Learning To Accept Painful Endings

It’s 10:31 p.m., and I am not happy to be awake right now. I am someone who thrives off of eight to nine hours of sleep, and I like to get up every morning at about 5 a.m., so this is not my ideal Monday night. But I have been laying in bed for an hour and a half now, and I feel exhausted but wide awake at the same time. So I have finally given up and now I’m writing.

This reminds me of my teenage years actually, when I used to love staying up until two or three in the morning writing. I felt like I was more creative at night, and I probably was, but since changing my lifestyle and making sleep a priority, I have trained myself to be just as creative during the day as at night. Though I have to say there is something vulnerable in me that shows itself only when the sun has gone down and I am alone in my bed in the dark with no one and nothing to distract me.

Plus, I am sad. I’m sad because no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to hold on to relationships that are important to me. My aunt, my mother, my stepmother, longtime friends… These friendships that I held so dear are disappearing into thin air and I’m left grasping at smoke. But why? This is the question I have been asking myself since my aunt and I stopped talking in June of 2014. It has never been my intention to hurt anyone ever, and I’m equally sad and mad at myself for not… for not what? For not being perfect? For not being able to make people stay? For eventually chasing people away? My personal life looks more like a battlefield than anything else.

Especially after today. I could probably go on and on about someone that I considered one of my best friends who I feel like totally abandoned me today after his girlfriend treated me very disrespectfully for no reason. I mean seriously, my heart hurts. I want to reach out, I want to explain that I’m just hurting and scared and I don’t mean to push him away and I need him to understand that and not let me go…

But the truth, if we’re being totally honest here, is that I need to grow up. If I’ve learned anything in my 22 years of life, it’s that betrayal is a phantom. Betrayal is a phantom because it doesn’t really exist anywhere except in our own minds, and it can haunt us for a long time if we let it. Betrayal is another word for blaming someone else for the way we feel.
Intellectually I can understand that, but it’s not as easy to convince my ego and pride of the same thing. There’s a part of me that desperately needs to hold onto the pain, because it’s this hurt and anger that I use to shield myself away from being vulnerable with others. My pride keeps me separate and “safe” by making others wrong and me “bad” or “guilty” or a “victim”.

So here I am, faced with a choice. I can choose to start letting go of my ego and pride, or I can continue to hold onto it and alienate myself. I honestly can’t think of anything more terrifying than telling someone that I feel sad or hurt by what happened or by something that they did. It feels like an open invitation to get insulted or put down or rejected. It feels like showing my worst and weakest parts with the strong possibility of people thinking less of me.
But will I feel better? Will this letting go finally bring me the peace that I have been craving for so long? And isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why the 8th and 9th steps are considered so powerful? Because they bring peace, and a deep understanding that all truly is well, and there’s no reason to feel guilty or ashamed or scared or angry any longer.

Well, like usually happens when I write it out, I have answered my own question. But this means I am going to have to turn back to my Oldest Friend who I have been ignoring for some time now: my Higher Power. I suppose this is probably the original abandonment that I have just been playing out in my personal life over and over again. This abandonment of myself, mySelf, and my Higher Power. I’ve been so caught up in school and work and trying to achieve material things that I have put my spiritual life on the sidelines, and I’ve paid for it.

I don’t feel any less scared of the future, but I do have a little bit more peace in my mind knowing that I at least have the beginnings of a plan to heal my heart and shave off some more of my pride and ego.

For now, I am decidedly exhausted, and I think now I could get some sleep. Goodnight, my friends, and sweet dreams… in my own tonight, I hope to go to a place where I can actually relax and breathe easy.
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Namasté.