Rescuing... continued

After my blog last night I ran into a few difficulties...


1. I couldn't change my thoughts to something else;
2. Despite being exhausted and going to bed early, it was after 2 am before I finally slept; and
3. I had a horrible nightmare about not being able to rescue my best friend... I won't go into details.


Where did this leave me this morning (besides reeling a little from the too-realistic images of the dream)?


It left me realizing that my desire for rescue in my life is for me to be able to rescue the people I love from the difficulties and traumas in their lives. I realize that I feel responsible for the bad things that have happened to those I love. I have experienced this realization before, when I felt I should have prevented my children from getting hurt, feeling like I should have been there for them, protected them, seen the dangers. I am beginning to realize that this extends to others as well.


People like my sister. I feel like I should have been able to save her, both as a child and as an adult. Intellectually, I am aware that there is nothing I could have done, I am in no way responsible for the way her life unfolded; that there is no way I can protect my children from every trouble that they will come across.


Knowing that doesn't mean I don't feel responsible. It is an extension of the question "why was I not enough?".


Why was my word not enough to protect my sister from a lifetime of abuse?
Why was my love not enough to keep my brother from committing suicide?
Why was my advice not enough to convince my sister to stay safe?
Why were my instincts insufficient to recognize the full dangers my loved ones were facing?


There it is.... I want to be infallible, I want to be omniscient. I'm not God... I don't even want to know everything... until it comes to rescuing my loved ones, and then I want to know it all, to protect them from it all. I don't even want to live in a bubble or to put my boys in a bubble... I want to and want them to fully experience and embrace life. To chase down the dangers and fight through the difficulties.


Where does this leave me?


I feel like I'm spinning, spinning, spinning tonight and need to take a few different steps in my dance.

Rescuing

This is actually a hard one for me to type tonight. I am putting myself on the line, my fears of who I am.

Sometimes I wonder at the types of stories I am drawn to. There seems to be within me a deep need to have a story of survival. Which, is actually kind of funny if you ask the people who know me best, because they will tell you (and me) that I have that kind of story. I guess to me it seems very surreal. Like it's somebody else's life. Like it couldn't have really been my life. Anyone else's life and it would be traumatic, dramatic and horrid. The kind of story fairy tales are made of, the damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really someone else. If my story doesn't truly belong to me. It's as if it happened to someone else. Perhaps that is because I WAS rescued and when I was young; not by a flesh and blood person, but by God.  Does it make sense that I feel as His protection and strength that sustained through the worst things has left me feeling less whole?

That can’t be true… so, if that’s not true, then perhaps it was not wholly His strength that carried me through. Perhaps there is a large part of me that is completely dissociated from my personal history. Perhaps because most of it was not my fault, that there was nothing I could do to stop it, escape it or change it I cannot fully accept it. That should be a good thing too.  At least I recognize the truth of the matter, but….

I made some pretty stupid mistakes too. Those things I am responsible for. Some, when I was a child done out of ignorance and a cry for help, some as an adult done out of a desperate need to feel. To be loved. To be wanted…

I feel lost within myself. I love the TV shows, movies and books where someone comes in and saves the day. Where the police catch the bad guy, where the stranger sweeps in and rescues the hurting person – be they child, woman or man, where good triumphs over evil. That’s not a bad thing.

I find it hard to believe that someone will want me for me. That I can or will be loved because I exist, because I am enough. Too many have rejected me, too many who were supposed to, or promised to have caused the most damage to me.

I am strong. I don’t NEED to be a part of a couple to be whole, I acknowledge that, but I yearn for it. Just because it is necessary doesn’t mean it isn’t greatly desired. I believe it is part of our make-up, part of our humanness to want to share life with someone else, to not be alone. In the beginning God said “It is not good that man should be alone” and made him a wife, a helpmeet. I want to be a help meet. I want to be a part of something bigger than me.

I waffle between feeling like a giant, something so big it’s untouchable and feeling like a tiny grain of sand, beneath notice and walked on. Both leave me feeling lonely, unnoticed and unwanted.

Where do I go from here? How do I learn to be satisfied with what I do not have, what I (seemly) cannot have? I love my life. I love what I have, but I’m starting to desire more…. How do I balance contentment with that desire? How do I push to have the “more” in my life without losing the appreciation for what I already have? How do I fit more in my life?

Lots of questions today. Very few answers. I do know that I’m going to keep dancing, keep singing and keep searching. Life’s a dance, we learn as we go. (Garth Brooks)