on being "not enough"

i'm going to warn you, what i'm about to tell you, i literally have not said to anyone.  At all ever.  I don't know if this is the best way to do anything, but i do know that i get to release it into the cosmic void as soon as i push publish...and then...i can just leave it.

I've been doing this Oprah, Brene Brown class..thing...which basically is art projects and learning to embrace who you are better and i'm terrible at it.

like, doing the activities aren't hard but it's because there's a huge disconnect between the activity and the application in daily life. I can do it, but not apply it, and i don't know what you call that, but it's who i am.

I've been thinking a lot about when i started believing i wasn't good enough. For the longest time, i couldn't remember, when really, i didn't want to remember...because deep down...I did know. I do know.

I watched my parents fall from grace when i was 8. 8, is too young to realize that you're parents aren't superheros. 8 is too young to mediate, and process and keep secrets. 

Although my story isn't uncommon, or surprising, it's mine and has absolutely contributed to the person I am. Right now. In this exact instant.

So, i have a few vivid memories and one of the them is walking with my dad, up a hill on our way to pick up our car from Sears. He asked me would think if he had a girlfriend.

Wait, what? My answer is as simple and as innocent as you would expect from an 8 year old. I said, "i wouldn't like it because you have mom, and me, and that's enough, isn't it?"

and apparently it wasn't. How quickly all my innocence was shattered because as much as i wanted to pretend it was a hypothetical, i knew it wasn't...and while i never told anyone that it happened, or mentioned again...until really this week, it happened. and it crushed me.

Then, i heard the phone calls, which looking back on now, he wasn't really trying to hide...i knew it wasn't my mom. and i knew that things would never quite be the same after that, and they weren't. Ever.

Then came the note because they had stopped talking to each other with the exception of the ridiculous screaming matches they'd get into...about...her and them and everything else a kid should never hear. The note said a lot of things. The print was small, but i remember seeing the word "divorces" and then my baby mind knew enough to stop reading to protect my heart.

Except that it wasn't protected. It was shattered into about 38million pieces but when your a kid, you're not supposed to know how to put the pieces back.

I should also mention I had just started a new school where i knew nobody and was just trying to get into the rhythm of 2nd grade while keeping my parents secrets. then...my dad moved out. it happened quickly and it almost too smoothly to be real but he did. I remember moving a bed from my grandparents house....my grandma must have knew what was going on, but my grandpa didn't...so i wasn't allowed to say anything. So i just watched them move my new bed into a new place.

And then i vividly remember the night he left. I was in bed with my mom...and weeping. Like the kind of screaming, weeping, desperate cry that makes it hard to breathe. That makes the people around you cry, too. Remember that scene in Hope Floats where all she wants to do is go with her dad?

my.life.exactly. My dad. My hero. The one man wasn't supposed to be disappointing hurt me. and my mom. and our family. And for what?

The move out didn't last long, and i never met "her" but they stayed together because of money, but things were never the same. Every fight, my mom would assume infidelity. and say things like " Go be with your girlfriend" or "Who is she" when i'm not sure there ever was another woman after the first one...but...i can never really be sure.

For so long i was so angry at my mom for not standing up for herself. for not believing that she was worth more than that. For letting him make her feel like she wasn't enough. I was upset with the example she set for me as a woman. 

And at them, for never showing me what a good, healthy marriage looks like. And for treating me like a mediator and not their kid.

They didn't fight for their marriage, nope. they existed. And then didn't protect me. They dragged me  into the pit with them, and when it was over, i simply had to grab a shovel and help them cover it up.

So i was 8 when I started to believe that i wasn't enough. I was 8 when i started to believe that if i made people happy, they wouldn't leave me. I was 8 when i had to start protecting my own heart, when i learned how to stuff it instead of feel it.

i've had 21 years of practice in being a perfectionist and believing i'm not enough.

And, my parents, they are good people, they try hard to do the right thing, their hearts are big and they beat, mostly, for the right reasons, but they are broken and flawed and they need as much grace and love as everyone else.

So, the truth is, i look at marriage with a strange lens, and it transfers to more than just marriage.

Currently, in this transition in my life, i feel a little isolated and my heart once again has kind of been put through the ringer, and no one protected me except my a team.

And now, i look at my friendships with a shallow pulse and how no one is fighting for me to stay in their lives and i feel like i'm not enough. Not worth the effort.

and all of a sudden i'm 8 again. and feelin pretty alone.

Then, my most favorite human is in her own storm, and it breaks my heart to think that she maybe felt like she wasn't "enough" and all i want to do is protect her, and do the fighting FOR her because no one should ever have to feel that kind of heart break.

So, i have put away my insecurity. and get on my praying knees. and believe that Jesus can restore. That love does win, and that things can be made new.

And again, I have to figure out how to give grace instead of hold a grudge. I have to forgive instead of condemn, and i have to love like Jesus does, which is hard.

Mostly, though, i can't project my stuff into where it doesn't belong and it's a little bit harder than i expected, and i have to forgive and remember how human we all are.

I can't do that without Jesus. I dont' know where God is in the mess, but i know he's there. i'll understand one day.