To All the Single Ladies.....

Aleathia says:

This weekend at work was very testing. There was a fire, it was super busy and we worked short, and then the last day all the patients were dramatic and challenging. It about near sucked the life out of me. Each night before I go to sleep I scroll through the YouTube feed to see if anything interesting pops up. Sometimes I find great new music or an interesting TED talk. Sometimes I watch weird surveys or dance videos.

This weekend I came upon a video of a woman who was celebrating her 7th year of being single. Her definition of single being not in a dedicated, notated relationship that would be called a couple. She had gone on dates and had many situations, but still single. This woman was beautiful and thin and the first thing I thought was "I'm doomed". But rather than shut the video off, I kept watching to see WHY she was celebrating this milestone. She also has a website called The Problem with Dating.

She talked about having been in a string of ongoing or steady relationships for more than 10 years and all of which ended poorly. After the last one she realized that she had a lot of personal work to do on herself before she could be in a couple and maintain a healthy, functional relationship with another human being. She talked about how if you are wanting to be in a relationship to validate your existence in the world, you aren't ready. If you are in a relationship so you aren't lonely, you aren't ready. If you are in a relationship so you fit in with your friend's and family's expectations of you, you aren't ready.

This sort of hit me like a ton of bricks. I consider myself to be very observant and marginally intelligent. Why had I not thought of this before? How come I could not see this? It is very interesting to me how I could trick myself into thinking all my actions were valid in the past. I'm not going to be horrid to myself about it. I was young. I was without information that was vital to moving around in this world.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family and this isn't a singular badge. I know that so many of us do and in this day and age I'm sure dysfunction is the norm. But I also know that I grew up a child of trauma from living in a house that was full of alcohol and drugs and infidelity. There was little emotional money in our family. I learned to be invisible. I learned that being lonely is very painful. I learned that despite abuse you just shut up and take it because you don't want anyone else to know your business. This was the ammunition I left home with. It didn't feel natural or true, but it was all I had.

In all my relationships I think I have tried to show my true colors, but fear of rejection and abandonment have always loomed near the surface. All people want to be loved and accepted. If someone tells you otherwise then they are lying. Isolation is a defense mechanism. It takes away the opportunity for someone to hurt you because you are not present to be hurt.

This year has been emotionally challenging for me as many of you have read on this blog in previous posts. It takes a lot from me to be able to share my pain and my misgivings with whomever chooses to read about it and I put myself in this position because I want to grow. I do it because maybe I'm not alone in the world with the life I've lived and maybe, just maybe, I can help someone else not feel alone in their pain by sharing.

I have realized that I am not ready to be in a relationship. I really do have so much work to do on myself and that requires space and time. But the hopeful thing that woman said in her video was that she recognized in her journey of working on herself that she had attracted the most amazing and creative people in her life. That was something to be excited about and despite attracting all these great men, the one meant for her had not shown up yet.  I have always loved the quote "Good things come to those who wait." I don't take the waiting to be something idle, but more like a patient observation of the world; a gathering of information and self-education.

So I've been single for 16 months. I have learned a lot, but not quite enough to feel whole yet. Thank you to all who have read my posts and watch me melt down in a public forum. Thanks for coming back over and over again. I hope life treats you all kindly. Much love.

Aleathia

Winter and "Call the Midwife"

Aleathia says:

In winter I feel the roots of my heritage take hold. Polish, Yugoslavia, Russian....possible Romanian. Throw in French Canadian and you have a recipe for hibernation. We are a somewhat contemplative, stoic bunch around strangers; full of vibrant life around those we trust and love. when ice and snow take over the land it begins a time of inner discovery.

Personally, I love the snow and quite enjoy a brisk walk in the winter sun. From my warm couch I can see the skeletal remains of trees on the hills, the ground blanketed in snow, the palest of blue skies, and ice flowing down the river. I sit here a lot and do nothing but think.

Winter is also the time when I binge watch television at night when my bones are aching and cold and the only comfort from pain I get is the distraction of needlework and television. There are some shows I put on for noise to ease the winter loneliness. The sound of conversations I don't have to engage in are a pleasure and the cadence of them makes the crocheting go faster. But once in a while I find a show that pierces the heart of me.

This week I wanted a break from my usual British crime series, so I stuck with the British theme and dove into "Call the Midwife". I have anxiety for when the series will be done. I have consumed 4 seasons already. I have cried nearly every episode.  It is not often that this happens. I admit to being an old softie, but this show has struck something deeper for me.



I am a nurse, so the show is relative to me in this sense. When I was first in nursing school I wanted to work in OB and help deliver babies. I had this unrealistic dream of how I would feel about such a thing. I felt my sensitive nature would make me perfect for the job. One evening during clinical I was able to witness the births of two babies. I am not sure I ever cried so much in my life. The screaming, the blood, the first sound of a baby crying, the look on the mother's face when she first sees her baby...these things are devastatingly beautiful. I decided that night that I could never do the job. I would need to be stronger if things went wrong and I wasn't sure that I wouldn't cry every time a baby was born. I went into the cut and dry of surgical floor nursing and then to emergency medicine where I have spent more than a decade.

"Call the Midwife" is more than strong women in the poor conditions of London's East End in the 50's and 60's. It is about finding faith in  your work, about friendship and love; losses suffered on a personal nature and ones suffered because you are in the same room. It is about standing up for patient's rights, for women having a voice in a time when they weren't supposed to, and about building your own identity from the ground up.

I had a conversation with my teenage daughter after she mentioned how much the show makes me cry. She said "maybe you get so emotional since you had a c-section instead of giving birth?" She sent this in a text from her room and I was glad of it, because I sat there crying again. Yes, maybe it was that. My body robbed me of that moment to see her after all the hard work I had done. 20 hours of labor, 6 hours of pushing, a failed epidural when it was time for surgery and having to have general anesthetic which left me unconscious for over 8 hours. Everyone in the family and all the staff had seen my baby before me. It is truly the only regretted moment of my life. The rest I chalk up to experience, but I missed the one perfect moment in life a mother can be given.

"You have to be brave to be in love, don't you? Knowing your heart will get broken at sometime."

This was a line from the show and it struck me so terribly hard. I sat there nodding, because it is one of the truest things I have ever heard. My heart has been broken so many times. My poor heart spent so much time on my sleeve where people could abuse it and do with it what they wanted. This last year has been sad and somewhat loveless for me. The bond with my daughter the only thing that got stronger besides the will to find myself again. Life is about the chances you take, about dealing with the consequences of your choices, and learning from the mistakes as much as the triumphs.

Never be afraid to dream big and fall short. Get back up again and do it all over. Cherish those small, perfect moments in life...never take them for granted. Don't let the world distract you from the daily wins and the opportunity to open new doors.

Thanks for reading
Aleathia

OM-1/25/2015 Time Does Not Heal All Wounds

Aleathia says:

 I wasn't going to blog today because I didn't feel like I had anything to share but the cloud of sadness that has been hovering over me for the last week.  The anniversary of my mother's death is in a few days.  I have been trying to hold strong and not be a blubbering baby, but I must admit that at night, when I am alone, I sit here and cry silently.  I have unanswered questions that will never find relief.  I have a string of regrets sewn together with the tendrils of  the ephemeral why.  There was so much more we had to say to each other now that I had found love and happiness; now that I knew, in essence, who I really was supposed to be.  That was taken away from me.  Some days are better than others.  I'm a sentimental git so the weepy, heartbreaking days are hard to let go of.

Through all of this Michael quietly waits for me to be ok.  Sometimes he hugs me while I'm crying and washing the dishes.  He doesn't have to say anything, because I know what he will say.  I know he understands this pain as we have both lost our mothers at a young age.  Men deal with things differently.  He got angry and drank.  I have been sullen and distant.  Neither of them cure what ails us.  Time doesn't heal the wounds, I have found, but I think somewhere it gives you perspective.  He is almost 4 years out from losing his mom and he only made the turn around last year.  I know there is hope for me yet.  Stay busy.  Don't bury it.  But most of all, keep loving.

I was reading "All The King's Men" this morning and there is a passage I would like to share.  In a round about way it was why I turned the computer on today.  It was a passage about how love changes a person.  After reading it I knew that I had to share it because without love, without how Michael makes me feel about the world, I would not be able to stand up in the face of everything that happens in a day.  I am strong, but he makes me stronger.  For that, I am forever grateful.

"So maybe she was up in the room trying to discover what her new self was, for when you get in love you are made all over again. The person who loves you has picked you out of the great masses of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it has been made into.  But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be a part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up.So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass.  So there are two you's, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you. The farther those two you's are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis.  But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn't be any difference between the two you's or any distance between them. They would coincide perfectly, there would be a perfect focus, as when a stereoscope gets the twin images on the card into perfect alignment."  --Robert Penn Warren

Thank you Michael for finding me; for allowing the life I always dreamed I would have.  You are a fine man and an incredible human being.  I love you.