lovaliss's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - I often fear that those I have loved in the past and that I still love now (but that I have cut off current relationships with) will not love me as I am because I am an "apostate." This is why I cut off relationships with them. This has kept me from "coming out" to many people from my past, particularly missionary companions and friends from before my mission. I realized the other day that that is what it really came down, I was afraid they would not and could not love me back. Afraid that they would not be able to see the me that is still the exact same me in here that they always knew. Only I think I am more compassionate than I once was, that is what being an outcast and a symbolic failure to everyone you love the most in your life can bring about. I don't say that in self-pity, just truthfulness. It is life-changing to become the person that everyone projects their fear and grief onto because you no longer validate their methods for dealing with their fear and grief provoked from living life. I wish I had the confidence to live radical vulnerability, to tell everyone the truth of what I am and where I'm at and ask them to love me anyway, just as I am, no pity, no desire to change me or bring me back, just love me as I am. I think I am slowly getting up that courage, but I know that rejection and demonization is a real possibility. But with that rejection I also know that it isn't necessarily my loved one's speaking in those moments, just fear and confusion. If they do allow themselves, it creates a paradox in their belief if they can honestly find a way to be okay with me and respect and love me as I am--this often means giving up the notion that they believe they are infallibly right--if there is different paths of "right," and thus opens the possibility for their own faith crisis, which in turn provokes fear--which keeps them from being able to love wholeheartedly. And so with that in mind I remind myself that even if I am rejected by those I love, it does not mean I have to reject them or shut them out. I'd only do so out of hurt. But it's okay to hurt, and not impossible to love unconditionally through hurt. Sometimes I wonder deep down if my parents feel more grief or joy over me. They seem to go through cycles of grief and cycles of joy and peace. But I wonder which is more prevalent, and if any part of their "joy" and "pride" in me is an act. Though their actions may suggest "joy," there are moments when I see the grief in their eyes lurking underneath their desperate attempts to love and accept me, and I see a sense of self-failure swimming in there, and know they deep down really do believe I have lost my way and that they have lost me as a result; and are therefore failures as parents who are commissioned to raise their children in the gospel and bring them "back home to our Heavenly Father." Sometimes their grief stricken eyes and ashamed faces will flash into my mind and I feel a feeling a self-hate for causing them pain. A feeling of shame for being the child they feel ashamed and heartbroken over. Perhaps all my fear of my loved ones not being capable to love me as is, is rooted in that complicated dynamic I have with my parents. I think that's most likely. 3:09 a.m. - 2012-04-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||