Cheer Bringers

These two girls are my nieces. I have a lot of nephews, but just these two nieces. One belongs to my sister and one belongs to my brother. They are so different, but each so beautiful! I love them very much, and on this day it meant an awful lot to me to be loved back by them.

I have had this funny little thing in my life where I have felt unlovable and therefore unloved. Or vice versa, probably. It's interesting to look backwards and realize what was behind certain actions or reactions in my younger days, and then it's interesting, too, to be able to pinpoint the exact moment where I felt the most unloved/unlovable by two of the most important people in my life at that time and to be able to say, "What the shit?! This doesn't make sense!" From feeling unworthy and shy and non-confrontational to realizing my value in one fell swoop. Well, two separate fell swoops, but they were timed so closely together that they felt like one. And fell swoops they were. And strength and confidence and self-worth ensued.

Something amazing happened. In "refusing to honor" these people who have made me feel so small, I have found love blossoming all around me. I think it might have always been there, but I couldn't see it, I couldn't feel it. At times, I am so overwhelmed by it now. I had no idea how much love there was in this world. No. Clue. I wanted love so desperately, and I searched for it - along with approval - everywhere. Love me. Love what I'm doing. Appreciate me. But here is the thing: I was already loved, I was already appreciated, but I couldn't see it because I let the perception of just a few become how I saw myself.

Have no doubt, I was loved by these people whose actions (or lack of) caused me to feel so tiny and broken. They loved me the best they could, I suspect. But the big, gigantic lesson here includes the fact that anger, mean-spiritedness, self-pity and a general lack of compassion are like a big eraser wiping out all good. Anger is perhaps the most powerful eraser of all. Outbursts scare and hurt and are like slices with a knife across your cheek. They heal, but there is a scar, one that you try to hide but that is still seen by those who are really looking.

Sometimes, hurting is inevitable. I know this. We will feel hurt, and on this day that we celebrated my grandfather's life I felt such hurt and sadness to have lost someone who only ever loved me. He never hurt me, not ever, and when I felt unloved he always made it better with a kiss on the cheek and a breakfast/lunch full of amazing and truthful and healing conversation. I miss him so, because he balanced so much in my world in my darkest and most treacherous moments. For every happy moment that had been erased by anger, he replaced it with love and appreciation and admiration and respect. Those treacherous moments are behind me, and I don't need anyone to make anything better anymore because I figured out how capable I am of doing that myself, but there is still a hole where he once was. No one can fill it. No one can take his place. He was my favorite when I was a little girl, he was my favorite as a grown woman. I miss him so.

But in the past couple of years he helped prepare me for this. I can see now: I am so loved. I am so, so, so blessed. These girls, my nieces, bring me cheer, as do my daughters (all three - Victoria, Erin, and baby Ange). There is so much love in my life that in moments I feel as though my heart will explode from it all - it's too much and I feel it so deeply. I feel it for others, and it is most certainly returned by my wonderful Patrick, my extraordinary friends, and my family that are both by blood and by choice.

I'm not completely healed, but I'm on the right path. Cheer bringers help. :)