being present...

yep, something i have often tried to coach clients to do, seems to be very difficult for me to achieve right now

months of having FC on the mind, seems to be difficult to shift, and consequently i haven't felt very present to the people in my life, or even work at times, in the last few months....

i feel as though i have put my life on hold (stupid really, and entirely my own doing) in the hope that something would happen, spent valuable time waiting for contact with him when i could have been getting on with it

not like it's the first time i've done this...so maybe stupid is harsh, but really, wouldn't i better served doing the things i love, spending time with the people i love, rather than 'hanging out' for contact with someone i have not yet gotten to know that well? yeah, now that the fantasy has way less life (of course it's not dead, how could it be?), seems that some normality is starting to return to my life, and i would be lying if i said i wasn't still occasionally checking the phone for a message from him, but i am finding it easier to just get on with the things i want to do....

imagine my horror then, when today, during therapy, Sal asks me if I think FC is like my mother....i go quiet for a while, and then say 'no, i don't think so'...she looks at me, we stare each other down (not in a bad way) for a while, and then i get this awful feeling, my stomach drops, the blood drains from my face, and i realise, for the first time in 43 years (and as i type this the tears have started to slowly roll down my cheeks), my relationship pattern, you know, the one where i look for emotionally unavailable men to love me, perhaps has nothing to do with Chris, but with my mum....

the one person you'd think you could depend on to love you, the person who brought you into the world, the person who would hold you first and be responsible for your care....but no

instead what i got is someone who didn't really want me, who for many years told me i was a mistake and wasn't really emotionally available...sure she did things for me and my sister (obviously her way of showing her love was, and is, acts of service)....but she never told me she loved me, i only felt worthy or lovable when i did something she could be proud of, and to this day, i don't feel like she knows me, or that i can truly be myself in front of her (didn't help that i had a big fight with FC and then a complete meltdown whilst they were here the other week, fuck!)

unconditional love: i sometimes ponder how different my life may have been if i'd had this from her? despite what happened with Chris, perhaps some of my intervening relationships may not have been so dysfunctional....

i have spent the best part of 6 years (since i recovered the memory of what happened with Chris) thinking that i looked for love in all the wrong places because of what he did, and sure, it hasn't helped, but actually i think it goes back way further than what happened that night....

seems my antenna for the emotionally unavailable man is well attuned, seems i feel compelled to move towards men who really aren't able to love me the way i want to be loved...sound familiar? yep, this is the pattern i have lived with my mother my entire life...

no wonder i'm tired, and i am so very tired...a big part of me wants to go to sleep and never wake up, i'm tired of not having what i want in my life, i'm tired of having to discover more stuff that's in my way, i'm tired of wishing that my childhood could have been different...yep, tired

you know the really sad thing? even if she were to tell me now that she loved me, it's not going to make a difference and it's not going to change everything that's gone before, the patterns that i have formed, the many dysfunctional relationships i have found myself in, each one another opportunity for me to feel like nobody will ever love me for who i am, and ultimately another way for me to end up hurt and abandoned...

i know they say that stuff only comes up when we are ready to deal with it, but really, i'm tired...i would so dearly love a couple of months where i feel good about myself, where there is no 'stuff' to work through, no mirror being held up....and sure FC has been a mirror, and maybe one i needed to look into, but now, i just feel confused

is he someone i really like? or is he just another in a long line of emotionally unavailable men who i'm going to let reinforce the messages of my childhood? honestly, i don't know, i hope he's not, i hope there is something there, and of course, the romantic in me, the dreamer, the idealist, well she hopes that he turns out not to be just a mirror, but something way way more....

so, as i contemplate taking my sad and weary self to bed, i feel so very present to the epiphany of today and just how big an impact she has had on my life....and it hurts...it hurts so badly i wonder how long it's going to take to bounce back....