Deserve to be Loved

"My name is Christine and I deserve to be loved."

 

Not too long ago things began changing in my life. I realized that I was living in a marriage that couldn't even be called a marriage anymore. I realized that I was putting everyone else ahead of myself. I realized that I was accepting less than I should in life. I realized that I was putting up with way more than any person should ever be asked to put up with. I realized I was pouring out everything I had into a relationship that was going nowhere, a job that doesn't make me happy and a life that I wasn't proud of.

 

This is not the kind of life I wanted to live. I remembered being a girl with goals and dreams. I remembered being a girl who believed in love. I remembered being a girl who didn't want to settle anymore.

 

But I realized that I was settling. I had given up on my goals and my dreams. I had given up on love.

 

All because of a person. And that wasn't the right answer.

 

 

So a few months ago I began taking back my life and living for myself. I started taking care of myself, eating healthy again and going hard at the gym and taking the time to heal the pain in my hip. I started spending as much time with my daughter as I can and doing new things with her. I discovered a love for hiking and nature that I didn't know existed inside of myself. I re-discovered a love for shooting. I started looking towards my future with my daughter and thinking about the example I wanted to set for her. I began to set goals for myself again.

 

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my life and what I want for myself.

 

I still want a career. I still want adventure. I still want happiness. I still want love.

 

And that's where I get stuck. Because over the past few months I have come to really understand myself. I've come to understand why it is that I settle and why I put up with so much from the people that I enter into relationships with. I've come to understand what goes through my head that I am willing to sacrifice my own happiness and my own ability to love.

 

At the core of my being, I don't feel as though I deserve to be loved.

 

That statement is me, in a nutshell.

 

 

And that belief, that feeling, that understanding is what keeps me from being in a successful relationship. I run from the people who I feel could love me with that unconditional love that is a true characteristic of a deep and meaningful relationship. I literally run.

 

I've done it twice. A few weeks of talking, and a few dates into it, I'm running for the hills. I convince myself that the relationship would never work for reasons x, y, and z. I tell myself that I don't like them or that I'm not at a point in my life where I can be in a relationship. I push all of my feelings inside myself and I ignore them until they go away and I tell them it just isn't going to work for me.

 

Now why I feel this way goes a long ways back. I know what it stems from, and I know that it is not something I could control. I am working on moving past all of this. I am trying to believe that I am a person who deserves to be loved.

 

I've never felt like I really fit in anywhere. I always felt like an outsider. I wasn't in band, I didn't play sports, I wore glasses and I was thin and awkward. I didn't belong to the "in crowd" but I wasn't really an "outcast". I guess you could say I sort of fit in a little bit of everywhere. But who really wants to hang out with a group of people that you don't really feel like you belong with? I'd rather just be a misfit and do my own thing. 

 

 

There are so many people in my life who are constantly telling me that I am amazing and beautiful and kind and generous. They tell me that I'm worthy of being loved and that I shouldn't settle for anyone who wants to dull who I am or make me feel small. They tell me that I am wonderful and that I deserve to have someone wonderful in my life.

 

Part of me wants to believe them. Part of me wants to hear truth in their words. But then there's this voice in my head that says they are wrong and that it's all a lie. This voice tells me I'm not pretty enough, not thin enough, not smart enough, not important enough, not worthy of love.

 

I am fighting that voice with everything I have. I am spending a lot of time and energy to force that tiny little voice to just go away. I am trying to believe that I am a person who deserves the life and the love she has always dreamed of.

 

 

I'm starting with the line I wrote at the beginning of this post.

 

"My name is Christine and I deserve to be loved."

 

Here's to hoping that one day I actually believe it.

I Wasn't Sad

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with an old friend. I have been friends with her for over a decade. We have had our fair share of ups and downs, just like most friendships do. But despite the lows (and, oh, there have been lows) she still remains a dear friend whom I will care for always.

Our most recent conversation really hit home for me, though. She said that though her and her husband had only recently separated, she had been mourning her marriage for six months. She wasn't sure if she wanted to move on, or even if she was quite ready. But she had done her mourning, even while he was still living at home.

After a period of reflection over the course of several days I came to realize why this statement had struck a chord with me. It's because I, too, had done my mourning for a love lost while I was still existing in my marriage. I was stuck in a routine, doing what I had to do to get through each day, just taking the verbal and emotional abuse because I didn't feel as though I had any other option. But I wasn't invested in my marriage the way that I should have been.

For three years I supported him, I encouraged him, I challenged him, I saw potential in him, I believed in him, and I sacrificed for him.

I did all of these things for him, only to find out he wouldn't do the same for me. Over time it became abundantly clear that I was not going to receive from him what I was giving. I loved someone who didn't love me back in the same way.

Maybe I was a comfortable life. Maybe I was an easy way out. Maybe I was a get out of jail free card of sorts. I'm not sure what exactly what I was to him. But I know I wasn't someone to love.

I knew all of these things a year ago. And, honestly, that should have been the end of us. It almost was. We had an awful fight the night before I flew home from Arizona and he threatened to leave me if I didn't give up some of my friends. And I gave in because I wanted so badly for this to work. And at that moment, as well as others before then, he asked me to give up a part of who I was.

And I did it.

I probably shouldn’t have done that. Because it made him think that it was okay to continue to ask me to give up pieces of myself. And it made me believe that was my only option.

That night I began mourning my marriage and what I had wanted, hoped, and prayed it would be. But I continued to exist in my marriage, living in mourning, resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t have what I had wished for- my happily ever after.

I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t in love. I wasn’t excited for our future.

I just existed.

So, eight months later, when I finally reached my breaking point, I wasn’t really sad.

I was angry with things that I had learned, I was hurt by words he had said, I was upset that I had let it go on for so long.

But I wasn’t sad.  

Even though I put on a smiling face for those eight months and pretended all was well and tried to look forward to a future, it was all just an act. I was pretending. I was lying to myself and to everyone around me, family and friends alike.

I know there are people out there who will take this and twist my words. I can almost even predict what they will say.

But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my reality. I was a broken spirit, living inside a human shell. I was mourning a relationship I still existed in. So when my marriage ended, and it has ended, I wasn’t sad.

I was relieved. I was unburdened. I was relaxed.

But I wasn’t sad.

I had done my mourning.

And it was time to move on.

Whatever that meant.