I’ve spent a lifetime apologising for needing. Well, almost.
I think it started around the time I was 9. Around the time I looked up and
realised that Life was pretty much up to me Now. The other people, the
grown-ups, well they were either preoccupied, overwhelmed, or simply stopped
paying attention. At the time I kind of liked the independence and the
possibilities of flying under the radar. 50 years later, well, NOT so much…
To BE honest, I’d thought this prompt NOT applicable to Me.
Now, I am NOT saying I’m above this or even anywhere close to BEyond it, I’m
just saying this is what I thought. At first. Even still a little bit Now. I
was just fiddling about with my thoughtsandfeelings about BEing sorry, saying
[or, in my case, writing] I’m sorry
BEcause I really wasn’t hearing myself say it.
I have been kicking around a predicament of my Life for the
past 16 months. The facts don’t need embellishing or even mentioning, BEcause
they are NOT the point. The point, I have Now realised, is that I don’t think I
am saying or FEELING I’m sorry BEcause,
in fact, I am living from I’m
sorry. Isn’t that a kick?!
It’s embarrassing and mildly frustrating to recognise
something when all along you didn’t know. Like finding out you’ve been walking
around with your skirt tucked into your tights. Or leaving a long voicemail at
the wrong number. But there it is: Life. You have to admit, these things make
it a little more comical.
Until I was 36 I didn’t know why I wet my pants or occasionally
the bed or had to stop so often on car rides, even short ones, but especially
longer ones. I thought I was just flawed. That though I have a pretty sharp
brain on top of my neck, there were compensations, trade-offs, or simply this peculiar
price for me to pay. When the stakes went up in that department, it REALLY got
my attention.
No matter my shame and embarrassment or ohmygodicannotbelieveihavetosaythisoutloud I spent 11 months spanning age 35 to
36 visiting doctors and specialists and having tests and BEing told it was all my way to get attention or, better
yet, all in my head… um, hello?!
Turns out, Life has a sense of humour. A good one. But me, I
wasn’t laughing. [after all, laughter was one of the surest causes for wetting
my pants!!!]
When the 4th neurologist I saw listened to my
little intro, only a quarter of the way into it he interrupted me to tell me I
have Spina Bifida. And that just made me incredulous!!! I said to him [and by
the way, he was a real sweetheart, but still…] I’M SORRY BUT BABIES HAVE SPINA
BIFIDA!!! And in case he hadn’t
realised it, I was no baby!!!
His response?! Yes,
you have had this all your Life. You were born with this. It’s just been hiding
all this time. You could have knocked me over with a feather…
All that time, all those friends and overnights and
screw-ups, the jobs I’d quit or been fired from BEcause of my uncooperative
bladder, the harassment, much of it from my own berating voice in my head, the
WHY of my son’s birth by Caesarean, despite my well-practised preparedness for
something far different…
It was one of those moments I will never forget but really
cannot wrap in words that would make sense to anyone else.
There were points along the Journey where this might’ve been
discovered, sooner, but as I said above, I was pretty much flying under the
radar and solo since my last few months of BEing 9.
I can still, nearly 23 years into KNOWING WHY, wake out of a
sound sleep and BE Sorry for needing to have someone take me and my situation
to heart, seriously. Someone to advocate for me so I didn’t have to live all
those years in shame and SORRY for needing… something… after all, I was BORN
this way, I didn’t DO anything to make it what it was.
Now, by the age of 36, one of the “good things” was that I
was in my own care. I was the one responsible for ME, and my needs. Things have
been well taken care of since that diagnosis, and today I am living a Life that
is, still, pretty much up to me and under anyone else’s radar. And when I feel
an I’m Sorry bubble to my surface Now
it isn’t generally an outward thing. It’s an acknowledgement and a sincere one
to myself, for the secrets, lies, and shame that kept me hiding my problems.
So much of my “disability” is invisible. It is heartbreak
and guilt and sudden realisations far too long after the fact to BE able to DO
anything to make amends. And it is anger that runs so deep and dark that it’s
impossible for me to stop it. I’m NOT sorry, and I AM sorry.
The sum total of my relationship history is that Now I live
alone, with my dear Golden, Gracie Mae. I love my Life, don’t misunderstand
that for one blink of a second, but I see Now that it might NOT have been the
worst thing in the World for me to have spoken up, or even to have got LOUD and
DEMAND the grown-ups to pay attention, when I was still young and vibrant
enough to “BE a kid” rather than BEing grown-up myself trying to apologise for
BEing “imperfect.”
I’m NOT sorry that I need. Whatever it is that I need. But I
still feel ashamed about it. It’s so deeply ingrained Now that I have pretty
much stopped thinking anyone else needs to BE concerned with my needing. Almost
daily I have to talk myself in off some ledge or another…
Still, I AM NOT so
sorry…
2 comments:
Wow, thank you for sharing so vulnerably, Currie. You had me at your first line. I, also, have spent a lifetime apologising for needing. Or, perhaps more specifically, wanting. Bless you, and your courageous heart!
Wow indeed is the word. Since my husband passed I have learned that everything is very fragile and that we should really cherish every day as it comes, live it to the fullest we can, be ourselves in every way we can. I am guessing that is your grandson on your knee, now you have an excuse like me to be a kid again :-).
Enjoy the much needed rain we are having
Paula in the Acreage
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