You Are Not Alone
It has come to my attention how alone a lot of people feel, and how many of us have been reaching out through the internet to have that flash of company in our lives. In the spirit of unity, I’m going to share something with all of you.
I lost my parents before I was ready to.
I found myself surrounded by guilt, and wondering what I could have done differently, how I could have shown them more appreciation for the efforts they put into giving me a shot at making a life for myself. They were very sick for a long time, and in many ways, it was a relief to know that they were no longer suffering. At the same time, it ate me alive to feel that way.
You see, when I lost my mother, I had my father as a balm for the hurt of losing her. It was easier for me to keep walking forward with the knowledge that my father was still there to help hold me up. In the same hand, it sank in that my parents were human, mortal, and a part of mortality was death. I cleaved onto my father, using taking care of him as an excuse to ignore my fears of losing him. In many ways I used him as a security blanket. Things were okay as long as he was okay, at least in my mind.
However, I ended up stifling myself and turning myself into a caretaker, and as my parents were never stupid, I can’t imagine that my parents hadn’t seen what I had done. I can imagine how upset my father was that I was taking care of him when the only thing he ever really wanted for me was to be a fully functioning, self-actualizing, semi-content adult (that’s an exact quote by the way).
My greatest fear was that I would leave, and my father would die.
This is exactly what happened. For many years after my father’s death I blamed myself for being so selfish as to do something for myself and leaving my father alone to perish. I knew that one of the things my father feared was dying alone, and regretted being unable to keep our family as a whole unit. In all honesty though, by the time everything was all said and done with all of the toxicity raised during our time through my parent’s divorce, it was better for all of us to garner some distance. Bringing this back around, I blamed myself for not only enacting and enabling my truest and deepest fear to come into fruition, but my father’s as well.
I had no control over what happened, and I know now that it was more comfortable miring myself under misplaced guilt, than to accept that I had no control whatsoever.
Through my own experiences, and through watching the people around me, I learned that humans fool themselves into believing that we have more control than we actually do, and death, for all of our medical advancements, achievements and endeavors, we will never have control over.
Something in this world, a fact of life if you will, and we have no control over it? In many minds this is impermissible. This is a concept that many will never be able to let themselves even contemplate, let alone make some kind of peace with it. Oh well, it still remains. Additionally, many are unable to let themselves see the good parts of death.
Look, it only hurts when someone dies because you care about them. Not cared, care. I still care about my parents, relatives, and the friends I've lost. Their being dead hasn't changed that at all. In all reality though, I wouldn't be who I am if I hadn't made it through the loss, and who I am has placed me into a job I love, with an ambition to make it through school, and with friends who like me enough to put up with my idiosyncrasies. Sometimes, I'm barely scraping the bottom of actually living, and sometimes I'm barely taking care of myself, despite my animals always being taken care of and my bills being paid.
The hardest question I had to answer after my parents died was, what now?
I'm still figuring what the simplified question means in it's entirety. Fortunately, I have friends and co-workers who have no problem calling me on my bullshit. They care enough to know I'm better than I am, and remind me of it.
That good I was talking about? I used my parents and their sicknesses as a crutch to wire myself into a mold where I didn't have to take any risks, where I didn't have to take as much accountability as I should have, and where I didn't strive for anything, so I didn't have to fail. I was so fixed into this delusion that I didn't even realize I was doing it at the time.
I've since found out that I like failing.
Don't mistake me, I don't have some masochistic validation from falling on my face. Failure meant I was trying. I was working toward success, and frankly I've learned more about myself and what I'm capable of by failing, than I ever did by succeeding. Failing, meant when I succeeded at something that it was all the sweeter. Lessons I hadn't even known my parents had taught me were suddenly coming to the forefront, and I realized that even sitting in my house with no other humans around as I am now, even at 6:16 in the morning, I'm not alone at all.
The voices of the past echo ever into the future.
I found out that I want to be an Aunt my nephews can be proud of. I found out just how curious about the world I am. I found out I want my doctorate. I found out I want to be someone I can be proud of. I found out just how alone I'm not.
Descartes said: "I think therefore I am". I think that I still have a lot to learn.
In all honesty, I would not be learning at all if my parents were still here, if I was still barring myself into that self-sacrificing, martyring, maladaptive mold. I'm not responsible for the actions of those around me, and I will not blame myself for them. I am not at fault. My parent's deaths were not my doing. I am not alone.
I am responsible for my choices, my actions, my words, my life. I will always remember how the people in my life have touched it, and in turn, I will hope I have made a positive contribution to their lives.
Through hurting, failure, suffering, I have become someone who wants to be better.
Keep in mind, I still fail on a regular basis. I still mess up, accidentally hurt people, and fall on my face, but I take accountability for it, and I work to be better.
Many pass off the actions of those around them as "Fuck it, I don't care what people think".
I absolutely care what the people around me think. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I'm going to take the opinion of a poisonous person into account and let it ruin anything I've worked towards. That's where discretion comes in.
I care what my best friend thinks, I care what my sister thinks, I care what my boss thinks. These are all people who have shown themselves to have a valid opinion, and even that has been through trial and error.
Now, to bring myself back to the original point. I'm sitting by myself, now 6:29 in the morning, no other humans around, and I'm not alone. I don't know who said you can be surrounded by a crowd, and still be alone, but that person, while very introspective, and deep thinking, is kind of depressing in my opinion when that quote is taken literally (not denying that there are other meanings for said quote, I'm taking it in a literal sense to make a point here). This saying comes down to perspective. If the voices in your head are constantly telling you one thing, but you want a different outcome, change your perspective! I'm not saying that every attempt is going to work out, but to change anything you have to keep working at it!
My boss, my best friend, my sister, all of them have drug themselves out of the swamp, but they had to keep trying to do it.
None of us have done this on our own. Don't get me wrong, if we hadn't put the work into it, nothing would have been accomplished, but if we didn't go actively looking for some kind of support we wouldn't have been able to weather the storm, even if that support came from voices of the past, even if that support came from their children as the motivation to do better.
So to everyone who has taken the time to read this, stop, look around, don't make excuses, and ask yourself if you are actually alone?
