Preparation People

This is the first time I’ve been clear on the idea that God has been preparing me for something by the people that have come into my life. It’s not the permanent people but those who come in little seasons and then leave. In most of these relationships I have felt very triggered and bothered by something about the other person. Tonight, after a woman who wrote a book about her mother’s bad mothering, I see the puzzle pieces coming together in clarity.

It’s as if there is something I am to do and before I can be shown that thing I must be shown everything I am not to do. Imagine if you had an angel that came to you and walked you through every potential future outcome that stands before you. Only in seeing these endings can you gain you make a choice to not go that path. Well, this is what I seem to be doing for the last many years.

My roomate met a guy from Chicago and she fell so fast into infatuation she was bothered that her first grandchild’s early arrival was ruining her fun Christmas party plans with her new romance. She went to see the baby and be with her daughter. But the fact that she didn’t want to bothered me tremendously. I wondered what manner of mother wouldn’t want to be there for her daughter to support her and to welcome the first baby into that generation. I wondered why she would be so head over heels in love with a man she’d barely even known. And then I realized that she was acting exactly as I had behaved when I met Dave. I didn’t leave my kids for nearly 2 years and I didn’t push them out of my life but I didn’t want to be playing the mother role anymore. I was in the beauty and mystical moments of new romantic love.

I don’t think I was wrong for the way I felt but I do feel disappointed that the feeling wasn’t mutual. I dropped everything (not that I had a choice) to pursue a committed new relationship with him. He dropped nothing and only saw me when it was convenient for him and his work schedule.

I don’t want to be the mother who drops everything for a man. I want a man to love me and what’s important to me – a man who would fly to be with me in such an event and want to meet my kids and integrate into my family. Maybe my roomate has that. I did not.

I feel like I owe my kids an explanation and there is really none to give. Just that I’m human and I fell in love and it felt wonderful for me to feel that feeling again after so long. Dave made me feel like I was 17 again. It was something I thought could never happen and I was so thrilled that God had given me such a beautiful experience. It truly was beautiful at first. Today it could be still beautiful but its like a flower that began to bud and then was never watered. It’s been trying to grow and trying to stay alive but in the stunting of its nourishment and expansion it is tired.

Today in meeting the author, I saw what my life would look like if I allowed my relationship with my mother to fade away into bitterness. Her mother has passed on and she clearly has a million unanswered questions. Her book is a memoir of her pain from the moment she was born to this day where she still carries it and walks in a cloud of victimhood that I doubt she is even aware of. I do not want to be that. I pray that God will help me to not be that – to forgive, heal and possibly even have beauty in reconnection with my mother in a way that we can talk and understand eachother before she leaves this earth.

I see that Dave reminds me of the me I was before my ex had a stroke. He’s so focused on his career he doesn’t pay attention to me. I don’t want to be that way either. I hope the people God gives me to love know each day that they matter to me. I hope I cherish the moments with them and even on my busiest days I find time to reach out and enjoy the sound of their voices. I don’t want to ever take love for granted and I want to remember always that each person is God’s child – a spark of God’s light and that each person is a gift from God who is in my life to love me and be loved by me.

I also see that Dave brings up memories of when my mom moved away to marry a new man and I had felt left behind as part of her family. Maybe all of this is coming up so I can see each person and forgive what I have held onto. Namely I see my mother in all of this. Tamra reminds me of her in every way possible and they are almost the same age. She triggers me nonstop and I see her actions and behaviors as very selfish. She seems to only care about getting her dreams – her desire to be a script writer and her Cinderella love story with a type of obsession that runs over the feelings and plans of anyone and everyone that stands in the way of her fairytale picture perfect life. And I guess God wants me to look at her and see that she’s his child and to see my mother as his child too – very imperfect people who act on what they have in front of them and don’t likely mean to hurt others or realize they are doing it.

Like my mother she’s a fault finder – seeking everything she can find that’s not perfectly in place and looking to blame someone for the imperfection. I would imagine this is a reflection of how she feels about herself on the inside. People who seek perfection in others are projecting the imperfections they don’t accept in themselves.

I’m not sure how to love these people – other than to pray for them.

As for Dave the avoidant – he does remind me a lot of Josh in how he seems to get close and push me away again over and over. Josh did this because he didn’t think he was good enough for me and because he found acceptance in crowds. Maybe the variety gives them a cushion in knowing that one person doesn’t have the power to crush them. By keeping many woman on the line, many social environments and focusing on their own desires these people are able to avoid heartbreak.

I can’t change any of them. By writing about them, complaining about them, trying to talk to them or by loving them with all the love I can possibly pour out over them I see no change. So then the question is what does God want me to see in this?

When you try everything and nothing works. All you can do is accept it and pray.

It’s hard for me to visualize where I go from here. I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life trying to heal everything broken in others so I can just love them and all it’s done is cause them to push me away. Maybe that’s the big word in all of it from every angle…. Acceptance.

I wish God would send me a love in a human like I had in Drako. I never had to force him to love. He chose me and he followed me everywhere I went and to this day he still lights up when I walk into a room. He doesn’t need to say a word, he just loves me so much the love radiates from him to my heart.

Love hurts so bad. Life is so imperfect and people are so imperfect and somewhere in it all I just wish I could feel love.

I know I can work at it I’ve done it before but I can’t work at anything if the other doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to. He’s told me a hundred times he doesn’t want to. There’s nothing I can do with that. I can’t force him or beg him or convince him to change his mind. I’ve done my very very best to love him and make right all of his complaints about me and excuses about me. He’s had 7 years to decide. SEVEN.

I keep thinking I need to move away to break myself away from him and not feel tempted anymore to call him or text or respond to his stuff. He doesn’t even know how bad I hurt – how much I cry over this and how frustrated I’ve been for so long now. And I’m so silly I wonder if that’s fair to walk away when he’s unaware of what he’s done.

I’m so scared I’ll never love like this again. That’s the fear. It’s eating me up because I am so shocked I could love a man that much and then to just let that go seems crazy. But what choice do I have? How can I keep crying myself to sleep each night and call this God’s glorious life he gifted me with? I’m going to write him a letter now…