Et Tu, Brute?

We fight for our places in this world. We are in a constant war between ourselves and the people around us, their expectations of us that we could never possibly live up to. Maybe we don’t even want to. Maybe there is something different out there.

I never really felt at home anywhere growing up, my house included. I was bullied and teased incessantly at school, reverting to the thoughts in my head as my sole companion. My friends, who many were not actually very friendly, tended to make me feel more alone than ever.

Pedestals

When we are little, we look to our parents as gods. We are too young to understand that they are simply people struggling to get through this life, just like us. Our culture puts a similar god-like status on the other adults around us, doctors, teachers, the like. We are taught to obey.

I've been put on a pedestal of
Beauty and grace,
But at the same time
I am told that I am
Not worthy of such a position.
I get taken down,
Only to climb back up again,
Only to be reminded
That the reason I am there.
Was none of my own doing.

I was taught to sit down, to be quiet, and to look pretty. I was taught to be a good girl, to follow the rules, to keep my head down. Watch what happens when I receive a compliment. I shrink. Who am I to deserve that? I was just following orders. Or I deflect. I like your sweater. Thanks, my mom bought it. Your hair looks really pretty today. Thanks, I washed it. Why can’t I just say thank you and accept the goddamned compliment?

I wasn’t taught how to be me. I wasn’t taught how to be in this world. I am not entirely sure who exactly is supposed to teach us this stuff. Sex ed. got put on the school system. That was a fucking joke. Emotional intelligence I had to pay a therapist to teach me.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Take your parents down off of their pedestals. Grieve the loss of the family you wanted, and embrace the family that you have. Learn how to forgive, to stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone, for only then will you truly be free. I then proceeded to ask her what freedom felt like.

Grief

How do you grieve something that isn’t an actual death?

I can't watch her slowly kill herself with the decisions she is making about her health. It hurts too much.

She has a choice, and I believe she is making the wrong one. I can't be a witness to that anymore. It's too painful for me.

I need to level her down to a three or a four. I need to learn how to take people off of their pedestals.

Should I be the one on the pedestal?

In order to take her down, I need to grieve her old position. I feel this chapter of my life closing.

Grief both acknowledges what has been lost and ensures that we don’t forget what must be remembered.

Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

In his book, Weller goes on to describe the Five Gates of Grief. Everything we love, we will lose. The places that have not known love, the sorrows of the world, what we expected and did not receive, and ancestral grief are universal to us all. Just in different ways.

Sometimes you outgrow
The tools
That used to help.

Sometimes you outgrow
The friends
That no longer serve.

It's okay.
That season is just over.
Find new ones.

Rome

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were I. I created so many myths and fairy tales of who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to behave in this world that somewhere along the way I forgot who I was all together. It has taken me years to find her, and I don’t think I am quite done yet. Maybe I never will be. I don’t really know.

Here are the things that have helped me. I like to call this Therapy Homework, because believe it or not, the real work begins outside of that office.

• Start the grieving process.
• Read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• Write a letter to each of my parents. Don’t mail it. Burn it. Have a funeral for my judgements, for my thoughts, for my expectations of them.

This was my actual therapy homework from my personal therapist. The grieving process looks different for everybody. I am an ugly crier, like snot dripping all over the place kind of ugly. My face gets tomato red, and my eyes puff up like I have conjunctivitis all over again. It isn’t pretty. Funny, wasn’t that what I was supposed to be?

You know, I’m not entirely sure the sadness ever fully goes away. I think it just slowly becomes more melancholy, fading into the background of our lives. Sometimes things still trigger me, and it stings like fresh burn. (I’m talking to you, propane ignition click.) Then other times I can make jokes about how I got blown up in a food truck. I’m a Libra Sun, so maybe it’s just balance?

Mad love, Jenna