It occurred to me, the other day, that over the years I have suffered through the pain of several abandoned friendships; not many, but one would have been enough. I can count two. Oh the pain! And I have suffered through the pain of rejection and invisibility and and condescension. And inevitably, self-doubt. Not to wallow in self-pity or anything, because I’m pretty alright. But being that I am prone to constant self-analysis, I followed the thought. And it occurred to me that perhaps the reason other people abandoned me had nothing to do with me. But then I got to thinking, even if it did, I had already abandoned myself. My whole life, until fairly recently, was spent trying to be the avatar I had created in my own mind. That person was very well liked, very well respected, and had all the answers. She was nice to everyone, agreed with everyone, supported everyone, and smiled all the time. And whenever others were unkind to her, she made sure they knew she had forgiven them because, mean or not, she wanted them to like her. She was just so darned nice.
And I wondered, why? Why was it not enough that I was intelligent, talented and beautiful, kind, thoughtful, and all those wonderful, wonderful things that made me a good person? Why does anyone abandon herself? I believe, just a hunch, that I already felt abandoned. Not intentionally, but I did. Everyone deals with trauma differently, and I survived my own un-pleasantries by escaping to Pandora, that utopian place where my life was at peace, and all was well, and all the things that I wanted to be true were actually true. And before I knew it, I had left the real me back in the real world. The real me, with my real fears, my real questions, my real sadness, my real dreams, my real tears, and my real memories. And I created a veil to shield myself from the side effects of life.
Fast forward a couple decades, and here I am. Me 2.0. Able to look back and diagnose myself (thank God hindsight is 20-20). And heal myself. And free myself. Because no one can free you. No one could free me. I had to give myself permission to return to my own life, and live it.
I am grateful. That I got to push the reset button. That I get to live the life I was given. That I get to walk down this road. It’s beautiful, peaceful, uncrowded. Not noisy, sometimes lonely, occasionally cloudy, but mostly bright.
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