A valiant quest.

I began a journey today.  One I've taken before.  One of which there seems to be no end.  I'm okay with this -- for it is life, for some.  Few actually, when I really think about it.  Few face the fear and delve into the inner recesses.  I liken it to a hero's journey.  For it takes great courage.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl.  She was a quiet, shy little girl, that needed much love.  Although she needed it, she did not get it.  Not from the one person that she needed it from the most.  She did not understand this, and it made her quite weary, afraid, and she felt very much alone in the world.  Alone, afraid and different - she like to hide from people an pretend that she was invisible.  She felt as if she were anyway.  She'd hide for hours on end, but no one came to look for her, and it just made her feel that much more insecure.  For life is uncertain, when you are not loved.

People don't understand when I say or explain that it was my mother that didn't love me.  I've had this confirmed by her.  My mother told me that she hated me when I was a child.  I don't know how to respond to this.  I know what my childhood was like, and it makes sense.  I was broken even back then, and I knew it.  I knew that she did not love me.  No one had to tell me, I intrinsically knew it.  It was palpable.  The distain that she had for me.  Her own child.  Her only daughter.

So she dressed me up in pretty clothes, and paraded me around.  I guess that's all she knew to do with me.  She certainly did not know how to love me.  What I can remember was a succession of memories of where I was either a manipulative tool or a show piece to the world.  Brutal as this may sound, I don't care anymore.  My mother was narcissistic, and could not see beyond her own selfish desires.  If there were anything being done with me, on any level it was to her advantage.  It was to glorify her.  How does a child respond to this?  They don't develop a sense of self.  Without a mirror -- there is no formation of personhood.  I felt like a nonentity.

If it had not been for my father and grandmother's love, I do not know.  I feel it in the pit of my stomach now.  That emptiness.  That void.  That lack of consistency that I know in my head a mother must provide.  The enormity now that grace provides me.  Oh how I know that the Father has led me here, with intent.  To the inexplicable love of the Father.  It's boundless... unending.

My journey has taken me into her past, and helped me understand what she went through.  WE CANNOT GIVE WHAT WE DO NOT HAVE.  This has screamed at me, since I was in my twenties. The Hand of God has directed me into this truth.  He has guided me, protected me, nurtured me, held me, enlightened me, and endured with me.  Mine has been a hero's journey.  One with a huge loss but a immeasurable gain... and I stand whole, loved and tethered.  His love never fails.  I've had to learn this.  Never gives up on me.  No matter the mistakes I make, and I've made huge ones.  It's the one thing that I've never understood from my mother or many humans... CONSTANT.  My emotions waver, they falter - but not my Father's love!

So, I dig again and I aim to remove all residue of belief that I am unloveable.  I remove all resolve that I didn't deserve to be nurtured.  I delve into the emotional recesses of my mind and heart that I was ever a burden.  If it takes another disillusion of beliefs and illusion - I delve.  This will be the final internment.  I will not do this again.  I will arise the creation that my Father intended for me to be!!!!  I face whatever pain that may be waiting.  I embrace it.  I will be what my Father created me to be, despite the damage done by my mother, assorted relationships, my addictions, etc.  I have done as much damage to myself as anyone.  For it is I who have tried to fill that huge crevasse with things, substances, people, and food.  Empty is painful when you don't understand how you got that way.  When you yearn for fulness.

And so the journey begins.