When I was in therapy I was told that I have a tendency of putting other people before myself. I can't remember how we got to this conclusion but we did and it is one of the conversations i replay over and over again.
I vaguely remember telling him this story about a time I stood up for a girl when I was in the sixth grade. She was someone who clearly could not defend herself and when i saw that she, a person i had not spoken too before, was corned by a group of ashats yelling cruel things to her ('ugly retard' is what stood out to me) i put my own fears of retaliation behind me and yelled "what if she were you're sister! stop making fun of her!". I then dragged the sobbing girl away from the crowd of leering bullies and told her i'd walk her to class. She said something along the lines of 'but wont they just make fun of you now' and i told i didn't think that far ahead to worry about that but that we should get to homeroom and forget this ever happened.
I told my therapist that i didn't understand why it was so easy for me to defend other people but when it came to defending myself I continued to fail at doing so. And he looked at me as if he couldn't believe that answer didn't smack me in the face: because you always puts someone else first instead of yourself, of course defending yourself is hard. It's the ultimate form of putting yourself out there.
And i can't believe that after all these years being able to express hurt and anger and disappointment to other people is hard for me. When i get upset I immediately boil the feelings up. I let it sit and stir and fester until i lash out. I am the queen of silent treatment. I have earned multiple gold medals in passive aggression. Even now i don't know how to value my own feelings enough to speak up when it is me on the end of the teasing or the tears or the anger. And i am finding it less and less productive.
These next few week are going to be weird. I don't want to say it is going to be emotionally and mentally devastating but i'm not going to say it isn't going to be tough to hold it all together. Thursday is Marie's birthday (forever i was convinced her birthday fell on the 5th of December but alas, December 6th it is) . She would have turned 27. I am going to call her mom tomorrow just to...I don't know. Speak to her, ask how she is doing, let her know how i am doing. I want to reiterate all the things I wrote in the letter i sent her a year ago. I want to let her know that someone else out there misses her daughter as much as she does. And maybe it won't mean anything. Maybe it will. But it's something i want to do for myself.
This year has gone by so fucking quickly. So much has changed and I still can't believe that I've gotten to this date and time and moment without her. It's unbelievable. I find myself replaying the events from last year over in my head a lot. It's easy to do when I have posts that remind me of the week leading up to her death and the weeks after. It's easy to do when I hang out with friends, pine over Sean, go home and realize that she isn't apart of it anymore. I can't whine to her. I can't ask for her advice. And sometimes that knowledge is a punch in the gut or a tearful moment in a corner at work or in the passenger seat of a dumb boys car.
I have been spiraling more than i've let on. I have not found a way to cope that is positive. I want to go to therapy again because the hardest part of grief is learning how to adjust to this new normal as well as accepting it. Because things are different. I am different. Hell even my wants and desires are new. And it is freaking me out because a part of me is afraid to accept that this is my life now: without her. And it isn't better or worse it is just different. A part of me is trying to understand what it is that i want from myself these days because I am not use to putting myself first and I feel overwhelmed by having to so that i don't drown under my anxiety, depression and general worries.
I made a small step in this department on Friday when I kind of told Sean how I feel about him. Well, i told him that there was a time that I "use" to like him, not so long ago, and that i am gradually working on 'crushing' on him less. He seemed a littled stunned by this confession, maybe even hurt, and asked why my feelings had changed. I told him I had no other choice but to get over him because it felt like his feelings were not catching up to mine and I wasn't sure if they ever would.
I then told him that this has been an incredibly hard year for me and that instead of dealing with my best friends death in a way that will help me I have been distracting myself . I told him that I want to focus on me for awhile even if that meant...being a little selfish. I don't know who i am anymore since she died. My role and spot has shifted greatly. I feel as if i am learning how to be a daughter, friend and person again and sometimes i fail at that. I don't know how the next part happened but he looked at me and told me he was my friend. And i told him that he wasn't. Because lets be honest for every good thing Sean has done there is a long list of ways he has not been a good friend to me. I don't know why i told him this. I guess i wanted to get him off his high horse because sometimes he has this air about him that he is saving me. That if he werent around I wouldn't know what to do.
But this is coming from a boy who left me in closet, who gropes me but says it doesn't mean anything, who won't give me his phone number because i'm not his girlfriend (yet other people and chicks at work have his digits). This comes from a boy who didn't tell me until days later that he sent me to get dog food for his girlfriend, who didn't remember my birthday, who has made me walk home numerous times because he didn't like my attitude. This is coming from a boy who hits on underage girls and is seriously thinking of buying me a vibrator for Christmas....so i can think of him. If anything this boy is struggling to be my friend. I get upset with him every other day it seems. I feel ugly and insignificant when I am around him. I have tried to be someone else so that he will recognize me and instead all i feel is degraded and small.
So when he said that he was a good friend, as if he was nominating himself for an award, I couldn't believe my ears. So i told him the truth...that he hasn't been a good friend. And do you know what he did. Do you know what this closet leaving, boob touching, inconsiderate asshole did...
He looked away. Got really silent. Cleared his throat as if something were stuck in it, turned red and then returned his gaze back to mine...full of tears. "go on" he said his voice breaking and i realized that he was crying. Like actual man tears. And my heart fucking dropped. I was not expecting this. I was expecting him to say something mean back. I was prepared for him to tell me to go fuck myself.
I don't think I've ever made anyone cry before. And I sure didn't think i'd ever make this one cry. And sure this wasn't a full on sob but it was the most controlled form of crying I've ever witnessed. I dropped whatever I was holding at the time and pulled him in for a hug. I caved and said i was 'sorry' over and over until i couldn't say it anymore. I told him that i don't know how to be anyone's friend either and that maybe we could both work on being there for the other.
After a moment we pulled away and he said he got upset because i was right. He comes from a family where the roles are often gray and indistinguishable. His father doesn't know how to be a father. His mother doesn't know how to be a mother. His sisters don't know how to be sisters. And now here he is not even knowing how to be a good friend...when I've needed it the most this year.
And despite how inconsiderate and stupid and dumb this boy can be, this all made sense to me. I understood what he meant completely.I admitted that is the one thing I have struggled with as well, especially this year. I no longer know who i am or what i am to people. Some days I feel lost and without a stable foundation. I struggle to understand all the wants and needs and desires that are floating in front of me. I struggle with my role as a friend, daughter, potential awesome girlfriend. I am struggling. I am head above water but struggling. And i am tired.
So instead of hitting some terrible dark angry place I need to figure out and get myself together. It's weird feeling like I am just particles of this person floating in a million different directions. And there is this force trying to pull the particles back together. And i'm not sure what the final result will look but i'll be a whole person again, one day. I just needed to get to this place a year later of bad decisions, hurt feelings, terrible grief and misplaced feelings to realize this.
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