Once Again, It Isn't Always About Us

It's when things are most important to me that I wrestle the most with whether to write about them or not. In light of recent discussions on blogs about how we can take things very personally and read rejection or hurt into them where none is necessary, I feel it is a timely topic. It's so painful, though, that I've hesitated, and hesitated.

I've been in shock since I was told that the person I've known and trusted and loved the longest is dying. She is being heavily sedated to take away the pain, but cancer is still an awful, awful illness. It isn't fair. She's too young, she has young children, she has so much to live for. She wants to live a long life, she wants to watch her children grow up, but the disease isn't giving her that option.

Yet she is a very private person so I should not be surprised that she does not want visitors in her final moments. She wants to remove herself from the world of the living so that she can be at peace when she dies, instead of railing at the cruelty of it like I'm sure she must want to do and like I want to do. She wants to disengage from her emotional attachments, release herself like a balloon to float into the atmostphere. In my intellectual mind I can understand that, but that means going beyond the instinctive hurt I feel. I feel like she is finding me lacking somehow, like I can't provide her with any comfort in her time of need. I am hurt that I am not up to her standards and feel rejected.

But it isn't always about me. This is not about my being lacking in any area, at my not being worthy of comforting her. It is completely about her needs. She needs peace. If she needs to detach in order to find it, then that is simply what she needs. I need to love her enough to give her what she needs. It is her right and her due. There is no point in my feeling rejected.

There's more, but this is enough for now. This is simply another illustration to show how it isn't always about us, no matter what our painful pasts may lead us to believe.

Interesting

It's interesting to me how the posts I wrestle with the most are the ones that are the most important to me. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to press the "Publish Post" button.

I Lit The Match

Taking some old photos in hand, I struck the match and it lit with an acrid smell. I watched it for a moment before touching the dancing flames to the edge of the first old photograph.

The pictures are of me and my abuser from holidays, pictures of me having to sit next to him. The look on my face could not more vividly convey my torture than if I were screaming. My silent despair speaks volumes. The photographs bear silent witness to my pain--a pain that was so overlooked and ignored that these same pictures went into the family photo album.

If I destroy the pictures, there will no longer be a tangible reminder of all those years of pain however I already bear the emotional scar. That won't go away by burning the photos. In fact, it would be destroying a piece of evidence of how ignored my misery was. The information was there for anyone and everyone to see but they ignored it. Anyone who claims that I hid the pain too well for them to have had a clue is lying. They should have had a clue but it not something they wanted to see.

I lit the match, but in the end I blew it out.

Comments Moderation

Comments moderation has been removed. That was the only way I thought I would know if there were comments left by people and I wanted to know what people thought. It turns out that you can have new comments sent to your e-mail as they are left. Doh!

Getting to Know You: Christmas Edition

(Kim, I'm copying your intro, too, in case anyone sees this and wants to participate.)

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your blogging friends. I'm not going to tag anyone specific but consider yourself tagged if you feel like posting something frivilous and fluffy!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Gift bags.
2. Real tree or fake: Real.
3. When do you put up the tree? There isn’t a set day or date for us. It’s whatever works best that year.
4. When do you take the tree down? The same, there isn’t a set day or date for us. It’s whatever works best that year.
5. Do you like eggnog? I don’t know. I have never tried it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? This would require too much thought.
7. Hardest person to buy for? My mother.
8. Christmas eve midnight mass/service or Christmas Day: No.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Always mail.
11. Worst Christmas gift ever received? This would require too much thought.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I see something that I think someone will like.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I don’t have any particular favorite.
16. Lights on the tree? Of course. We take turns between white lights and colored lights.
17. Favorite Christmas song? I don’t have a favorite.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay at home.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Can‘t everyone?
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas day? Christmas Day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The pressure some people feel to have everything perfect.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Ornaments made by those I love.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I don’t have a specific favorite.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Santa knows. I can’t tell you or he won’t bring it.

Cat Chronicles - Detente

The battle between Baby and First cat continues. I've been out of town and apparently the felines have missed me. In fact, they missed me so much that the warring females brought themselves to sit on opposite sides of me on a chair upon my return. For only a moment, though, and while giving each other the stink eye. Then they started giving each other their backs until one of them relented and jumped off the chair. She missed me, but not that much after all. :)

My Cheer Went Poof

I was in such a good mood. Despite going to the dentist for a routine visit, I was full of holiday cheer and all that. Yet how quickly that disappeared.

The hygienist cleaned my teeth and began to floss them. She was quite rough with the floss and it was painful, to the point where I exclaimed in pain. Apparently she either didn't hear it at all or hears it so much it didn't make an impression on her because she proceeded to say, "Your gums are bleeding. Do you not floss regularly?"

WTH? Could she not tell the answer by the condition of my teeth? Or had the hair bleach permeated her brain and left her completely senseless? Gone was my good mood, immediately squashed by the pain from her overzealous efforts. Her stupid question was merely icing on that rotten cake.

"Not only do I floss regularly, I floss even twice a day or three times a day depending on what I eat. What I do NOT do is assault my gums like you have! Are you finished yet?"

I guess I won't be getting a Christmas card from her, but the feeling was mutual. Next time I will ask for any hygienist but her.