Letting go of guilt...and other Herculean tasks...

I think sometimes that people don’t even realize the guilt they hold onto.  Sometimes you justify things so deeply that you don’t let yourself admit that you feel guilty about something and then you just bury it so deep inside you don’t realize you are carrying it.

Then…years later…when your mind is not as cluttered as it used to be…things like that will surface.  You can either squash them down again…or face them and forgive yourself.

This is something I dealt with somewhat recently.

When I was in my very early 20’s, I got married to a man who was very insecure – which led to him being very controlling and jealous.  Whether it was his true intention or not,  he kept me away from my family quite a lot.  Now I do give him the benefit of the doubt because our situation was a mess.  We were young and stupid and made some very bad decisions.  I say WE.  Not just him.  We got married too young and neither of us got the education we should have tried to get.  Then we immediately got pregnant right after we got married and I already had a child.  So fast forward to my being married with two kids by the time I turned 21.  The husband wouldn’t keep a job…and all I could get was very entry level work because I had no education.  Fortunately – at that time, the economy was not nearly as bad as it is now.  I lucked into my first office job and at least kept us afloat.  During this time…my mom discovered that she had breast cancer.

She had to have a needle biopsy…a lumpectomy…chemotherapy and radiation.  I was never there for her during any of it.  I was not at the hospital for any of her procedures and never accompanied her to any appointment.  In my defense…I couldn’t take off work because I was supporting my family.  Additionally, communication wasn’t as easy as it is now.  We didn’t have cell phones and email.  So it wasn’t that I could have easily done all these things and didn’t.  However…I still suddenly realized one day that I felt horribly guilty for not trying harder to keep up with what was going on with my mom.  I didn’t know what days her surgeries were.  I didn’t know what days her chemo appointments were.  I didn’t know anything.  All I knew was work to home and take care of the kids and get up and start over again.  I was so wrapped up in my life that I didn’t try harder to see what was happening with my own mother battling a life threatening disease.

Now just for the record…my mom was not alone in all this.  She had a good support system.  She has three sisters who constantly checked on her.  She had my dad – such as he is – but at least he was able to drive her when she couldn’t drive.  She had my aunt (my dad’s sister) who was there for her.  She had friends at work and stuff like that.  So she had people…she didn’t go through it alone.  I also think that she probably didn’t want me to be the one that was there for her through all that…because I was really young at the time and she probably knew I couldn’t handle it.  I think she made sure she always had brave face and that I never really saw what was happening.  But now that I’m older and have seen others go through this…I can’t only imagine how hard it was for mom and it breaks my heart that I wasn’t there for her more.  Whether she really needed me or not.

I didn’t realize that I was carrying this guilt until somewhat recently.  Once I admitted it…it kinda flooded at me.  Fortunately it was not for very long.  Because I looked at it directly and was as honest with myself as I knew how to be.  I didn’t do anything malicious.  I didn’t avoid her purposely.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  I was just young and stupid and didn’t try as hard as I could have.  So I forgave myself for it.

I didn’t talk to my mom about it because I saw no point.  I know that she never held anything against me for it and honestly if I talked to her about it…it would just be a big festival of waterworks and we’d both cry and hug and be ridiculous piles of hormones.

But I did go ahead and forgive myself.  It doesn’t make it completely go away.  I still have the regret that I will always have.  But I’m not going to carry guilt about it anymore.  I let that go.  It was useless.

In the past 4-5 years, I’ve done fund raisers for Susan G. Komen.  Thanks to my friend Debbie Langley – who I used to work with – I did my first Race for the Cure a few years ago.  And I’ve been involved every year since then.  I have done several Dallas 5K walks and several Tarrant County 5K walks and even did the 3-Day last year.  I involve my mom in all of them and have even gotten her walking the 5K’s –which she didn’t think she could do.  So instead of letting guilt own me and trying to “make up to her” for not being there during that…I do what I can to help others that are fighting it now.  And sharing it with mom means we celebrate her life and her victory over breast cancer instead of letting my guilt make me feel bad.

I highly recommend admitting guilt for passed perceived sins…and learning to forgive yourself and let it go.  It has this amazing, heart-lightening effect on you.  Every little bit of past pain I let go…frees up my heart for other things.  And who can’t use a little extra heart?

FrankenLynn

Yep…I was a monster.  I was a monster created primarily by my ex-boyfriend.  Let me see if I can explain…

When I was 23 years old…I finally developed the courage to leave my almost four year marriage which was making me truly miserable.  I packed up my two children – ages 3 and 7 and off I went.  Stayed with my mom a few days and lucked into an apartment that my brother had been paying rent on even though he was basically living with his girlfriend.  So I took over the apartment and boom…my own place.

Shortly after…I was ready to date again.  I had been so miserable for so long that I just couldn’t wait to go out with a guy who would be nice to me and treat me like I was something special.

So off I went…into the bar scene…because I was 23 and attracted to boys with long hair.  Bonus if they were musicians.  This is where I first hooked up with this particular ex.  He was everything I wanted in a boy.  Tall, long hair, talented guitarist and beautiful.  The first time he kissed me I thought I was going to melt into a big puddle in the parking lot of the bar we were at.  However…I was soon to realize that he was nothing like any man I’d ever dated or, for that matter, known.  His views on love and marriage and sex and commitment were completely skewed and different front anyone I’d ever met.  So I set out to become the kind of girl I thought he wanted.  A girl totally in control of her sexuality and herself.  No attachments, no commitments, just out to have a good time.  I tried to convince myself that I didn’t need a permanent attachment and that I never wanted to be married again…who needed it?  I could just cruise through life and have a great time with anyone I wanted.  I taught myself to completely separate love and sex.  Sex was no longer about love…it was just about sex.  Love was something different.  Eventually that led to me believing that love didn’t do anything but get you hurt.  Which led to me using that word…those three little words…as a tool to get what I wanted.

Wow…that was kind of hard to admit.  But unfortunately it was true.

The more I tried to be what I thought he would like…the harder it became to get close to me.  And I just got more and more aloof and closed off.  I wanted to be with him more than anything else in the world and I played the game as hard as I could trying to be what he wanted.  In the end…it kinda backfired on me.  Because no matter how hard I tried to be exactly what he would want…he never wanted me permanently.  Oh he wanted me…physically…but I had managed to turn myself into exactly what he did NOT want as a wife/mate.  I was just fun on the side.  An exciting side trip he liked to take when he could.  I had reinvented myself…right into someone who was completely out of the running for life partner.  All that hurt and pain and failure…built a wall around my heart that a jackhammer, a hundred pounds of C4 and a laser couldn’t get through.  I didn’t want to be hurt anymore…and I’d convinced myself that this was the way to go.  Don’t let anybody in and you won’t get hurt anymore.

For a while, it worked.  Because believe me…for quite some time…the only person who could hurt me – was him.  And because I was so obsessed and messed up…I just kept letting him do it.

One night, a guy who I’d once had a crush on got a little drunk and decided he liked me more than he thought.  I turned him down and told him I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.  He then told me I was a vampire.  That I sucked the life out of the men I meet and then let them go when I didn’t need them anymore.  For some stupid reason…I was proud of that.  I WANTED to be like that.  Then nobody could hurt me.  Especially that one person who had a hotline straight to my heart through that big, thick, impenetrable wall that no one else could even see over.

Now before I go any further – let me say that I don’t think this man ever had any idea of the torture he was putting me through.  I also don’t think anything he ever did to me was intentionally cruel.  He never asked me to be a certain kind of person or to change my personality.  That was all me.  I don’t think he is a cruel person – I think he’s a good guy who was misguided for a long time and had a mile wide selfish streak that he was oblivious to.  Fact is…I am still friends with this man and hope I always will be.  He still has a little piece of me that I will never get back even if he wanted to give it to me.  He’s not this bad person who did this to me.  I did this to myself.

After about four years…I got so hardened that I was having one night stands and blowing through life like nothing mattered.  He got a little jealous and he finally realized I was moving along and having fun without him.  He decided he wanted me just for himself and I went along with it.  So we became an exclusive couple.  I thought I’d finally won.  I even moved to another town and uprooted my kids to be closer to him. And I was happy for a while and wanted nothing more than for it to become a permanent situation.  But out of nowhere…in January of 1999…it fell apart and he walked away.  I have never in my life been as shattered as I was when we broke up.  I have never shed so many tears or felt so much pain.  Every time I saw him…every time I went somewhere that reminded me of him…almost every breath I took just hurt.  We had been seeing each other off and on for five years at that point.  Less than a year later when he married his second wife…I felt it almost all over again.  What did she have that I didn’t have?  I was so broken.  That marriage didn’t last long and he and I shared a little random time after that but nothing serious.  I was still trying so hard to be just the right girl. I always made it so easy for him to come and go.  I thought if I was really easy to get along with…that things would work out.  But it didn’t happen.  About another year later…he married wife number 3.  Again…I was broken.  Not as badly…but broken.  I had been in about ONE relationship since we had broken up and here he was getting married a second time since breaking up with me.  The one relationship I had been in was just crazy and tumultuous and dramatic and while I cared about that guy…he had never really gotten inside that wall I’d built.  So once again I was alone and he was getting married and I felt worthless.

Around this very time…I met someone new.  I told this new guy “I can’t fall in love…I don’t even have the capacity for it.”  Not in those words…but similar.  I had hurt a boy or two in the last couple of years and this boy was a cute little 25 year old with a quarter of the life experience I had…and my being 31 and having so much more experience…I thought I’d warn him.  He told me he has been really hurt recently too and that I shouldn’t worry because he was not looking for anything serious and there was no way he was going to fall in love with me.  That was in September of 2001.  Him with his leftover pain and me with my impenetrable wall…fighting to keep our heads on straight.  By October 2001 we decided that we didn’t want to see anyone else but each other.  Shortly thereafter…he dragged the “L” word out of me.  I was so angry when I first admitted I had feelings for him.  Not long after that…he dropped that same word on me.  By October 2002, we didn’t want to be without each other…so he moved in.  And that impenetrable wall?  Well…it turns out that he had Superman powers…and the wall was not lead.  We all know that Superman is stronger than the jackhammer and C4 and lasers.  I mean come on…Superman can move PLANETS.  Whether he was actually trying to do it or not…this man was chipping away at that wall I had built.  It took a long time…but eventually he got through.  He found a part of me that I didn’t think anyone would ever find again.  And magically – the monster was gone.  Over the next few years…the monster faded and slipped away and I became a girl again.  No more hardass Lynn who didn’t need anybody or anything.  No more tough and untouchable Lynn with minimal emotions and sarcasm to cover up the little that I felt.  I was a girl…with a heart…and you could even see it.  It was scary at first.  But this Superman I had met…he respected it…honored it…nurtured it.  He loved me.

Once upon a time there was a monster named Lynn with a heart of stone.  But then Superman came and rescued her and made her a real girl again.  It’s like five fairy tales in one.  At least it has a happy ending.

When Jokers go wild...

Kenny Rogers is a smart guy.  He gave some really good advice in a song a long time ago.  “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run…”  There was more, but this was the line I was thinking about.  Now that I’m writing this thought down…I find myself wondering who actually wrote that song, because now that I think of it…it probably wasn’t Kenny Rogers.  But I’m going to credit him with the good advice, because he is the one who sang it and that’s where I heard it.

The specific piece of advice I’m talking about is...that sometimes you’ve got to know when to walk away.  That is a harder thing for some than others.  It’s also a harder thing depending on the situation and what you’re walking away from.  But truly – knowing when to walk away and actually doing it, can be the most difficult thing in the world.

I have had some relationships that I knew were not going to work.  I knew early on that they were not going work.  I stayed longer than I should have because I thought things would change.  You always think that if you hold on a little longer, things will get better.  Sometimes they do.  Many times, they don’t.  I thought he would change when he saw how much I cared.  I thought he would change if I just acted more like this…or like this.  I thought things would get better if I just did this other thing.  Alas, things did not change and neither did he.  People don’t change because you want them to.  They change when THEY want too.  No amount of begging, pleading or changing yourself will make someone else change until they are ready and they want to.  That’s another hard life lesson to learn.

This is not just about relationships though.  I’ve had this with friendships too.  People I tried to be friends with despite some things they did or said that really bothered me.  You always think that a true friend would stick by their friends no matter what.  But honestly – sometimes you have to walk away for your own sanity.  Sometimes you have to be a little selfish and do what’s best for YOU.  In reality – it’s not even selfish.  Maybe I should have said that sometimes you have to be self preserving.  Because in the end, that’s what you have to do.  Preserve your life and your own sanity by walking away from a situation that’s not getting any better.

Because of this…you have to know when to walk away.  Sometimes knowing WHEN to walk away is as hard as the actual leaving.

I guess in either situation – my measuring stick is about the same.  Allegorically speaking, it’s more of a measuring scale than a stick.  You know those scales that you put weight in one side and the item you want to weigh in the other?  Yeah…like that.  In order to know when to walk away…I weigh the good against the bad.  When the bad stuff clearly outweighs the good…it’s time to go.  Now obviously that’s not a technical measurement and there are a million variables and a lot of it has to do with perception.  However, sometimes you can look at a situation and see the obvious imbalance.  When you do…it’s time to walk away.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t mean for people to keep check and balance sheets on their relationships like a check register….but if you look around one day and realize that you are unhappy four out of every seven days with this person – maybe it’s time to go.

In addition to this…the recent issue with my alcoholic friend…and some random conversation regarding Amy Winehouse…warrants mention of this situation as well.  Sometimes you have to walk away from someone who you KNOW really needs help.  If they will not get/accept the help – you cannot keep walking around behind them and cleaning up their mess and waiting for them to die.  You can’t.  Sometimes you have to know when to walk away.  Sometimes walking away from that person is the one thing that snaps them back to reality and causes them to realize that they have to get help.  Maybe if enough people had walked away from Amy Winehouse and stopped putting up with her bullshit…she would have gotten help and would still be alive.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.  Every situation is different.  But you can’t keep trying to help someone who refuses to accept it.  You have to walk away to preserve your sanity and to let them know that their behavior is not acceptable.

If this person – be it friend or significant other or even family member – makes you feel bad way more than they make you smile, maybe it’s time to walk away.

So take Kenny’s advice about this.  Do not take all his advice…because his surgery choices might not have been so great and his business opportunities don’t seem to have panned out that well either.  But on this, you can be sure – you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run.

I usually hold ‘em too long…but I’m learning.

Stuff to put your stuff in.

I have too much stuff.  I’m not a hoarder – yet.  But I have a touch of “pack rat” in my blood.  I have sentimental attachment to things and want to keep them.  Or I am absolutely positive that SOME DAY this random thing I kept will be useful.  On many occasions, they have been - but not nearly enough to justify how much stuff I have.

I have psychoanalyzed it and my completely uneducated inner psychotherapist says that because I grew up so very poor and didn’t have much…and because my lazy father wouldn’t keep a job and managed to get us evicted several times where we lost a bunch of our things…I keep things for comfort.  All manner of things.  Some of them are completely age inappropriate.  What forty something year old woman needs this many cute stuffed animals?  Really?  I love them, though.  They make me so happy.  So I keep buying them.

Additionally – even when I do not want it anymore…I cannot throw it away.  Because surely, somewhere, there is someone who really, really needs this…thing.  I need to keep it until I find someone who needs it and can use it.  I am always SO sure of this.  I can probably count on ONE hand the number of times I have had exactly that thing that someone needs because I kept a bunch of random crap.

So…while I know this is completely irrational…I still can’t stop.  I am a little better than I used to be.  That’s for sure.  This last time I moved, I gave away enough stuff to fill two SUV’s.  But I still have more stuff than I could ever need or use.  It’s just so hard to let it go!  It’s so far outside my comfort zone.

Several years ago, we knew this lunatic who was a total extremist.  One day he decided that the best way to live was to purge and simplify and get rid of everything you didn’t absolutely HAVE to have.  He went so overboard that one day he had to come over and borrow a fork because he had gotten rid of all of his.  During his freak out…I mentioned getting some containers to organize things with.  He looks at me and says “that’s just more stuff to put your stuff in.”  What?  “It’s just more stuff.  You have too much stuff so these stores are trying to sell you stuff to put your stuff in.  It’s a racket.”

He was nuts.  He’s still nuts.  But that one phrase stuck with me and still to this day makes me laugh.  It’s “stuff to put your stuff in”.

I love stuff.  I have a lot.  And I love buying stuff to put my stuff in.  I love buying stuff to organize my stuff with.  I even like buying stuff to write down catalogs of my stuff.  Because in the end…pens and notebooks are just more stuff and I have a terrible stationery addiction.

Maybe one day I will no longer be minorly insecure about having things.  Maybe one day I will wake up and realize that I am financially stable enough that I do not have to keep every single thing because I might need it some day.  If I really need one of these whatevers…I can buy one.  No…I’m not rich with lots of disposable income…but I can throw away a ten dollar item and purchase a new one if I end up needing it later.  I just have to convince myself of this.  I have to convince myself that I am not going to be unhappy without all these stuffed animals and multiple note pad and pen sets and random cute skulls and just…crap.  These are not where my happiness lies.  I just have to fully come that conclusion and be ready to believe it.  Then I can purge more of this crap out of my life and maybe some day I won’t live in a cluttered house.

Until then…I will happily go to the Container Store and buy stuff to put my stuff in.

PS: FU – J.F.