You know those quizzes that ask you your three best traits?
Today I'm answering the non-existent quiz that asks me for my three worst.
1. I'm insecure in regards to relationships.
2. I have a constant voice in my head, telling me that I am worthless.
3. It is almost impossible for me to forgive people who have hurt me.
No joke, consciously or not, I have had these feelings much of my life, and certainly for my entire adult life.
My heart goes out to my family, but especially to John. He is such a support to me, helping me through the times when I don't think there's much reason for my existence on this earth.
I credit these feelings to not really having any feeling of belonging to a family, and to my own choices. In other words, I blame others, but I also blame myself.
My family life in a nutshell. My parents divorced when I was three, and when my mother remarried (when I was six), my father relinquished all rights to me. From what my paternal grandmother told me, he felt it was important that I have a nuclear family, and not one of those families where the parents share custody. I can understand his thinking in this, but it was a big mistake. Except for visiting him for two weeks when I was thirteen (and a month before he was tragically killed in a glider accident), I never knew him.
My mother doesn't talk to me. She sends the occasional email card for holidays, but I have no functioning relationship with her. It is the most painful aspect of my life. I can't help but think, "If only I was perfect, she would love me." Because I'm obviously not perfect, I blame myself entirely for her not having anything to do with me or my life. Just typing this, I'm reduced to tears.
My mother also distanced herself from her father years ago. I love Granddad McMillin and his wife, Vannette, and I'm glad to visit them every couple of years, but we do not share phone calls, or really know much about each other's lives. They have other children (besides my mother), and from what I can tell, they are much more involved with them. In fact, it can be painful to hear all the things they do with those kids and their families, knowing that they don't want to do those things with me or mine. I'm thankful though that my children know them, and that they recognize the big moments in my kids' lives, but again, we aren't super close.
The only people with whom I had a close and loving relationship were my stepfather's parents, Buck and Sylvia Caruthers. In fact, I spent every summer with them in Tallahassee. Just thinking about them, I am reduced to tears again, but it is because of gratitude I feel in remembering all that they did for me. I remembering praying to Heavenly Father that he would never take them from the earth, because I knew I would be lost without them. They were the best representations to me of what family should be. Unfortunately, because my stepfather was an evil man, and because I am a reminder of that, their family doesn't include me in anything. No reunions, no Christmas, nothing.
Because I had no relationship with my father, I know nothing about his family. His mother wrote me until she died at the age of 103, and I visited her a couple of times, but she was the only one. There are uncles and aunts and cousins, but I'm not sure I could pick them out of a crowd. They have made little effort to contact me.
Don't think that I didn't have great hopes for John's family when I married him. All those people! Oh my goodness, I imagined that it was going to be something really wonderful! I tried through the years to do things that would bring us together (camping trips, family newsletters, cousin camp), but after 20+ years, I've come to the exact same realization: they don't really want to have much to do with me either, although I am thankful for the precious few of them who support my kids.
I don't want to get weighed down in the minutia of my family, but in all honesty, it brings to a point the fact that nobody really wants me to be part of their family. I feel like I have so much to give, and I feel as if I deserved to be loved, but it doesn't happen. And it is only over the past few weeks that I have begun to wonder if I suffer from the same feelings of abandonment as kids who really don't have family. Kids who don't have family who cares, but who know that the family is still living on this planet.
It's a hard row to hoe, let me tell you, and I feel so much guilt for allowing it to affect my relationships with John and my kids.
If you know me at all, you know that I believe John was sent to me as a gift from God. No joke. I feel like Heavenly Father knew how much I had suffered as a child and gave me John as a gift for surviving it all. He was unlike any other guy I had dated, and for all the unbelief I had in myself, John believed in me. In fact, there are times when I still must rely on him and how he sees me to keep going, because there's no way I can do it myself.
So, during the two weeks that I visited my biological father (in 1983), I met his wife, Jan, and my half-brother, Brent, and my half-sister, Meg. Brent was probably six or seven, and Meg was three. It was the happiest two weeks of my childhood. For all intents and purposes, their family was perfect. They did things like pick cherries from the tree in their front yard, and eat the cherries while playing board games. They had dinner together every night. My dad took me running and encouraged me to try shrimp cocktail, and Jan took me to a water park (and applied cold wash cloths and aloe to my burned body afterwards). My dad would play countless hours of ping pong with me in his basement. There was laughter, and happiness, and goodness.
I came home from that trip, telling my mother that I wanted to go live with them. In regular fashion, she stopped talking to me. This wasn't anything unusual. I spent most of my childhood without communication from my mother. I rarely knew what prompted the silence, but after a certain amount of time (3 days to a month), I was summoned into her room. She would then spend several hours, telling me how worthless I was because I had done something that she didn't approve of, I would apologize, and life would return to "normal". This time, it was for four weeks, until she came into my room one evening after I returned from being out with my friends, and told me that my dad was dead.
That was it. Except for attending a memorial service the following week, I didn't see Jan, Brent or Meg again. My mother and I never spoke of my dad again. I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but it was not something my mother wanted to happen, and I didn't want her to withdraw from me again as she always did.
A couple of years ago, I looked up Meg on Facebook. It was probably one of those late nights when I was feeling terrible about myself, and wondering if I was worth loving. I found her, and she instantly accepted my friend request. However, I didn't really know how to proceed, and I didn't figure she actually wanted to have any kind of relationship with me.
And once again, Heavenly Father stepped in.
I was out mowing the lawn one day in the spring of 2013, and I looked up. We happen to have a gliderport just over the mountain from where we live, and if I'm not mistaken, my dad flew there a couple of times. I saw three gliders in the air at once. Yes, three. Take it for what you will, but I couldn't help but think it was some kind of sign.
I sent a post to Meg, telling her that I had seen the gliders, and it made me think of our dad. Within minutes, she had written me back, and to this day, she's never stopped.
This may seem so inconsequential to anyone who has a parent or sibling who loves them, but to me it's been life changing.
She's this amazing individual, living an amazing life. She has a husband, she has children, she's talented, she's athletic, she's even skinny! Yep, as I tell her, she won the genetic lottery there :-) I know that she deals with some of the same issues I do, having a father whom she can't even remember, but she's strong and makes sense of it all.
She came and visited me last August, just a day after we returned from Interlochen. The visit felt very strange to me, but the glorious thing? Meg didn't give up. She has been the most wonderfully pesky communicator, calling me sometimes weekly, sending me random texts, and sending me messages through Facebook. She begged me to come down to North Carolina and visit her and the family which I did this month.
And while there, the most beautiful feeling came over me. I felt wanted. Within minutes of arriving, she and I headed down the beach, talking, and talking, and talking some more. I think we must have walked and talked for almost two hours.
She never once judged me, and she never made me feel like I was a burden, or an obligation. Over and over, I just felt like she cared about me, and she wanted me there. (Again, I can hardly see the computer screen as I type this.)
Aside from my own beautiful family that I have created, I rarely get that feeling from anyone. I walk away from parties, having noticed that people try to get away from me. I see "friends" of mine, getting together and I'm not invited. I wonder why family doesn't want us to join them...ever. And some light inside of me was lit. There was a bit of confidence in my mind that has never existed. I felt as if I could hold up my head a bit because there is someone in my extended family whom I believe loves me. It was fleeting, but it was definitely there.
My hope is that as we get to know each other better, I will find some peace from having a sister. I don't know if that will happen, because I've never had one, but it blows my mind to think that it might. It will be such comfort to know that somebody wants me as family, and that I'm not completely alone.
Today I'm answering the non-existent quiz that asks me for my three worst.
1. I'm insecure in regards to relationships.
2. I have a constant voice in my head, telling me that I am worthless.
3. It is almost impossible for me to forgive people who have hurt me.
No joke, consciously or not, I have had these feelings much of my life, and certainly for my entire adult life.
My heart goes out to my family, but especially to John. He is such a support to me, helping me through the times when I don't think there's much reason for my existence on this earth.
I credit these feelings to not really having any feeling of belonging to a family, and to my own choices. In other words, I blame others, but I also blame myself.
My family life in a nutshell. My parents divorced when I was three, and when my mother remarried (when I was six), my father relinquished all rights to me. From what my paternal grandmother told me, he felt it was important that I have a nuclear family, and not one of those families where the parents share custody. I can understand his thinking in this, but it was a big mistake. Except for visiting him for two weeks when I was thirteen (and a month before he was tragically killed in a glider accident), I never knew him.
My mother doesn't talk to me. She sends the occasional email card for holidays, but I have no functioning relationship with her. It is the most painful aspect of my life. I can't help but think, "If only I was perfect, she would love me." Because I'm obviously not perfect, I blame myself entirely for her not having anything to do with me or my life. Just typing this, I'm reduced to tears.
My mother also distanced herself from her father years ago. I love Granddad McMillin and his wife, Vannette, and I'm glad to visit them every couple of years, but we do not share phone calls, or really know much about each other's lives. They have other children (besides my mother), and from what I can tell, they are much more involved with them. In fact, it can be painful to hear all the things they do with those kids and their families, knowing that they don't want to do those things with me or mine. I'm thankful though that my children know them, and that they recognize the big moments in my kids' lives, but again, we aren't super close.
The only people with whom I had a close and loving relationship were my stepfather's parents, Buck and Sylvia Caruthers. In fact, I spent every summer with them in Tallahassee. Just thinking about them, I am reduced to tears again, but it is because of gratitude I feel in remembering all that they did for me. I remembering praying to Heavenly Father that he would never take them from the earth, because I knew I would be lost without them. They were the best representations to me of what family should be. Unfortunately, because my stepfather was an evil man, and because I am a reminder of that, their family doesn't include me in anything. No reunions, no Christmas, nothing.
Because I had no relationship with my father, I know nothing about his family. His mother wrote me until she died at the age of 103, and I visited her a couple of times, but she was the only one. There are uncles and aunts and cousins, but I'm not sure I could pick them out of a crowd. They have made little effort to contact me.
Don't think that I didn't have great hopes for John's family when I married him. All those people! Oh my goodness, I imagined that it was going to be something really wonderful! I tried through the years to do things that would bring us together (camping trips, family newsletters, cousin camp), but after 20+ years, I've come to the exact same realization: they don't really want to have much to do with me either, although I am thankful for the precious few of them who support my kids.
I don't want to get weighed down in the minutia of my family, but in all honesty, it brings to a point the fact that nobody really wants me to be part of their family. I feel like I have so much to give, and I feel as if I deserved to be loved, but it doesn't happen. And it is only over the past few weeks that I have begun to wonder if I suffer from the same feelings of abandonment as kids who really don't have family. Kids who don't have family who cares, but who know that the family is still living on this planet.
It's a hard row to hoe, let me tell you, and I feel so much guilt for allowing it to affect my relationships with John and my kids.
If you know me at all, you know that I believe John was sent to me as a gift from God. No joke. I feel like Heavenly Father knew how much I had suffered as a child and gave me John as a gift for surviving it all. He was unlike any other guy I had dated, and for all the unbelief I had in myself, John believed in me. In fact, there are times when I still must rely on him and how he sees me to keep going, because there's no way I can do it myself.
So, during the two weeks that I visited my biological father (in 1983), I met his wife, Jan, and my half-brother, Brent, and my half-sister, Meg. Brent was probably six or seven, and Meg was three. It was the happiest two weeks of my childhood. For all intents and purposes, their family was perfect. They did things like pick cherries from the tree in their front yard, and eat the cherries while playing board games. They had dinner together every night. My dad took me running and encouraged me to try shrimp cocktail, and Jan took me to a water park (and applied cold wash cloths and aloe to my burned body afterwards). My dad would play countless hours of ping pong with me in his basement. There was laughter, and happiness, and goodness.
I came home from that trip, telling my mother that I wanted to go live with them. In regular fashion, she stopped talking to me. This wasn't anything unusual. I spent most of my childhood without communication from my mother. I rarely knew what prompted the silence, but after a certain amount of time (3 days to a month), I was summoned into her room. She would then spend several hours, telling me how worthless I was because I had done something that she didn't approve of, I would apologize, and life would return to "normal". This time, it was for four weeks, until she came into my room one evening after I returned from being out with my friends, and told me that my dad was dead.
That was it. Except for attending a memorial service the following week, I didn't see Jan, Brent or Meg again. My mother and I never spoke of my dad again. I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but it was not something my mother wanted to happen, and I didn't want her to withdraw from me again as she always did.
A couple of years ago, I looked up Meg on Facebook. It was probably one of those late nights when I was feeling terrible about myself, and wondering if I was worth loving. I found her, and she instantly accepted my friend request. However, I didn't really know how to proceed, and I didn't figure she actually wanted to have any kind of relationship with me.
And once again, Heavenly Father stepped in.
I was out mowing the lawn one day in the spring of 2013, and I looked up. We happen to have a gliderport just over the mountain from where we live, and if I'm not mistaken, my dad flew there a couple of times. I saw three gliders in the air at once. Yes, three. Take it for what you will, but I couldn't help but think it was some kind of sign.
I sent a post to Meg, telling her that I had seen the gliders, and it made me think of our dad. Within minutes, she had written me back, and to this day, she's never stopped.
This may seem so inconsequential to anyone who has a parent or sibling who loves them, but to me it's been life changing.
She's this amazing individual, living an amazing life. She has a husband, she has children, she's talented, she's athletic, she's even skinny! Yep, as I tell her, she won the genetic lottery there :-) I know that she deals with some of the same issues I do, having a father whom she can't even remember, but she's strong and makes sense of it all.
She came and visited me last August, just a day after we returned from Interlochen. The visit felt very strange to me, but the glorious thing? Meg didn't give up. She has been the most wonderfully pesky communicator, calling me sometimes weekly, sending me random texts, and sending me messages through Facebook. She begged me to come down to North Carolina and visit her and the family which I did this month.And while there, the most beautiful feeling came over me. I felt wanted. Within minutes of arriving, she and I headed down the beach, talking, and talking, and talking some more. I think we must have walked and talked for almost two hours.
She never once judged me, and she never made me feel like I was a burden, or an obligation. Over and over, I just felt like she cared about me, and she wanted me there. (Again, I can hardly see the computer screen as I type this.)
Aside from my own beautiful family that I have created, I rarely get that feeling from anyone. I walk away from parties, having noticed that people try to get away from me. I see "friends" of mine, getting together and I'm not invited. I wonder why family doesn't want us to join them...ever. And some light inside of me was lit. There was a bit of confidence in my mind that has never existed. I felt as if I could hold up my head a bit because there is someone in my extended family whom I believe loves me. It was fleeting, but it was definitely there.
My hope is that as we get to know each other better, I will find some peace from having a sister. I don't know if that will happen, because I've never had one, but it blows my mind to think that it might. It will be such comfort to know that somebody wants me as family, and that I'm not completely alone.
Reading your post made me so sad Larisa until the end. I love that you reconnected with Meg. The other thing it reminded me of is how amazing it is that we as individuals can create a home and a family that WE choose and overcome the hangups and dysfunctions of our past :) You and John have created such a beautiful family and the legacy you leave will continue for generations and eternity. I also wish sometimes that the Kennedy clan was different, but I have realized over time it's not about lack of love but more just a lack of organization, planning and not being taught ;) It's hard to get everyone on the same page or schedule the few times we have tried to organize things, but it's not because we don't love you guys and the rest of the group.
ReplyDeleteThe amazing thing is is that after all you have been through you and John have built an amazing family! When we were living in state college and just starting our family, I remember thinking, I want my family to be close like the Kennedy's!
ReplyDelete