Do I matter?
Of course, I matter. . . .I matter to God, I matter to me, and I matter to a whole lot of people in my world (for which I am very grateful). But I wasn't aware (until I could see another group member's process more clearly than my own) that I've been walking through my whole life as if I don't matter. . . .or, more specificaly, I have invisibly been walking through my life feeling like I don't matter.
But I see things very differently now. . . .
It's not that I don't matter (as a generalized cosmic truth). . . .it's just that I didn't matter enough to certain other people for them to have a relationship with me in a way that didn't include using me to meet their own needs, and in a way that left me deeply wounded in the process. That doesn't mean that I don't matter. . . .it just means that I didn't matter enough to someone else. . . .which is not the same thing at all.
But it's also a whole lot easier to say, "I don't matter" than it is to say, "I didn't matter enough to my dad so that he could love me in a way that didn't hurt me." Yeah. . . .it's a whole lot easier to just believe that I don't matter. It doesn't hurt to believe that I don't matter. . . . but it feels unbearably painful to believe that the first man I loved with all of my heart and soul didn't love me enough to rise above his own crap and baggage. . . .and love his daughter the way I deserved to be loved and cherished by my father.
Yeah. . . .it's definitely a whole lot easier to just believe that I don't matter. . . .
Part of life, however, is accepting a sometimes very painful truth that we don't always matter enough for someone in our life to love us the way we deserve to be loved. Or perhaps it's that we don't matter enough for someone to make time for us in the way we would like them to make time time for us, or the endless ways that we may not matter enough to someone else for them to give us what we would like to have from or with them.
It's not that we don't matter. . . .it's just that we don't always matter enough.
It hurts, of course. . . .to accept the truth that I didn't matter enough to my dad. . . .but it hurts in a way that unexpectedly feels good, like somehow the accepting of this truth means that I can finally move on from at least this part of my history, rather than stay locked into this frozen and immobilized place from which I can't move because I am hanging on to the hope that I will one day matter enough for him to love me the way that I deserve to be loved. And it's also the first truth that helps to explain why he did what he did, in a way that doesn't force me to be responsible for what he did. It's not that I don't matter. . . .I just didn't matter enough for my dad to rise above his own crap and baggage.
I do matter, of course. . . .I matter to God. . . .and I matter to me. . . .and ultimately, that's all that really matters anyway.