For those of you that know me, and I mean TRULY know me, you know that I am a dreamer, a thinker, a doer, a lover, a worrier, a hopeless romantic, an ever faithful friend and confidante, and a never-ending giver. While many of these aspects of my life are positive qualities to have, some of them are qualities that both give and take away from who I am. Mainly in the fact that I use them against myself. I have never once in my life I don't think gone a minute without contemplating some complex or simple thought WAY too much. And while I do love the fact that I have been blessed with the ability to think things through quickly, effectively, and efficiently when it is needed, it's also a nuisance. With the arrival of summer has come the ever present problem of TOO much time to think. My brain, while filled with many important and silly things, also has a way of telling me lies and stupid things that make my life miserable.With all of the interesting experiences I have had in my life, and my share of being treated terribly by others for quite some time constantly wears on me.
I can still remember plain as day putting myself in situations where people just wanted to tease me to no end, get a response out of me, or beat me down to make themselves feel better. I constantly came back to these situations looking for the love and friendship I felt I so deserved. I was a child. Yes, my parents and my brother loved me, but I wanted to know that someone who didn't "have" to have unconditional love for me could love me for who I was/am. As the years went on and I continued to be told I was annoying, stupid, loud, obnoxious, and people just couldn't put a positive image to me, I started to believe it. I WAS loud, obnoxious, annoying, and stupid. So, I did what I knew best... to withdraw. I stopped responding to people trying to get a rise out of me. I stopped having fun when my "friends" around me were and I stopped trying to show people who I was. I didn't know how to connect with people because all I'd been shown by those outside my family was how to be mean and hate myself. I tried finding people to talk to as things got worse, but as soon as I started to get close to someone they would up and leave or find someone else to be friends with. I tried to turn to sports and running to get my mind off of things. That lasted until my eighth grade year when I started "maturing" and running became more of a difficulty than an enjoyment. I sought new ways to fill my need to fit in, but nothing worked. I constantly felt empty and alone. I'd find something that helped for a couple of days, weeks, or months, but then my old reminders of how everyone viewed me constantly came back and I was right back where I was before.
Now yes, I know, all of my friends and those that support me in my walk with Christ constantly say to turn to Christ because He is the only one that can fill that space and make you feel like you're worth something. In all honesty though, I still have no clue how that is possible. I have to be completely honest with this all. I've given my life to Christ, and I've worked on a relationship with him, but I've hit a standstill and even a backslide... I know I shouldn't believe all the words that have been said to me, because my Father says none of that is true, but because of my brain and its need to think constantly, I can't get rid of those words. I want to, so badly. I've made strides and jumps in my own self view, but I still can't imagine someone loving me for who I am; all the craziness, weirdness, stupidness, irrationalness, depressedness, my scarred image of what a relationship should look like and the belief that I'm never supposed to have one of my own, the fact that I don't believe I have enough to offer a man who would ever come into my life and even be the slight bit interested, my ability to tear things I so love apart without even meaning to, to pour all of my hate and anger and resentment of others in my past onto those in my present and ruining the friendships I already have..... I could go on and on. That's the thing though, I COULD, but I know I shouldn't.
I've had a couple of people in my life truly invest in me and desire for the best that I deserve. These people are some of the best friends I have, and we aren't even actually "friendship status." How am I supposed to be friends with someone nearly twice my age? I can't go spend the night at their house, tell them stories of things I'm struggling with at the moment and they can relate because they're in the situation now. I can't call them up and say, "hey! I'm bored, let's hang out and watch a movie or go do something fun!" I mean, yes... I appreciate what they have poured into my life, but it's just not the same as having someone my age that is willing to sit there and uncover every little part of me until they see the weak and broken person I am beneath my rough exterior to hide it all. There are things I have done in life that I haven't told some of my closest friends even (Sorry Daphne and Megan and Mysti, and many others), but I'm too ashamed of them and that I even did such things in my life. I don't know what it's like to have a friend who lives nearby and can go do things with whenever we so please. I grew up going to the farm in the summers, not spending time having fun with friends. I haven't found that college friend that I can tell any and everything regardless of what it is (sorry Daphne and the rest of you girls) or when it is.
But I'm a tough person to get along with.... I place myself (and others) to extremely high standards and I'm usually the one setting myself up for trouble as a result. I know what I have to offer and I know how I think I should be treated by others. But it's just not going to happen. If I expected others to text me first, call me to hang out, share their stories from their day without me having to ask, ask me how I'm doing just because they thought of me one day, call me randomly to cheer me up and make me laugh, wipe tears from my eyes when I can't do anything but sit here in a state of loss for what to do with my life, hold me close when I'm so down that I just can't move, and a long list of things I wish I could experience, I would never in my life find a friend to stay with me and I would never see anyone ever. Now yes, I do wish I could have all of those things in a friend, but I also understand that it's not going to happen most likely.
I still have a hard time letting people be nice to me. I mean honestly? Why is that so hard for me? I know I deserve to be loved and treated well, but I'm so conditioned that it's not going to happen that I push everyone away that wants to do any of those things. My roommate this last school year is such a blessing and sport for putting up with me. I'm pretty sure I put her through Hell and back again before we finally learned how to communicate in a way that was effective. I feel terrible for all of the things I said to her in my times of stress and over-thinking and of desperation to get things solved. But I'm also grateful she was willing to work at the friendship as well to make it a better one than it was initially. Yes, Daphne and I had out tiffs, but I know that she's always going to help me laugh things off when I need it. It's just so difficult to be so far from people when that's all you want to feel better. I don't need to talk, I don't need to do anything... I just want to be in the presence of people.
It's a world of life, love, and other mysteries as the band Point of Grace said many years ago. And it's so true. But it's also a world of confusion, chaos, pain, and annoyances if we let it be. I'm constantly working on forgetting how I've been treated in the past and learning to love myself and believe I deserve to be loved by others not because I deserve to be loved, but because it's ok to be loved. Now, I know I use the word love here a lot, and I don't necessarily mean in an Eros or romantic love as is one form used in the Bible, but I mean in a form of affection (brotherly love) and friendship, Storge and Phileo. Some day I may have the Eros form of love, but right now, I think I need to focus on the friendship and affection. This is tough for me; I mean, I'm a hopeless romantic as I've stated before... but maybe that's why I'm struggling lately. I'm looking for the wrong kind of love. I'm pushing things and it's just making me feel empty when it's not returned in the way I hope for. So between all my confusion that I'm feeling and the trouble that over-thinking has brought with it, I'm doing my best to distract my brain from things that don't need to be worried about.
I DO have friends that love me for who I am (even if they don't show it all the time), I DO have worth to me that might take a little uncovering for someone to see and appreciate, I DO deserve to be loved, it's absolutely ok for others to want to know me and I mean ALL of me even if I'm ashamed of some of it, and I CAN keep a friendship even when I'm not the best friend that I should be. People will come and go that just aren't meant to be in my life. I can't change that. But for those that do stay in my life, I am eternally grateful for the love that is shared and the friendship that is built even when I try to tear it down. I apologize over and over again for the stupid things I have done to my friends, between playing guilt trips when they don't do what I think they should be doing in our friendship to just being a devil's advocate and legitimately TRYING to break up a friendship to see if they'll stay around, leave, or remind me of why we're still friends. I thrive off of words so it's tough to not make others give me complements that I so long for.... So to each of my friends reading this, that know me completely, mostly, and just a little bit; I'm a mess a lot of the times, and I'm doing the best I can most times, but I love you like none other and can never express my thankfulness for you in my life.
