THE MISSING PIECE, Part One

PRESENT

Valentine’s Days are bad.

Whether you’re single, dumped, widowed, or divorced. Valentine’s Days are bad.

I’ve spelled out here how the astrology tells a story. Put Rory’s chart, her transits, my chart, my transits, and Chi’s chart and his transits together, and they make a perfect mosaic, stretching on into the future. They all match up into a perfect story, and the events in one chart are answered perfectly with the mirroring events and feelings in the other two.

The story presents a branching path. It can go this way, or it can go that way.

I picked the path I would like to see, and I’ve worked my ASS off for three years to finish my part in that.

(Incidentally, that part is called, HEALTH. I’m going to need it whether I ever see Chi again or not. Similarly, his happier path is also called, HEALTH. He’s going to need it whether he ever sees me again or not.)

I finished these last few blogs, and it looked like I had come to the end of what I encountered the astrology and all this codependency reading to learn. Already know I, that which I need.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m still alone. What happens next?

That’s when you go, I know the horoscopes SAY this, but the only way this could ever take place is if the person who is presented as my putative partner in this journey ACTUALLY COMES BACK and says, “I’m here! I’m ready to go on to the next bit.”

(And, yes, that could, possibly, only mean that he comes back and I kick him in the ass one more time, he applies himself in adequate therapy, and then…he decides that keeping his family intact is really where his heart is—his REAL heart, NOT his codependent one—regardless of whether Rory improves her own emotional health or not. Hard to imagine—you need a spine of steel to live with what he’s living with—but people make these decisions every day and they make their peace with them. They do. And who knows? Maybe she’ll wake up then!)

Either way, if I don’t see him again, it’s because he isn’t ready. After three years and that’s where they still were, there is NO WAY this sad situation changed substantially in three months. We KNOW that’s still the way it is.

According to the astrology (and, I have to add, simple common sense), this is the stage he was supposed to be ready by. He was supposed to be able to look at the past three years and where they’ve ended up, notice that he’s still in terrible pain, and be casting about for some answers, rather than just putting his head down again and going, “Well, I can’t do anything about it.”

If he’s not at that stage now, I won’t see him again.

And not seeing him would be a good thing in that case, because if he’s STILL thinking after forty years of this and a three-year turn through not-quite-adequate-therapy-land, that the right thing to do is keep on trying to swallow the pain and live this act everyone else is prescribing for him--when he’s so depressed by it he can barely see straight--he’s just never going to break through and get better. EVER.

And that’s no partner for me (or for anyone else, for that matter.) I need to RUN from that like it’s a tsunami.

                                                 ***

I had gotten that far. I had looked at that truth, and basically said, Okay.

I’ve been widowed four years, and I haven’t met ONE appropriate person. Not ONE. No soul mate, family-like friends, no potential boyfriend.

At fifty, I am ABSOLUTELY ALL ALONE IN THIS WORLD, and my “partner” in whatever crazy business is forecasted here may just signal, in this crucial span of time of about a month, that he isn’t ready and he isn’t coming.

So be it.

I will just stay all alone in this world. I will give up looking for people (because that’s all I’ve done for four years and it most definitely isn’t working out).

I’ve got my blog, I’ve finally gotten some rudimentary ideas for how to do a website, and I’ve got these two novels in various stages of work. I’m no professional, but I have ideas, and I’m finally excited about them. I waited all my life to have time to write, and well…that’s the one gift of no people. You have time, and NO distractions.

Let’s see if I can do anything. 

If not, who cares? This happened to me, and I learned from it. Others could, too. If not, life will go on, and the sky will not fall in. It’s an interesting challenge. And I’m nothing if not always and consistently up for an interesting challenge!

No people in my life? FINE.

I’m there.

(Oh, and by the way? THIS is where Chi’s and my Davison says I must be if the relationship were ever to work. So, of course, it’s where the other half of the job doesn’t happen and he goes, Nah, I’m not up to it. Sorry, but bye! I’m going to be miserable and depressed instead, and keep on acting so the people I'm "close" to aren't upset by it.)

                                                         ***

And then…and then…

AND THEN…

I was wandering around the mall and stopped into this pretty jewelry/metaphysical bookstore.

ONE copy of the book, Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends sat on a shelf, beckoning to me. It was the only copy in the store.

(Get ready for something woo-woo.)

I was thinking more of Chi when I picked it up, because it’s a divorce book, and I’m widowed—but their treatment of loneliness was the best I’ve ever read and the most applicable to me of any I’ve ever seen. In four years. (We’re actually supposed to be alone? We’re actually supposed to be learning how get along without other people? We’re actually supposed to be self-sufficient?)  

Of course, they go on and on about finding friends, but I haven’t found any familylike friends. I’ve found ONE person whom we fit each other as friends, and there are limits to that friendship. Oh, well. Guess I just go on with the self-sufficiency thing anyway!

Even though I just found out I made a horrible mistake on my taxes this year, I owe money to the IRS, and I won’t be able to afford health insurance this year, I bought the book.

Even though I don’t plan on ever being divorced (how can I be? I’m not meeting anybody!), it’s still an interesting read. I leapfrogged here and there about the book…

…and happened on THE MISSING PIECE.

                                                           ***

Allow me to explain.

The authors, Bruce Fisher, Ed.D, and Robert Albright, Ph.D., explain that, when we don’t get good parenting as kids, we have pieces of our personalities that didn’t grow into an adult state of maturity. That at some point in our lives and in our marriages, those parts “wake up” and start trying to grow from that child stage they were arrested at when our parents, for example, started drinking all the time. They cite several examples of areas of the personality where people often “wake up” and start to need to grow, but the one that caught my attention was this area called, INDIVIDUATION.

Or, as the authors explain it, the need to establish ourselves as independent people by rebelling against the rules parents, family, and society made for us.

When you grow up codependent, the message from parents and family is that thinking for yourself and appearing as you really are is WRONG. We’re not supposed to be, think, need, feel, believe, act, or appear in any way other than what parents and family want.

And this isn’t healthy. We’re US. They’re them; we’re US. We were born to be us, and we need to be us.

We can’t be that perfect little automaton that looks to others and says, “What do you want? I’ll be that so you’ll love me!” forever. Little kids are like that. And this is a normal stage of childhood development.

Did you know that? Before this, I didn't! 

I remember being like that. Remember when I wrote that even my mother’s favorite color was my favorite color? I so desperately needed her approval that I became her clone. And she DEMANDED that I be her clone. (And, sheesh, so did my dad before he died! No wonder I was so fucking messed up!) And that was how I ended up in the wrong career, which I will pay for til the day I die.

A lot of authors write about this human need to individuate, but only these people actually break it down into stages, and explain why the stages are and how the stages work. (Well, you see it a lot in books on parenting, but not in books on adulthood!) 

They explain that you start out in what they call the “shell” stage, which is what I’ve just described above. The stage in which you need, need, need your parents. You need their love. You need their approval. You need them to think you’re just swell and to say nice, affirming things to you. You need it so badly you will twist yourself into ALL kinds of pretzels to get it. You’re like a puppy. 

“Lovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme!”

That’s the “shell” stage. They named it that because the person is living out of a shell that's carefully constructed to reflect what close others want, and only what close others want.

Then you enter what the authors call the “rebellion” stage. You’re tired of being told what to do and you want to think your own thoughts. Only…you don’t know who you are yet, so all you can do is resist what others are telling you to do.

I did this as a very young child, when I was about five. My dad was a very mathematical, machine-oriented, technical type of person, and he achieved recognition and a career through this. He was determined that I would be him. My mother painted. She was an artistic kind of person who loved animals. This nature felt more like my own, so I sided with Mom and rebelled against Dad.

Unfortunately, in siding with Mom, I wasn’t really being me. She was borderline and felt very badly about herself, and she needed me to be EXACTLY like her to validate herself. So, although I thought it was me…it wasn’t. When I started to figure out it wasn’t, and I started to have likes and dislikes and want to do and think things that weren’t her, she got angry with me. I actually believed for a while that I was a bad person because I might like a different career than the one I said I wanted since I was four!!

AND I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WAS UNHEALTHY. I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE WHO WAS BAD. LONG past the age when most people have already figured this out. I once had a professor who tried to point this out to me. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about!

Then I had to move into healthy rebellion against Mom. “That’s you, this is me. I’m different, my own separate person.”

In sick families, we’re told this is bad. And that’s what codependency is.

So those are the “shell” and the “rebellion.” You still don’t know who YOU are yet. “Shell” thinking completely ignores the fact that there is a SELF who is a PERSON, and who IS SUPPOSED to be honored. "Shell" thinking is codependency. The "rebellion" stage...well...

Then the authors describe the last stage, which they call the “love” stage.

That’s when you figure out who YOU really are and what YOU really want, and you move toward those things realizing it’s okay for you to be who you are and that there’s nothing wrong with it. That it’s healthy to be and appear as the healthy you that all people are.

Then you can make choices based on the fact that it really is YOU, and YOU really want to. 

Then you are making choices, when you do things for other people, out of true love for self and others, and you do not do what strains you. You choose what you truly are comfortable with, and can give to others out of fullness, because you're making sure you aren't hurting, and that your tank is full, too. Note the word, too. Not instead, too.

Sometimes two sets of needs can't be met at once. That's when the healthy person takes a hard look at how much pain HE HIMSELF is in, and makes the considered decision: "I can't honor both your needs and wants and my needs and wants. In this case, since you are not a child or a helpless sick or elderly person, and I would be greatly injured if I put your needs above mine, in this case I choose to place my needs above yours, and take care of myself instead of you. And I do this with regret and no intent to hurt you, only to save and protect myself."

Sorry. That was long-winded.

But it’s not the point. It’s background information leading UP to the point.

The authors present these stages with a chart that looks like this. (I’m reprinting it. So sue me.  Although, I did add a few myself, for purposes of clarity.)


SHELL BEHAVIOR

Compliant, obedient                          

Feels obligation                                  

Consistent, predictable                     

“What should I do?”                          

“Take care of me.”                            

“You’re everything to me.”             

“I only want you to be happy!”      

YOU only and never me.   

REBEL BEHAVIOR

Self-centered, selfish            

Blames others 

Unpredictable

“If it weren’t for you!”

“I’ll do it anyway!”    

Chooses an affair-like relationship outside of the marriage to discuss personal issues; doesn't really want to, but may have an affair. 

ME only and never you!

 "LOVE STAGE" BEHAVIOR

Self-enhancing AND respectful of others

Flexible and responsible

Learns from mistakes (BIG one!)

"I’ve considered the alternatives.”

Choices, not obligations.

Works at self-awareness

Works at self-acceptance

Balance of self and others in decisions.            

I CAN choose you, but only if it doesn’t truly damage me to do so.

And now…

                                                     

(The POINT, next week!)