For months now, I have been writing about the gaping hole that I have in my chest. The ache emanates from the very center of my being…
Hurting. Wanting.
I have been very frustrated, as I have tried and tried to find different ways to fill this hole.
Yet, nothing has really worked.
Repeatedly, I have asked myself: Why? Why is this hole there? What is the cause?!
Repeatedly, I have come up empty.
In the last two days, the answer has begun to take shape.
And, it is not really an answer that I particularly like.
My entire life, I have befriended older women. Always. I have always, always, felt more at ease with them. I have felt as if they possess a greater ability to understand me, as I am, and have also attributed my own maturity to it. I have struggled to find peer aged friends–rather, older friends are just easier.
Last night, I attended church, where I have quite a few friends who are older…well, actually they are all older than me, by at least 12-15 years, if not more. As I was talking to one of these friends, she began to describe a trip she was going to take–she was flying to visit her daughter. She mentioned that she would be attending church services with her, but that it didn’t matter, she was just so happy to be able to be with her girl.
Man…that just hit me right in the heart. Unexpectedly.
I sat next to her on the pew and that hole I have? It started throbbing. So much so that it made me go quiet so that I could blink away the tears forming in my eyes.
In that moment, I realized something…
I SO BADLY, want someone to want me the way this woman wants to be with her daughter.
What I want? I want a mom.
The problem is…the one I have? She doesn’t love me this way. And she never has.
How do I begin to reconcile that?
There are times, definitely, when I just want one of these older friends to adopt me, in a sense, and treat me like their own family. Show me the love that I can’t get anywhere else.
…Or something.
I just want to be loved, and cherished, and free to be myself around someone who loves me unconditionally.
I just don’t know…can’t even comprehend…what this must feel like. To have that safe person…that cheerleader…that person who just sees and knows your worth because you are you. The closest experience I have had to it has been the counseling relationship–but that is not the same, even if I have wished it could be.
But God…do I want it.
I want to be able to give it to myself. But, it is not the same. I know that…and that is holding me back.
I want to find it in God. But it is such a difficult concept…and I also so badly need the comfort of knowing what this type of love feels like from another human being. A human who can actually hug me…touch me…comfort me. And MEAN it. Someone who can believe in me until I know how to believe in myself.
I have so many fears right now. It wells up inside of me, causing me to hold back a wave of unending tears.
God, I want it to stop.
A Brave Mess 