"How apart she felt, how apart she had felt for years, and she wished it was a feeling she could get used to. But it wasn't."
~ Corinne Beenfield
I have always struggled with having a sense of worth. Years of therapy have taught me that I am not worthless, but still . . . there are things that resuscitate those feelings.
My father left home when I was 8 months old. Years later, when I was 31, he felt the need to inform me that it was because he wanted a boy and I obviously did not fit the bill.
My first husband left six weeks after our son was born and died the next day. He didn't love me anymore, he wanted a divorce and I had a week to move out. Never mind that I was still recovering from childbirth and we also had a five year-old.
My oldest daughter chose to move outof my home and move in with her grandparents shortly after finishing high school. She later determined that I had "ruined her life by giving her siblings." (Sorry you feel that way, kiddo.)
Another daughter decided to leave home and move in with her boyfriend while I was at work one weekend. I went to work, she still lived at home. I came home from work and BAM! She was gone. Lock, stock, and barrel.
The man, while he didn't leave, was so wrapped up in his job, covering open shifts and working extra hours that I joked with his assistant when I moved to Alabama, "He won't even notice I'm gone, trust me."
My youngest son, after moving to Alabama, chose to return to his narcissistic father's home. Understandably, having autism makes it difficult for him to make friends. Six weeks after moving here, COVID hit and school was moved to a virtual platform. Not having had the chance to make friends, and not knowing anyone, he was extremely lonely and unhappy. It didn't help that dad bribed him with three different gaming systems and a big screen television in his bedroom.
Last night, another daughter was discussing whether she was going to stay home during her first year of college or move out. She's leaning towards moving out, which is of course an option at her age, but I'd hoped she would at least stay during her first year of college to help save money on rent.
This morning, driving to work, I was neither angry nor hurt. I grappled with the question of why people leave, and the aforementioned aren't the only ones. There are others who have also enforced the feeling of unworthiness by their actions. Friends who have promised to stick by and then bailed. Others who have lied and then when caught in lies, turned tail and ran rather than take responsibility.
Cruising down the highway, I watched the sun come up, shining on the tall pine trees. I gazed at the mountains in the distance ahead of me, variegated shadows in the early morning light. Having long moved past the pain of wondering that brings tears to my eyes, I again ask the question, "Why?" I want what everyone wants -- to be loved so deeply that life without me in it is unimaginable. Halfway into a pity party, I watched the sun continue to illuminate the meadows and changed the fields that lie in shadows of the nearest mountains. I felt it as much as I heard it. . .
"I never left you."
What?
"I NEVER LEFT YOU."
As the sun illuminated the world around me, this thought illuminated my mind. Realizing then that my finite mind has such a limited grasp of love that I have been comparing it to what I have experienced in the past, I felt the concept wash over me with a coolness that felt like water streaming over my head. I have been looking for human love with it's limited capacity, yet all along I have had the love of a God that "never leaves or forsakes you." (Joshua 1:9)
Huh. Whodathunkit.
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