Think about your desire to find a relationship, a job, a calling, or something else that would satisfy the longings of your heart. Like Sam and me, have you ever looked to something or someone to fill or fulfill you? Describe how that might have shaped the pattern of your thoughts, decisions, and pursuits.
I feel like I have always been seeking. I’ve always tried to let people/things fill or fulfill me. I have desired to be a part of everything for as long as I can remember and I develop anxiety if I feel left out.
I think that my parents, in a desire to help me find my talents and likes, let me try everything: scouts, bluebirds, Indian princesses, dance, baton twirling, gymnastics, cheering, chess, home economics, Spanish, SGA, Key Club – from the time I was very young straight through high school. My parents were very busy with my dad being sick, my mom having to work full time to provide for our family, and my brother was so much older and moved out when I was still young. It was an intentional pushing away. They were trying to provide me with a life instead of saddling me with the stress/burden of what life was really like, I think. It was meant as a protection of my childhood. However, when you try so much, you don’t really master anything, I think. I’ve always wanted to make my parents proud, to be worthy of their attention and that meant trying to be good at everything and I just wasn’t good at anything. So I got into more and more trying to find my “fit” – not letting go of the other things because I didn’t want to be a failure or a letdown and a vicious cycle ensued that I still get very caught up in. I have a VERY hard time saying no.
When that didn’t fill me or even make me anyone special (mostly because I was so bad at most of it J), I started looking for someone to fill me and make me feel whole. In upper elementary and junior high, it was the right best friend to get me into the right clique. Of course I was always too anxiety ridden to do the things that made them the right clique, but if I could just hang out, then I’d be okay. In 9th grade I finally was able to get a boy to give me attention, but I was still just never enough and thus became my cycle of trying to be who I thought they wanted me to be and instead it just made me a liar and put me in a string of situation where I was not treated very kindly (to put if mildly) by those who were supposed to love me. Now, like Sam, I sit at the well alone, wishing it were all different.
And unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve come very far today. I still feel like the way I treat others is not the way I’m treated. I feel like I’m that person everyone knows they can come to when they need something, but that’s about it. I don’t get thought of the rest of the time. And I’ve helped with that because I don’t want to burden others, so I won’t ask for help, but rather allow myself to get forgotten and walked on. This is true in church and at work…and really that’s the only place I have friends. I don’t have a circle that doesn’t come from one of those places.
No comments:
Post a Comment