Current mood:
crappy Category: Life
I finally pressed a button on my MYSPACE page, which imported contacts from my email accounts. I guess I was not fully prepared to see my stepsons face looking back at me. I have not seen him or heard from him in over a year. What I have heard about him is that he is doing well. I am glad for that. But actually seeing a young man in a photograph who I feel I should somehow know, with a girlfriend I have never met, both looking so happy... Well, it kind of took me a little aback. Certainly he is not a stranger to me, though he might as well be now, and reading his profile and looking at the pictures left me feeling like an outsider.
I did request to add him as a friend, and perhaps one day he will have the time to check his email, and he might accept me, or he may not. I have to realize either is a possibility. He is an adult now, and has a girlfriend, his real dad, his mother, grandparents, sister, friends, church, and his job. He may not have time for me anymore. Besides that, I am aware that in as much as I failed his mother in our marriage, I failed him as well.
I had several years in which to get to know him, to build a relationship with him, and to be a part of his life. I am thankful for that time we did share. I enjoyed watching him grow, but for reasons that are difficult to explain, I never completely opened up to him, and never really got close. Perhaps the same is true of my marriage, I don't really know anymore. I do know that I put a great deal of effort trying to keep people from getting too close for fear of getting hurt. In the end, it was those efforts that caused the most hurt.
He may read this, and think I am a total dweeb. That is okay by me. I am no longer afraid of my feelings, and I am not afraid of getting hurt anymore. I realize now that the only way to have a truly successful relationship is to put that little stuff aside, to open the doors to your heart and mind wide enough to let people in. Sure... it opens you up to be hurt, it exposes all your weaknesses and fears, and it makes you vunerable. But the alternative is a far more painful, far more lonely existence.
The truth is that even though I never wanted to be anything like my stepfather, his abuse of me growing up was terrible. I grew to hate him, and thanks to him, I grew to hate myself. I continued his abuse toward me long after he died. In the end, what I swore would never happen, did. I became like him. Not as bad perhaps, but bad enough. It cost me over half my life, and opportunities I will never know, and even a family I could have had. It is not his fault, of course, it is mine. I had the opportunity to recognize it, and to change it in myself. I still do. But it is too late to reclaim all that is in the past. My only hope is to take back my future.
I do not know if this makes any sense to anyone but me, and frankly, I don't care. This is my demon to exorcise, and it is long overdue. Time to bury the son of a bitch who taught me how to be a son of a bitch as well.
