At the end of last month I was feeling all jumbled up inside. Mentally constipated, emotionally stifled, stagnant, confused, angry, isolated. I was in a relationship that I had known for quite some time wasn’t going anywhere and I needed out. No matter how many times I told him, he just didn’t get it. “I can’t do this hamster wheel of a relationship anymore. I’m done,” I would tell him. “Leave.” “If they were so much better and better to you than me, there’s the door. Leave. Bye.” The ‘they’ being referred to were the other girls he had dated before me that he would tell me about where she did this and that girl did that. I didn’t care. I had long since checked out of the relationship and prayed he would just leave. He never did. In any case, I sat down one night to compose a letter to him to try to get off my chest everything that I had been thinking and feeling for the longest. Mainly, because I’m not really good at verbally expressing myself especially when I’ve already tried that and it fell on deaf ears. Now I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall trying to get my point across. So I started to compose a letter…
‘Hey,
I apologize for missing Turkey day with my family. I do love you. More than you will ever know in this lifetime or any other. I don’t know how to explain what I have needed to convey to you for so long. Every time I say something, it never comes out how I need it to and it gets misconstrued into something that I totally did not mean for it to be. I try not to say things off the cuff because that could be worse than cooling my head before I speak. I try very carefully to choose my words and say them in a manner that would not be offensive to who I’m speaking to. I see that we are two peas in a pod and we both get lockjaw when we really shouldn’t. I’ve been that way since I was a little girl and just like you, in some ways, I’m not like the weather, I don’t change either. As an adult, I’m still like that because it’s quite hard to do a complete 180 after being a certain way for so long. Communication is not a strong point for me which always results in people getting hurt, but I’m working on it. In addition, I have also always been that person on the outside looking in and I’m still that person, which is why I do things the way that I do. Whenever I have voiced myself, I have always been made to feel like my opinions and feelings don’t matter and on top of that, I’m also made to feel as if I’m less than, intolerably ignorant, or just plain stupid. When you think about it though, ignorance can be dealt with; it just means that a person hasn’t learned a certain thing so they just don’t know, but the intolerance of ignorance is another issue. If someone is ignorant, we must have patience with that person and educate them so that when they do speak on a topic, they are at least somewhat knowledgeable on the subject. I have noticed that that is the baggage that I carry just as you carry yours. I understand that I’m not the easiest or best person to be around all the time, but when that’s all you hear and that’s all you are shown for so long, at some point it starts to seep into the cracks and you start to believe it. Even when you evaluate yourself, everything you ever did and the things you are currently doing become questionable, even to yourself. Then you start to wonder about what others see in you or how they see you. At this point in my life, I’ve been questioning myself so much I really feel like killing myself some days. For a while, I was good, but recently those thoughts and feelings of hurting myself have slowly started to come back. I can’t talk to everybody about it either even those that say, “Girl, you can talk to me about anything. I’m here for you. I got your back.” Thanks, but when I do, it rarely makes me feel better. Sometimes I feel worse like, “Did I really say that to that person? Did I impart too much information? Maybe I shouldn’t have divulged that little tidbit to such-and-such…” Then I really start to question and doubt myself and feel worse than when I initially spoke to that person. I’m thinking to myself, “They must think all kinds of ill things about me.” Yes, I have low self esteem issues. I’m working on it but it’s not easy. I feel selfish when I do for myself sometimes. I guess because I empathize very easily with another’s situation and I want to see those around me do better and prosper. I’m glad I have a Therapist. I wish I could see her every day. You know what, though? I feel like I haven’t done all that bad despite things. After all, think about this; it took me 40 years to get to this point and like you, I’m still here fighting the good fight on behalf of my sanity and mental stability as well as my physical and spiritual health. The ultimate triad. After 40 years, I’ve just now stopped to assess the damage and lick my wounds. Just as you feel that you have made progress, so am I. A bit slow going, but nothing as awesome as me has ever come out of a microwave. Awesomeness like me takes time like a precious gem or a diamond forged under the pressure of time. Maybe I am a bit childish at times, but I’m realizing now that I’ve never really been a child. I’ve been treated like a miniature adult with some responsibilities and all, minus the job and financial obligations. Also, that I have been sheltered to a certain point and shielded from certain things, many of which I care not to know, but unfortunately that information has been dropped in my lap or on my doorstep and I have had no choice but to acknowledge it then deal with it. I never wanted our relationship to come to this. I love you and when I ask for something, it’s only because it’s imperative that I have that need fulfilled right then or at the time that it needs to be fulfilled, immediate or otherwise. That is when I’m really vocal. It may be a very short statement, but it’s a succinct statement that I felt needed voicing at that moment in time. Therefore, I speak up and out. Whether or not you hear or listen to me is the other person’s issue. I have spoken. I am a woman that refuses to continue to repeat myself until I am midnight black in the face and I also refuse to nag. I’ve never been that woman and I refuse to start now as I am entirely too old for that kind of behavior. I feel like if I have to say it more than once, I will get up and do it myself unless you genuinely didn’t hear me, meaning your physical hearing became impaired by some other noise preventing you from hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth at that particular time. In that circumstance, I will repeat myself because that was no fault of yours. I have also become increasingly aware that I really don’t know who I am. Peaches, Sandria, Sandi, who knows!? I sure don’t! I thought I did. I know only that I’m a healer that has thus far not taken or been able to take the time to heal herself due to trying to aid and heal others. Depleted is what I am. Therefore, another truth I have had to face is the reality that I utterly despise when people tell me that they know me better than I know myself. For someone to tell me that, is an insult to my intelligence and causes me to become incensed. Them are fighting words to me and I’m not talking punching someone in the face fighting words, I’m talking pump action shotgun to the face fighting words. Yeah, it’s that serious. I hate that phrase and I hate hearing it. I especially hate hearing that phrase from a person outside of my person. If the voices in my head never tell me that, and they have every right to, why should I hear it from someone else? Two people in my life have ever uttered that phrase to me with you being one of them. In any case, both of us are highly intelligent beings whose looks defy our intelligence. We both need makeovers. I look like I’m still in high school and you look like you look. LOL!!! I may seem like I don’t care about anyone or anything but that’s far from the truth. I care so much that I have put my health in jeopardy more times than I care to remember and instead it’s becoming abundantly clear to me that I need to remember to care that much more about the person who is always with me and always will be. I haven’t been taking care of them at all the way that I am supposed to and they are severely suffering because I have neglected them to shoulder the pain and ill of others. I am starting to care about ME more now. You asked me if there was someone else and I told you ‘no’. Well, like Maury says, “That was a liiiie.” I have a tendency to forget that I am actually someone, too. These are just some of the things that penetrate and pile into my mind sometimes. I’m not done yet, only for now. There’s a whole lot more to come.”
So these are/were my thoughts and feelings to this person. Eventually, we sat down and had a “come to jesus meetin'” and actually talked some stuff out. By then, it was too little, too late. In that discussion, though, I learned a little more about myself and about that person. Not that learning more about that person is relevant at this point. We’ve gone our separate ways. I have learned about myself that I need to communicate better and more clearly. People really aren’t mind readers, even if they do say they “know’ you or they know what you mean without you having to say it. Horsepucky! It still needs to be said regardless of whether or not feelings get hurt in the process. Say what you have to say and let the chips fall where they may. Never stifle your feelings to spare someone else’s feelings, you will suffer for it in the end. As a wonderful friend once told me, a closed mouth doesn’t get fed.
I hope you enjoyed reading my very first blog. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section or hit me on Facebook.
Signed,
The Lady aka Sandi Sunflower
Sandi Sunflower Says... 