Erased
The last two nights have inspired me to write. I haven't been this moved to voice my heart in a long time, and I honestly hope it continues. Much of it has to do with a recent infatuation of Annie Lennox, due in part to my lovely roomie. I must thank her for that.
We are experiencing some rather dire times here. The water pump on our well has died and Toby is working day and night to fix it. Because of this sudden redirection of efforts, we are also dealing with a serious lack of cash flow. This necessitated a call to the parentals this evening to ask for some assistance in that area. While my stepmother was gracious about lending the money we needed, there is always that added cost of having to suck it up and humble oneself through a myriad of guilt trips. Tonight's array consisted of a particularly heart-wrenching one about how I've hurt my father and that he feels abandoned by his children.
This is an interesting guilt trip, honestly. It got me to thinking about the relationship I have shared with him in recent years. My parents have always been very demanding in my life. They demand obedience (yes, even as an adult), time, energy, and undying loyalty. Now, I'm willing to give a modicum of some of those things, but certainly not to my own detriment. I have slowly, as an adult, distanced myself further and further from them. It has become evident to me in recent years that I am not the person they expect me to be. I am playing a role when I'm around them, and part of that role involves appeasing them.
I am trying desperately to assert myself to them without being confrontational. The more different I become from that family dynamic, the more independent I am, the more they ostracize and refuse to accept who and what I have become. My voice doesn't matter, my thoughts don't matter, and my actions only serve to make them feel somehow threatened by me. I am not the person I should have been. I am not the dutiful, loyal to a fault daughter that they have tried to make me into. I have been broken and bound for so long, and I'm only just realizing how much. It's as if the person I wanted to be has been systematically erased throughout my life and replaced with someone else I never really wanted to be. It's been difficult to reach that part of myself and reassert her. I'm not sure I will ever be who I started out to be, but I do know that the voice is there still. I just need to open it up and use it more often.
It's hardest when that voice of doubt is so strong within. It's the most prevalent voice, only because it's the one that calls out the loudest. It's the voice of my stepmother, forever telling me what I can't do, mocking me for all the things I try to do, pushing me farther and farther inside the tiny box she's designed for me to live in. But I have to remember that my voice can be just as loud. And that my voice is the one that matters most.
We are experiencing some rather dire times here. The water pump on our well has died and Toby is working day and night to fix it. Because of this sudden redirection of efforts, we are also dealing with a serious lack of cash flow. This necessitated a call to the parentals this evening to ask for some assistance in that area. While my stepmother was gracious about lending the money we needed, there is always that added cost of having to suck it up and humble oneself through a myriad of guilt trips. Tonight's array consisted of a particularly heart-wrenching one about how I've hurt my father and that he feels abandoned by his children.
This is an interesting guilt trip, honestly. It got me to thinking about the relationship I have shared with him in recent years. My parents have always been very demanding in my life. They demand obedience (yes, even as an adult), time, energy, and undying loyalty. Now, I'm willing to give a modicum of some of those things, but certainly not to my own detriment. I have slowly, as an adult, distanced myself further and further from them. It has become evident to me in recent years that I am not the person they expect me to be. I am playing a role when I'm around them, and part of that role involves appeasing them.
I am trying desperately to assert myself to them without being confrontational. The more different I become from that family dynamic, the more independent I am, the more they ostracize and refuse to accept who and what I have become. My voice doesn't matter, my thoughts don't matter, and my actions only serve to make them feel somehow threatened by me. I am not the person I should have been. I am not the dutiful, loyal to a fault daughter that they have tried to make me into. I have been broken and bound for so long, and I'm only just realizing how much. It's as if the person I wanted to be has been systematically erased throughout my life and replaced with someone else I never really wanted to be. It's been difficult to reach that part of myself and reassert her. I'm not sure I will ever be who I started out to be, but I do know that the voice is there still. I just need to open it up and use it more often.
It's hardest when that voice of doubt is so strong within. It's the most prevalent voice, only because it's the one that calls out the loudest. It's the voice of my stepmother, forever telling me what I can't do, mocking me for all the things I try to do, pushing me farther and farther inside the tiny box she's designed for me to live in. But I have to remember that my voice can be just as loud. And that my voice is the one that matters most.
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