Pull the Weeds and Plant Healthy Seeds

Loneliness has nothing to do with being alone and everything to do with feeling connected--connected to something, someone other than ourselves in ways that make us feel a bond, a kinship that inspires validation and keeps us company when we're by ourselves. It is not enough to have a large family or be surrounded by people. It is not enough to just be in a loving relationship, either, although that does help. We need someone, or a group of someones, who looks into who we are, ALL of who we are, and understands us, loves it without hesitation or reservations, in spite of whatever they find there behind our eyes. As I pick apart the times in my life when I've felt lonely, I see the roots of other things that grow off of that in insidious ways; self-doubt, anger, bitterness, restlessness, and sometimes even panicked feelings of despair. It's never been about being with my own company, and always goes back to the seeds of doubt planted deep inside of me as a child.

My relationship, or lack thereof, with my parents when I was growing up didn't look like what society said a family "ought to be". And no matter how I tried over the years to fit it into the box social norms has delineated for it, it just didn't. Was that my fault? Theirs? Many people have said to me over the years that it was either one or the other, but perhaps the truth is that in order to finally rid myself of the toxins it created in my life once and for all, I must examine it through a different lens...i.e. the eyes of the adult I've become, not in relation to my parents, but in spite of them. As a child, I internalized the choices my parents made when they divorced, by manifesting them into abandonment issues and feelings of a lack of self-worth, but the reality is, I had nothing to do with their choices, even though I was caught in the after-effects. While this is no big epiphany, prior to this moment, I was not ready to let go. I spent much of my adult life trying to understand the decisions made by others, so that I could confirm, one way or another, my "fault" in those decisions.

The reality is, no one is responsible for any choices they make but their own. After speaking with quite a few people over the years, I know that my experiences, and the feelings about them are not uncommon. It helps. It helps to know I'm not alone. And now, I'm finally ready to dig up that ginormous weed of childhood loneliness, and ferret out all of the rot and damaging roots it has caused. It's time to plant new seeds, ones that will grow into positive blooms, and sweet, ripe fruit; ones that will nurture me, and flourish. As for those who've said to me, "You need to just let it go" (and gee, why didn't I ever think of that--insert eyeroll here), it wasn't "time" before. I don't know that I understand why NOW is the right time, but I feel it. I know that it is time to stop allowing unrealistic expectations to dominate the way I see others. It is time to stop carrying around burdens and weights that I didn't create (although it strikes me that I should find a way to let go of the ones I DID create, but that's for another post). And it is time to see what wondrous things can grow from the spaces where I allowed the rot to live for far too long!

---