started adding boxes. Our social interactions become more complex, our relationships appeared to require more of us, and more and more these boxes added up. For me those boxes were my intellect, my drive to excel at understanding, the pursuit of family, a wife, children, the perfect car, house, body...and not disappointing people. At 35 I had what have amounted to my second of major breaks in my life. This is after several nervous breakdowns, therapy, and all the stuff that entails. A complete and utter upheaval of all that I understood and valued happened, and all that I had planned which if most of you knew the truth wasn't really much came crashing down. In this I have learned something though. I have learned that none of us were meant to carry all this. It was never the purpose of life to carry the weight of pain...the wait of shame...the weight of loss and death and destruction. We are only meant to do the best we can with the tools we are given.
In this time I have held the greatest weight of them all...feeling that I am absolutely unworthy. Unworthy of having anyone love me as much as I love them. Unworthy of success in the personal and work life...a life which I continued to sabotage every time I felt I was just getting somewhere. Unworthy of trust, caring. empathy, and help. After all I HAD to be the helper. I had to carry the weight be it one of the love of my life's suicide or the rape of a dear close friend. This culminated in what you all saw as a political/social explosion of hate and anger at a world I really had felt completely gave up and I was the only one that could fix. Where was this love and courage...where was the empathy I would scream. And what had I done that was so wrong that I had to carry the weight of it all on top of cancer, addiction, a blood disorder, and a million other things.
Well I'm trying to just say at this point that I AM WORTHY. Not because of anything I ever did or will do. Not because I got the best grades or slept with only the most beautiful women or that...as dumb as it sounds but you addicts know what I'm talking about...could handle my drugs better than anyone. I am worthy simply because I am. And I am a part of one of the most wonderful and beautiful tapestries ever created: the human race. Sure...some of us hit the mark better than others. I know I've always been hit or miss. But when you look at the overall confluence of events that make this...life...what it is we can't help but just sit back and marvel that it doesn't just all unravel before us. The biggest lie we get ourselves to ever believe is that we are alone and that no one will understand. No matter where you've been or what you've faced we all struggle. For some it is weight, others our job isn't prestigious enough, and for some it is simply that we struggle in our very being. Of that I can ascribe. But the truth is that as soon as we can all just be honest and admit we don't have all the answers, our lives are never going to be perfect, and from that in itself comes a great amount of perfection the happier we will all be. I love you all so much. I really do. All I ask is can we all try to do a little better and admit we all are messy. Thank you...
And me...I just want to be that little boy again...
j
3 comments:
Messy too.And worthy, just like you, because of Jesus.We have always loved you, have always seen you as worth loving and waiting for, always will.
praying for you,
sue
Thanks Sue. :) I've been searching and getting good things. Just found a poem on TED that I had never heard before and I fell apart..."To This Day" by Shane Koyczan. This is the story of me and for the first time...and I think it was God in His own way sharing this for this time...for the first time in ever I don't feel alone. And I hear...from a lot...the love they give and want me to know but until I can change the framework this old hurt...this little boy hurt will keep me always being the substitute, the second best, and the consolation prize. Trying to change that no matter how scary the road ahead is. Thank you.
Beautiful
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