My Cup Runneth Over.....

... but with all the wrong things.

I have a lot of anger to share. A lot of disappointment and dispair. I have a lot of unmet expectations and wants. I have a whole heck of a lot of tears and fears. I have gallons and gallons of hurt and pain and even some shame and blame. I have a bunch of stuff in my cup that I no longer want, nor need.

I say I have been searching for love, but how could this be? How can I love or even recognize those that are trying to love me when I only have a lil bit of it in my cup?

Hindsight 20/20 is always that ~ hindsight. I think about the men that have marched in and out of my life professing to love me...I think about how I laughed and looked at them with my *side eye* doubting it could ever be...but now I am wondering what if it wasn't them, but me? (yeah like it could ever be me) What if some of them really did love me? And maybe the problem wasn't that they didn't love me, it was just that they couldn't love me the way that I needed them to love me because I didn't even know what love looked like, let along felt like...and surely really didn't know what kinda loving I needed.

I say I just want to be loved and allowed to love openly and unconditionally in return. Those are the words that come out of my mouth. My actions, yeah those say another thing. Let's take MSC, a dude that truth be told I was really feeling and to protect my lil fragile ego, I will say he was really feeling me too. But then something happened...people got wind that I was paying too much attention to him and the chatter started and well I do what I do best when my safe place is threaten ~ I shut down any and all emotions that I had made available and began my silent retreat. (ok, it wasn't that silent, I had to take some shots at the lane violators) So now, I am secretly looking at his pics and wondering if he will reach out to me now that I have practically told him I wish I had never met him. (yeah, I know, I know...it was so much easier when I was a tomboy hiding under cars)

But if he did, what would it matter? Outside of wanting him to pay me some doggone consistent attention, what else do I want from him...or better yet, what do I need from him?

So Father's Day was yesterday, and I was getting a kick out of reading peep's post about their fathers. It's amazing how forgiving some individuals are...posting their father's were great when I know for a fact these ninjas were never around. But, I guess these people have been able to do what I have still yet to do: FORGIVE, LET GO (so forgiveness should have been at the top of both mine and MM's list..this entire commentary was in the original previous post) and LOVE PEOPLE where they are and ACCEPT the love of those individuals in what ever dose they are able to give it....yeah, I'm definitely not there yet.

It's either all or nothing with me (yup, that Polar Thinking) I am either going to LOVE the mess out of you by smothering you or I am going to HATE you and make every encounter as painful as it possibly can be. Well, that's how it is for guys that I am interested in...my tried and true blue friends, it's a lil bit different...I am able to open up and have a middle ground with them because I know they aren't going any where. They know and have accepted that I love them and they smother me just as much as I smother them. (yeah we brats)

So I am looking at the posts and it just hits me hard that until I forgive myself for not being born to people that could love me the way that I not only needed to be loved but DESERVED to be loved that I am never going to find the love I am "searching" for because it will never exist for me. I will never be able to love openly, freely and unconditionally until I make amends with myself and put the bag of shame that I have been carrying filled with all of my "emotions" of being unloved down! (forget hurting my back, I am hurting my future...I am hurting my child's future as well as my niece's) I have to do an aboutface one last time...win,lose or draw, I gots to leave it all on the mat.

It's time. It's past time. I can't keep holding on to these decade old grudges. Especially since I am now loving my son the way my father loved me.... yeah, not a good look. The funny thing is, my father is able to love my son the way he should have loved his kids. Go figure. I am not sure if it's cuz he realizes he made his bed hard with his kids and I am the only one that allows their child to have a relationship with him or what. I just know that my story cannot be my son's.

I don't want my son to say, "well my mama must have loved me because she worked her fingers to the bone to provide for me and it would have been much easier for her to just sit on the couch and stay home." Cuz trust me, there are days that I just want to fade into the background but don't cuz I gots to feed my son, I'm all he has.

As an adult, I understand my father's frustration. I understand his pain...his feelings of inadequacy...his feeling that you are never doing enough because someone is always going to be needing something. But I also understand that it's not my child's fault and so it's not fair to him to make him pay for my choices and my current situation.

Deep down under all of these layers, I know what I want. I want to wake up and go to sleep with a smile on my face. I want to embrace and hold my son just cuz. I want to give knowing that I will also receive. I don't want to keep a count or have to attach strings. I want to make the room stop or slow down when I walk into it. I want the fairytale with the happy ending....but, how do I get there?

I don't have many examples of love going right...and I am tired of modeling all the ones that have gone wrong. So how do I begin to pour out the toxins that are spilling over from my cup and replace them with things I really need? Who's going to teach me if I don't let down my guard or at least a couple of my walls?

"Sometimes we search for so long and so hard only to come up short, time and time again because we haven't taught our eyes what it is we are looking for ~ stepping out of my own way so that I can finally see where I am going."

~Gotta Love Moi, Cuz I Surely Do (Smooches)

*will edit later...or maybe not : )