Mind racing rambling

(OMG - serious amount of rambling. Obviously needed to get it out. Some of it is repetitive, stuff I am processing, apprently I'm taking the long route but I am processing.) (wink)

So much on my mind these days. Thankfully I am through with taxes so I'm not trying to focus on that, too.

I am aware that, for me at least, my dreams and nightmares are my subconscious trying to process. I really need to put something next to the bed so that I can at least write something quick because by the time I am up I usually forget what was going on in the dream. Sometimes it's so bizzare I'm not sure I could make sense of it. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm trying to process. Most common is family stuff, especially my mother. I think the 17 year old in me is still trying to comprehend something that a 17 year old should not have to comprehend. As a 39 (almost 40) year old I get and accept it but at 17....... well, not so much.

I've been trying to evaluate all of my relationships, there aren't many. It's a good thing/bad thing that I have so few. I used to have a lot, or so I thought. I was surrounded by people but still very alone, lonely, and needing more. Confusing but another thing I've come to understand. Quantity versus quality. Someday I hope to have both, greedy I know. (wink)

A part of the evaluation has included how to end a relationship with compassion, respect, and finality. Too often relationships end in anger and too often they don't end when they really do need to be ended. I used to have a "friend" that was really not my friend. She was toxic but at the time I operated on the premis that once a friend always a friend. We were friends for years too long. I took the easy way out and just let it die a slow painful death. I realize that is the way it happens sometimes but I wish I would have had it in me to stand up for myself, to say that it was not acceptable the way that she used, lied, took advantage, etc. Strangely, I met this woman when I was first in therapy for the right reasons, way back when I was 19 and needed people to understand where I was coming from. She was further down the road, way further, than I was at the time we met. I was just starting to deal with the abuse and neglect that was a huge part of my young life. She was someone that had been working on similar issues and seemed to have it together. Sadly, a part of the reason I was able to move on when the time was painfully obvious was that she never got any further in her recovery. Years in to our friendship she thought she had done all of the work she needed to do. A person that finds it necessary to use, lie, take advantage, etc. still has a lot of work to do in my opinion. Scary is knowing that she was studying to become a therapist. I really hope that someone convinced her otherwise. I've wondered over the years how I would react if this person were to come back in to my life, or at least cross paths. My head and even my heart knows that this is one that needs finality.

Even when relationships in my world end, I have a hard time making that decision final. One example is a life-long friend's mother. The mother decided years ago that I was the reason her family was F'd up (very long story that includes me being abused and attacked by the brother) and that she did not like me, even expressed hatred for me to my friend. On the rare occassion that we were at the same place at the same time I was cordial but knowing someone hates you does not make one want to even make the effort. Recently I found out that she, the mother, had a double mastectomy because of breast cancer when we were both at a baby shower for my friend. I didn't make any grand gesture, would it really mean anything to her anyway, but I did find myself acting with compassion. She had brought food and chairs to the function. I made a point to help as she had not yet healed from the surgery and did not need to be doing anything more than be there. Apparently my friend still heard it from her mother. I didn't ask what but I am sure I didn't show enough compassion. It's not like this woman has ever shown any compassion for me. Well that is not entirely true. As long as I kept secrets and dealt with toxicity, she treated me like another daughter but as soon as I started getting well and not accepting that as ok, I was trash, garbage, at fault for anything negative in the family. I was the toxic one. All of that to say that there was a part of me that wanted to find a way to reconcile, which would mean me selling myself out yet again, allowing myself to be in a toxic situation, allowing myself to be abused, maybe even physically hurt as I still do not trust the brother all these years later. It wasn't really about reconcilliation though. It was about wanting to be there for another human being, a human being that is suffering. It was about wanting to be there for my friend (her daughter) during what is a scary, bad, life effecting situation. My friend doesn't like her mother, they were estranged for a few years themselves, but with getting married and having children she has decided to tolerate and even foster a relationship with the idea that her mother might be a better grandmother. (Um, hello but that's not the point of this blog though.) There is never going to be a good reason for me to reconcile, to foster any relationship, with this person, a person that has been nasty and hateful to me for years yet I had such compassion for her that I started to rethink the finality of that "friendship". WTH

My mind is going in so many directions.

One area in my life that is clear about the end of the relationship is with my brothers. I've come to the realization that even if these people become the picture of what family and human beings should strive to be, I will never have relationships with them again. I wish them well and if ever contacted will say so but those I am very clear and ok with finality. I guess I am clear and final with the mother of my friend but compassion made me waiver if only for a brief moment or two.

I guess I've made more progress there than I thought.

I've mentioned that the more estranged I am from my family - not talking or seeing any of them, even one's that there was no falling out, life just happens and people don't always stay connected - the more I have been hanging on to the few relationships I have left. I don't like that being any part of the equation. I went years without a romantic relationship because I knew that it was better to be alone than in a relationship just to be in one. I don't think that is what is going on with my current romantic relationship, maybe..... I do think that I am afraid to be alone. Is there anybody out there that is not afraid to be alone? Even people that are not in romantic relationships need people in their lives. I have a few acquaintences that are not in romantic relationships and that is fine with them in part because they have other fulfilling relationships. I am not looking to have one or the other. I want to have both, a romantic relationship and fulfilling friendships of quality. Sorta sounds greedy but I know it is just a part of basic human need.

There ya have it. Thanks for reading.