Allow me my experience . . .

I want to preface this with the fact that I, too, have been guilty of the very thing that I am about to write about. I don’t want to be that person and hope to use each experience in life to grow into a better person and the person that I one day hope to be. But right now I want to scream  . . . .

ALLOW ME MY EXPERIENCE . . . don’t tell me how I still have things better than so many others because I already know it. Don’t tell me to put things into perspective because this is the only one I can see from in this moment. And it is very real. Don’t point out everything else because right now the pain and grief and loss and hurt I feel is real. Just be a friend. Offer a hug. Sit with me quietly and DO NOT TRY TO FIX IT!

Now as I said, I have definitely been THAT PERSON. When your menstrual cramping cripples you I think about how I have had my knees ripped into two pieces. When you have your heart broken by your now EX boyfriend and I think about how much it sucks when you have a family, are 12 years younger than me and I haven’t had a serious relationship in years. Now I may not say that out loud but it’s the principle.

So most recently everyone seems to be getting married or pregnant and going home for the holidays. Insert knife, take it in and out a few times then pour some salt in the wound. Now I want to be clear, deep down I am happy for these people. I may not always be able to show it like I want to but the truth is that it is there.  This is especially the case with my most dear friend and sister. We have always been close but things have been changing. She has a boyfriend who recently became her fiancé. I met him and he seems like a nice guy but she chose him over me after I had driven 2 hours in bad weather with a broken foot. A broken right foot at that. She sees him all the time and it had been 6 months since I had seen her and it didn’t make sense to me. But things change. And the bottom line is that I was jealous and a little hurt.

Tears streamed down my face the entire drive home and I would carry that in my heart for a while. Then she called and left a message for me to call her back. And I knew. I knew what that call was but I didn’t want to hear it. But I do care about her and I hate that my past and my failures so horribly affect our friendship. So I called her and choked back the tears and fears as I tried to express (likely poorly) excitement and happiness for her. Then I got off the phone and my world seemed to crash around me.

Life was dark and lonely and scary. I was scary. I was so mad at myself for not being a better friend. I was woefully aware of how broken and miserable I am.  I was angry at the hand I had been dealt and those who helped start my pathway off in the way it was started. I was angry that people like this friend get good families of origin and get to get married in their twenties. And here I am 31 years old with no prospects and little hope. Trying to being accepting of the fact that some people never get married and two of those people include my very own aunt and mother who I most fear being like.

But for two weeks I have kept all of this to myself. It has been eating me alive and making me unable to be the friend that my friend needs as she plans for her wedding with excitement. And why is that? Well because I have expressed things like this before and have gotten those responses. The well-intentioned reframing. The  “who cares if you don’t have real family you have friends.” The "be thankful for what you do have." The “you don’t know what the future holds.”  Sure . . . to all of those . . . maybe. But damn it why cant I just be hurt and angry and grieve.

Grieve the fact that at 31 the number of meaningful touches I get in an average month might equal ONE. Grieve the fact that I am aware that I struggle with relationships and in reality may never have a husband or family of my own. That my father so regretted my conception that he worked so hard to keep it hidden and may have eventually committed suicide partially because of that factor. That my mother regretted not having an abortion and was tormented by the fact I looked so much like my father. That my heart feels like its being ripped out of my chest and the silence is deafening. That I go to work and come home and sleep because I don’t know what else to do to survive.

And the reality is I can’t expect you to understand any of it. Not to the depth that I feel it anyway. But when you have a friend who is venting and needed to express some pain maybe just try to be there. Don’t give them answers. Just sit with them. Give them a hug and leave the answers and perspectives out of it.