Saturday, October 16, 2010

Better...

This song got me through some very rough moments after the exgirlfriend left.




I am better. Happier. Just plain happy. I am strong again, for myself and for the midget. I am planning for a future that includes my family and my friends and the people I love so much who got me through those dark days.

Last night the midget had another of her breakdowns about missing the exgirlfriend. This after coming back from her dad's house and having had a similar breakdown in front of her dad. And I wish there was some way I could promise the midget that it won't hurt some day.

But, I can't. I lost a girlfriend, a lover, a friend...but she lost a parent, and I know how that feels, when you have a parent walk out on you. I know that for the rest of your life you wonder what you have done to make them stop loving you and what you could have done differently to make them love you.

I've spent years in therapy going over how it was never my fault, that my biodad bailing had nothing to do with me. I've discussed it with my friends, my new family...and I've even discussed it with my biodad. I know intellectually that it wasn't my fault...but, emotionally? Well, that's a whole other ball of wax. I know that so much of my self hatred comes from that feeling...that "how can anyone ever want me, when my own parents didn't?"

And I know it's different for the midget. She is surrounded by love daily. There has never been a moment in her life that she has been alone, or that she has doubted that she had people who loved her. But there is a part of me that asks...is this going to screw her up? Is this going to be the thing that breaks her so that she's constantly seeking approval from outside sources, like I am?

The hardest part for the midget is that the exgirlfriend is there peripherally. So, she sees the exgirlfriend for five minutes here and ten minutes there, but never alone and never in the parenting role. This is a woman she knew as her mother all of her fucking life, and now she gets to watch her be a parent to someone else's kid while she is pining for her mom. I could forgive the exgirlfriend for everything she did, the lies she's told the drama she caused...all of it. But, this? Watching my daughter go through her diagnosis and all of the hell she's gone through without her other mom? I can never forgive this.

I can only hope that my love, my family's love, her father's love will be enough for the midget. That she will be able to see and understand that the exgirlfriend's choices have absolutely nothing to do with her, but that instead the exgirlfriend is irretrievably broken in some deep way she cannot understand and I cannot explain. I can only hope that as the midget faces down the next few years of her life, arguably the most difficult years for any girl, that she doesn't internalize the exgirlfriend's choice to walk away as some sort of proof that she is not good enough, or that she is in some way undeserving of love.

I just wish there was a way that I could heal this for her and make it better, but I can't. I've tried. I've begged the exgirlfriend a million times to make time for the midget. I've offered to set up diabetes education so that she can have one on one time with the midget, and I've gotten no response. This is the one thing that never gets better.

1 comment:

LouAnn said...

Oh Laura - I will never be able to make it any better for you, your feeling of loss, of betrayal. You do know I love you and I have always loved you and that I wish I could turn back time and change it all? Yes, I know that the past is what makes us well, us...but if I could ease even a little of the pain, I would.

The Midget has so many people that love her, your non-bio family, her dad, your sister and your step dad and me. She has you, too. Hopefully the love and support of her large circle of those who love her and you will help her NOT to internalize the feelings she has of dessertion and loss of her "other" mom. That's the biggest difference, I think - she has lots of love and support, whereas you only had me, and I was at that time in our lives, very inadequate as a parent. And I know I can never make that up to you.

But the Midget has you and her very large and loving family to help her thru this and help her for the rest of her life.