Unloveable

In my last post, I briefly touched on my own personal battles with feeling like I do not possess the ability to be loved. After discussing the post with a friend, I thought I would expound upon that ... mainly because he mentioned that I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

That took me aback, actually - I really thought that shit was specific to my crazy ass. Knowing that readers could potentially see themselves in what I write, and that they could potentially comment below to say some things that would enlighten me ... that has egged me on all the more.

First, you need to know that I always felt misplaced as a kid. I never, ever really felt at home ... well, anywhere. When I was born, I left the hospital with my aunt and uncle after a three-month stint in an incubator. My mother wasn't exactly "motherly" and, quite frankly, she couldn't stand the sight of me ... so my aunt raised me until I was 9. That's when I finally moved in with my mom.

While I lived with my aunt and uncle - I never really had a room. I always shared a place to sleep with one of my cousins. And I mean shared a bed, not just shared a room. I didn't have my own bed. Until I was 9.

AFter I moved in with my mom, I always felt like a nuisance - my brother was always getting into trouble with gangs, and gang fights, and failing grades ... and I trudged along like a greased wheel ... tired of spinning but not really making any noise. So, while I had my own bed - I was still somewhat obscure.

So - that's the synopsis ... and from where stems this feeling within me that I cannot possibly be the object of someone's love. It was a battle for a really long time - when I myself fell in love when I was 21 ... I was scared as hell. Scared that he couldn't feel the same way I did ... because I was wanting him to feel that way about ME. I wanted him to love me - but I didn't think it was possible for love within him to be directed at me. I just struggled with it whenever he said I Love You - he said it first ... and it was weeks before I said it back.

"I know you love me, too," he said one day. "I'll wait until you're ready to say it."

(I threw that in there because it's one of the devices I use to talk myself through it when I feel unloveable ... I *saw* the love he had for me - it resided in him and I could SEE it when he looked at me and said that)

Feeling like no one can possibly love me? That has become a defense mechanism for me. It's comfortable, and like a security blanket, it's been with me for a long time. I KNOW that feeling - and knowing it makes me comfortable ... even if it sucks. And occasionally I find myself traveling down that path, feeling woe-is-me about love because I'm unloveable.

But a few things helped me get through it and those few things still help me snap out of it today:

1) I'm a grown ass man - what the fuck I look like trying to blame my mommy for my not having a partner? I'm thirty-fuckin-five .. my mommy? Seriously, at some point after 18, a man has to be a man, has to man up and has to take responsibility for his own shit. Still blame momma? No - that won't be me.

2) I fucking adore me! I really do - I happen to think I'm funny as hell, I think I'm relatively smart, I know I'm a good dad ... and all-in-all, I'm fucking great I think. I don't like pain and I don't like for things to hurt ... so why would I allow me to scar myself with giving in to feeling unloveable ... when *I* love me. As real as is my propensity to love myself is my ability to be loved. Right? My own love for me proves that I am able to be loved.

3) There's just too much other shit to think about. Work, kids, shopping, finances, cooking, cleaning, driving, mowing the lawn ... there's too much riding on my ability to function and I simply can NOT give in to a way of thinking that has long ago proven to spin me into depressive cycles. I hate depressive cycles - and I will not willingly choose to get into one.

Those are the top three - yes, I'm 35 and single ... but I have two kids who love me, own a home, a car and have a pretty decent balance in my 401(K) ... so, I haven't been successful in finding a partner yet ...

... but my being single does not a failure make me.

And I'm not looking for someone to complete me. My partner needs to complement me. I am whole already.

The many faces of Mr. Right

Some time ago, I thought I had run into The One. And by some time ago, I mean ... nearly 2 years ago. By the time I had the courage to do something about it, I found that I didn't have nearly the courage that I thought. It was riddled with anecdotes and ummms and such ... and Im not particularly proud of how i handled that.

But the truth is that he embodied the great majority of the things i want in a partner. And that really made me nervous broaching the subject - and well, whatever, there was no reciprocity (as it turned out) and I suppose it doesn't really matter HOW that all clumsily stumbled out of my mouth. I put my grown man on, accepted it and kept i moving. The truth is that I dont care how deeply I care about someone - if reciprocity is nil, then no matter how I *feel* about it, I'm going to behave accordingly and keep it moving. And thats what I did.

However, what I haven't breathed to a soul ... not to him, not to my family, not to my best friends, not even to god almighty ... is this: The thing that made me nervous is both the thing within me that foretold what his response was going to be and the thing that rears its ugly head periodically when I am far from the mountain tops of life ...the notion that I simply do not possess the ability to be loved.

Crazy, right?

I could go on and on about my childhood to cite instances that tore into the fallow ground of my adolescent heart and planted that self-deprecating seed within me - but, i will give a synopsis of the cliff notes version here: by the time I was 10, I knew mine was a pregnancy my mother didn't want, that she tried to abort me and she gave me to her brother and sister-in-law to raise because she just didn't appreciate the sight of me.

Look, Im a grown ass man, a father of two, earned a bachelors degree and then a masters degree and have been on my own since I was 17 ... I am not in somw whoa-is-me place begging for someone to save me from me ... I have dealt with this, I know from where it stems and I know how to talk myself through it when I fall into old ways of thinking. Just know that dealing with that rejection wasn't easy - and know that he doesn't know how hard that was.

The main reason he doesn't know is that people have a tendency to think more highly of themselves when someone is crushed by their disinterest - but this wasn't about him and his rejecting me and about what a great thing I lost when he said he wasn't interested. It was about me ... and my own bouts with self-doubt. I had to fight hard as hell after that not to fall into some matter-of-fact place where i simply chalk it up to "eh - I mean, its ME ... why WOULD he be interested." because that would have meant that my life is meaningless, my love is worthless and my body isnt a temple after all.

Again .. not because of HIM, but because of ME. I had to keep reminding myself that I have made enormous changes in my life because I *am* lovable ... that he wasn't proof that the rejections in my childhood were indications that I lacked the ability to be loved. He was simply just another fool who couldn't see the venerable storehouse of good things within me. like my momma was. I posses the ability to be loved, dammit ... i simply do.

So - what if after all that work ... he gives an indication that maybe he was interested all along?

Busy beyond belief, but bussin' for baby

I'm sitting on the floor at the San Antonio airport waiting for my 615am departure. They've already changed the gate from one end of the world to the other and now there are two flights out ofthe new gate at the same time. I don't kow how they plan to work that out, but they better get their shit together. I have a connection in Atlanta that I do not intend to miss ... I've got to make it home to my baby girl.

She's nine today. Nine. I've struggled wi it this morning, accepting that I have a nine year old. Not that I feel old or anything, because I don't ... I just can't accept that she's her own little person with her own ideas and ability to vocalize them to the world at large. I want her to still be small, dependent on me and for that look of utter adoration when she looks at me to last forever.

Fortunately, it's still there. She called me yesterday to tell me that she really misses me and I nearly changed my flight Ruhr then, left the board meeting and went on home to her. Oh, how I love my daughter. Today is all about her.

So, if airtran airways plans on fucking with my travel plans this morning, I'm a lose my got.damn.mind. Like Lil Kim did ....

"who da fuck want war? FedEx beef right to your front door ..."