Lucky Charms for Dinner

 The hard part is realizing that you’re no one’s priority, no one’s person, and that you truly are alone. Now that’s not me sitting on a pity potty singing a poor me anthem, it’s just a part of the shadow work being done in the dark night of the soul. It is what it is. That’s not to say I’m not loved – my kids love me, my grandkids adore me, but I’m not their priority. I’m their “once in a while.”

The lesson here is clear. Be alone and learn to love yourself in spite of it all. Matter because you do, not because someone says you do. Take up space. Step into your skin. 

There’s this theory that God was just a consciousness floating in a nothingness and got lonely. Lonely and bored. In that lonely boredom, He got the idea to shatter himself into infinite pieces, no two pieces the same, so that He could experience life from every possible perspective. I’ve also heard it said that, “We are the body of Christ.” So if that’s true, then I really am just a consciousness floating in a nothingness and realizing it for the first time. That’s the whole, “God is within you” concept. Maybe that’s why it feels even lonelier this time than ever before. Am I seeing through the matrix?

Although I’m willing to bet that the “OG” God didn’t need external validation to feel as though His life had purpose and value. (Unless… that’s why He created us [gasp!])

(Let’s pretend we haven’t heard the theory, yet, that humans are a slave race created and bred by the ancient Sumerians - or that we were an alien race who crashed on Earth and became the Ancient Egyptians.)

When I wrote my piece this morning, I immediately wanted to send it to my son. He and I have been having deep conversations about this phase in my journey, my patterns, my cycles, and my outlook on life in general. He was the one who drew my awareness to the patterns I wrote about this morning. So, by writing that out, I was demonstrating that I genuinely did hear him and was mulling it over in a big way. But then I realized that in and of that very thought, I was seeking his validation. I wanted him to be proud that I heard him, pleased that I was taking his concerns seriously, and excited to see me making progress. I’ve also been trying to make him “my person”, and I’m realizing now how unfair that is to him. It’s not his responsibility to make me feel important.

That is the exact opposite of the current mission to learn to live and love myself fully without validation from others. Not just theory, but practice.

When I realized I couldn’t send it to him for that exact reason, I imagined myself standing on the top of a mountain shouting at a thunderous sky while lightning ripped through darkness and I shook my angry fist in the air during a torrential downpour.. It’s like having withdrawals. It’s painful.

When I say I’ve never been alone before, let me add some clarity: Never. As in ever. When I was younger, I had my siblings. At sixteen, I started making babies, my 18-year entourage. When I wasn’t with my siblings or kids, I was partnered up doing the wife thing.

I did spend 9 months living in a studio apartment in Bowling Green, Kentucky once -  between my last two divorces, but it didn’t really count because my ex husband (with whom I was still best friends until the day he died last month) was at my apartment quite literally every day. He was still driving me to doctor’s appointments, to the grocery store, still wanted to go out to dinner. Then I moved back to Las Vegas to take care of my elderly grandmother in hospice care (that’s a trauma I’ll one day have to work through). 

Then I got married again. And divorced again. And then ended up here with my son and grandkids. I have never, ever lived alone. So being here in Nebraska without a soul in sight is something I feel like I never would have chosen for myself. But here I am. (Maybe I did choose this for myself if we pre-determine the lives we want to experience before we incarnate).

And since we’re being honest, let’s be real. There is a reason I’m alone aside from the Universe wanting to teach me to love and value myself, and that’s because I am… incompatible. I’m easily triggered, overly needy, too controlling, have OCD, and, at times, emotionally volatile – not to mention my trauma and codependency issues. 

My therapist once drew me a picture on a white board that she propped up on her knee and held with one hand while she drew three circles with the other. The first circle, she labeled “Me.” The second circle, which she drew beside the first one, she labeled “Him.” And then the third circle she drew in a way that it overlapped the other two, and she labeled the intersection between them, “Us.” 

Nope… it’s my world. And I should be the center of his. I should be hIs everything. He shouldn’t want to do anything without me. 

I feel like always “played victim” to myself in saying I’ve got a bad habit of attracting controlling men - and they were! But from where I’m sitting right now, it looks like I brought plenty of control issues to the table.

Bleh. Gross. That was a former version of me, and very much the reason I am choosing to stay single. It’s not that I don’t think about dating, but I know my limitations and who I become in certain situations. I like me better single. I like not having to clean up after anyone. I like not having to worry about feeding anyone else (Lucky Charms for dinner!). I don’t have to worry about what temperature someone else likes the room, or what they want to watch on television. I don’t ever have to feel jealous. I’m not losing sleep because someone else snores. No one tells me how to spend my money.

Oooh, lawdy, let’s talk about money. None of the men of my past ever let me have a say in it. In fact, if I earned it, they’d take it and make me ask them to buy me things. I was told I didn’t know how to do it, that I couldn’t mentally handle the pressure of it, that it was a “man’s place” to do it. And so I never knew how much the bills were, their due dates, I didn’t know any account numbers. Completely in the dark and dependent on the man I was with to financially support me. And so when I moved to Nebraska and moved into my own apartment (for real this time), with no one involved in my finances in the least, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Did I know how to balance a budget? I’ve been at it for three years now, and it turns out I’m better at it than all of them combined. I have never been late on a bill, I’ve not done without anything at all. I have money in the bank. In fact, I’ve learned to enjoy buying myself things “just because” without having to ask someone’s permission to have it. That’s another thing that’s positive that came from me being forced to live alone and learn to trust myself. 

No external validation.

I think that’s one thing I like about this cozy portal I’ve created here. This place has a pulse to me. It glows. It vibrates. It hums. It’s a safe space, and a warm space, and a place I crave to be now, and it’s only been here a few days. And it’s weird because I know no one is here. It’s like I’m here having a conversation with myself. And then my Self talks back during dreams and fleeting thoughts and moments of awareness that I can then write about again. This is how I’m experiencing myself.

This is how I am starting a love affair with myself in the empty space..