Headed For A Break-Down

It's currently 1:00am here in the "middle of nowhere, Louisiana" and I'm still basically wide awake. Now, don't misunderstand. I'm not alert and awake. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted. I'd LOVE to go to sleep right now. But, as soon as my head hits the pillow, my eyes pop open. I know this, because I've already tried it. Sitting up at the computer, I'm doing good to keep them open, but that will change as soon as I lie down. I know that it's because I have so much crap going on in my head and I can't seem to sort it all out. My pastor would say that this would be the best time to talk to God, but I can't even concentrate long enough to do that! My mind zooms around ninety-to-nothing pretty much all day long and I can't make it stop racing long enough to enjoy the world around me. I need some meditation. I need to stop and sit down and really put my life into perspective. I feel better when I'm able to do that.

I want to be a better person. I want to tune in more to the people around me and less to myself. I want to be able to take care of my daughter the way she deserves. I just want a touch of "normalcy" going on. I know what I want. I have a very clear image of who I am and who I want to become. I just haven't yet figured out the steps it'll take to get there. I pretty much know that it'll take some "divine intervention" to make it all happen and I pray that that'll happen, but I just don't know anymore. I've prayed, I've begged, I've cried (literally and figuratively)...I'm not sure what else I can do or how much more sincere I can possibly be. I don't know if I've committed some unforgivable sin and that's why I feel so ignored or what...I just know that it's taking all the strength in me to even care anymore. Pretty soon, that'll give out, too, and what happens then? Does my daughter become a carbon copy of myself--left behind by her parents, through no fault of their own, to grow into a bitter, negative, lonely woman who is more like a child than an adult, crying out for love and acceptance that she somehow missed through not having parents? The very LAST thing I want for my daughter is for her to ever have to feel like I do--like she's been abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of her until she was at least old enough to take care of herself. Every parent knows the love they have for their child or children. What happens to that child when she loses that unconditional love? Well, I'll tell you what happens. She becomes angry at the world. She's angry at God for taking the truest form of love she'll ever be privileged to have. There's not a soul in this world who loves a person the way their parents do. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts or uncles...no one! Even my daughter loves me NOW, but that love will change. Not that she'll love me any less when she gets older, but it'll be different. Right now, I'm ALL she has. Sooner or later, her love will be divided between me and some boy who isn't good enough for her. Then, it will be divided further when she has children of her own. She'll always love me, I'm sure, but not in the same, unchanging way that my parents would have and certainly not in the way that I'll always love her. A parent's love never changes. The kids are "it". There's nothing else to divide our love with after that. What they have is what they have, period. At least that's how I look at it. Not that I'd know, because I'll never get to be the object of love like that. I was, at one time, but it was so long ago that I can no longer remember it. I only get to imagine the way my mother felt about me. I don't want my daughter to wind up like me. I don't want her to know loss like I have. I don't want her to have to wonder what kind of grandparents her parents would have made. I don't want her to be reduced to simply "feeling their presence" as she gets ready for prom, or at her high school graduation, or at her wedding or the day her first child is born. I want her to be able to come to her mother when the mean kids at school are picking on her because she's wearing glasses or braces or because she's fat or because she has horrible skin (not that I want any of those things to happen to HER, but they sure happened to ME!) I want her to have something that I'll never have...the opportunity to come out of the hospital delivery room, holding her own baby, and say "Thank you" to the parents who felt the same way about her that she now feels about her baby.

Sure, I believe that my parents "know how I feel" and they're "looking down on me" or whatever else it is that people say to lessen my pain...but it's just simply NOT good enough. I was a young mother with questions...I'm proud to say that most of them, I figured out on my own...but why did I have to do that? Why are there mothers out there who will KILL their children and MY loving mother had to die? There are fathers who run off and leave their children and never pay a lick of child support or have anything to do with them and, yet, my devoted, hardworking father had to die. It's cruel and it pisses me off beyond belief!! I'll admit that God and I have been on the "outs" plenty of times in my 30 years because of that. I'm not an atheist. I very much believe there is a God. There's no doubt in my mind, whatsoever. I believe that He's up there and I believe that He sees what I'm going through. However, I struggle constantly with whether or not He cares about what He sees. I hurt, every day of my life, for one reason or another. If it's not my parents, it's some other struggle that He knows about. I will never understand how He can just sit idly by and watch me fall apart. Again, I've prayed, cried and begged...I've done, what I thought was, exactly what the Bible told me to do if I needed help...but, oddly enough, that "help" never came. So, where is my God???? He's up there, I have faith in that...but why does He just let me hurt? Why has my pain NOT stopped since I was 10 years old?? That's 20 years of suffering I've endured.

I have a beautiful daughter. I'm not ungrateful for that. She was what I call a "blessing in disguise". She was something I got that I didn't know I wanted. The truth is, I needed her. I know this, because there have been plenty of times since Alyssa was born in 2002, that, if I didn't have her, I would have just given up. Yes, I recognize that she is a gift from God....something to keep me going in the midst of my hurt...and I'm appreciative of that. She's beautiful, she's healthy, she's smart, she's well behaved, for the most part. She's a perfectly "normal" kid. It's my strong desire to keep her from my pain that is making me crazy!! My instincts constantly tell me to give up...but I can't, for her sake. I had a great mom and I want her to have one, too! It's just hard for me to know how to do that because my role model was taken away from me.

There aren't too many days that go by that I don't wonder what they'd be like. My mother would be 52 years old now...I haven't seen her since she was 32. My father would be turning 57 next month...he was 43 when I saw him last. I'm the spitting image of my mother, but, after my 32nd birthday, I'll no longer know what that means for me. I wonder every day how much grayer my father's hair would be or if my mother would have gotten the "middle age spread" (that would be good info to have for later). More importantly, I wonder if they'd be proud of me. I'm quite sure they wouldn't be, at this moment. I've made a TON of mistakes. But, most of them were mistakes that, most likely, I never would have been in a position to make, had they just been here. I like to think they'd be proud of me anyway, and I KNOW they'd be proud of their granddaughter. But, it really doesn't help any to "know" that. I'm still angry because they can't come to her birthday parties and her grandma can't make her any cute clothes and her grandpa can't take her on her first Harley ride.

I'm not in constant grief. It only really hurts when I think too hard about it. It doesn't even bother me to TALK about, in most cases. As long as I just talk and detach myself and forget how it FELT to hear my daddy say that "God needed a new angel and took Mom up to be with Him"...or how it FELT to have my phone ring early on a Saturday morning to be told that my father had been in an accident...or how it FELT to have his best friend come out of the hospital and tell me that he didn't make it. The sense of total aloneness that I felt at that moment is something that is still raw today.

If my life was thrown a blow on January 5, 1990, when "God needed an angel", or whatever His motivation was, it all but ended on November 4, 1995, when He took away the last unconditional love I'll ever know. I still have a million unanswered questions and I'll probably never know exactly what happened in that room at Baptist hospital in 1990, or exactly what happened on Pine Springs Road in the wee hours of that November day. I'll never know if they were at peace with what was happening to them or if they were terrified of what would happen to my sister and me. I might not ever know how much they suffered and I suppose I should be grateful for that. And, I suppose I should be grateful that, unlike some people, I'll never have to wonder if they loved me. I KNOW they did! But, oddly enough, that doesn't help. That actually makes it worse, believe it or not. If I was an abused child, then their deaths might have come as a sweet release to me. But, I was very loved and treasured and, to lose the only people who will ever truly look at me that way, is a devastating tragedy from which I'll likely never recover.

It's almost 2am now and I'm totally rambling and I realize this. And, I also realize that, in the morning, I'll re-read this and it might not even stay on this blog. It likely won't make any sense, to be honest. In fact, I'm almost certain of that. I'm just tired of struggling. In one way or another, my entire life has been a constant struggle and I'm just ready for it to end (the struggle...not my life). I just want a few moments of peace. Maybe I had them already and just didn't notice. I don't know for sure. I just know that I hurt, almost constantly, and, if I have to be committed at any point, I want everyone to understand why!

**Update**
Yep...went back and re-read...and I'm happy to report that I'm feeling a bit better! :) These outbursts aren't unusual for me. Anyone who has lost someone close to them knows that it's a pain that you never get over. Time helps, and I've had YEARS, but it never completely stops hurting. I have moments when I still don't understand and moments when I still feel like I'm going through this life completely by myself, but deep down inside, I know better. They're always with me, not necessarily in that "they're watching over you" kind of way, but they're with me whenever I truly need them to be. I have my memories and I always feel closer to them when I'm telling my daughter about them. I want her to feel like she knew them and my next child (if I have one) will be named after one or both of them!

Now, having said that, I'm signing off to play with my 6 year old, who, as I type is reading over my shoulder and trying to give me "wet willies"! :)