I'm Sorry For Bothering You

It’s always there on some level, all of the time, the belief that my very existence is a problem. It’s not nearly as loud as it used to be, taking up so much space in my head as it did back then, and yet it’s there, always there, and at times, the smallest thing can turn it from a murmur into a roar.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry. Pardon me. Forgive me,” as I tiptoe into every conversation where I must express a necessity, take care of my basic needs, or ask for help.

Or the opposite, me barreling my way in, ignoring my fear, and trying to dominate the conversation, pissing off everyone around me.

The middle ground is hard to find.

There is no getting over this. There is just living with it and loving myself more, evolving into a space where I can claim my right to exist and feel deserving of all that goes with it.

I can easily track the origins. It’s the injustice of living without when those around me had more than enough to help and chose not to.

“Grow up!” my mother would yell at the nineteen-year-old me, in college, barely surviving, forced to work and stretching myself to the breaking point as she made more and more money, sending me minimal support, not even enough to cover my portion of my rent, left to take care of every other basic need on my own. My father paid my tuition per the divorce agreement and that was it even though he was stockpiling cash at the time. I wore no socks inside of my boots all winter long.

It did not occur to me back then that this was wrong. I was the problem, my existence, and it was on me to take care of myself and show up for them on holidays and birthdays with gifts that I could not afford. Back then, I always asked my dad for money for Christmas and this was what I got which I then used to pay bills and buy food and to put gas in my car. God forbid I asked him for money or help at any other time of the year. His responses then were rageful and always reduced me to tears. He’d often relent a few days later and send me something small, but at that point, it felt like nothing, as I felt like nothing, less than nothing, nothing to him, certainly not his daughter, just this thing, crushing herself with shame and guilt.

My mother, well, she had me believing that he was the only one with money and that she had none, which wasn’t true. By the time I was in college, she’d been promoted, making a much higher salary that she used to support her alcoholism and all of the mental illnesses and behaviors that went along with it, buying herself more and more material possessions, clothing, vacations, artwork, and people.

“I’m never staying here again! It’s disgusting!” she shamed my sister and me when we lived together in Chicago in a cockroach-infested apartment building in our mid-twenties as this was all we could afford after she’d forced us to make Thanksgiving dinner for her there that year when she visited.

My currently dying-from-Alzheimer’s mother has left her condo to another relative (the one to whom she has assigned power of attorney and the conflict of interest in this situation is now screaming to be addressed), and my father let me know he’d be leaving his townhome to his “girlfriend” (I don’t actually know if this is true as he is famous for making declarations he never takes action on).

Our parents do not want to house us and never have.

I do not know what it is that gave me two (three, if you count my stepfather) parents who did not and do not want to take care of me. I do know that it has royally fucked me up especially where my sense of value is concerned which plays out largely as money issues.

I used to think I chose them and all of this before incarnating. I now see the fallacy in this belief. Why would I be so masochistic? What purpose could this serve other than to dim my light and make this life harder than it needs to be?

I have to deal with that relative right now, the one she’s bequeathed her condo and all her personal belongings to. She’s one of the people my mother replaced my sister and me with once we distanced ourselves due to her alcoholism and continuing abuse. This person stepped in and enabled our mother, taking anything and everything our mother offered her, including financial support.

The injustice enrages and depresses me and sends me back to my childhood, where I am again sitting at home, alone, twelve years old, in front of the TV, with a bowl of instant mashed potatoes in front of me, while everyone else is out having fun.

It is wrong, as so much of this world is wrong.

The holidays are not helping, and this moment’s astrology is making it all extra loud as Mars, Chiron, and Mercury in retrograde are showing me my wounds, Jupiter in retrograde is causing me to feel down on my luck, and Uranus in retrograde is causing the revolutionary aspect of my being to feel stalled.

I don’t have any answers at the moment.

I’m sorry for bothering you.

P.S. As always, I am not looking for advice. I am sharing this as part of my process and with the intention that this may help some of you beautiful beings out there.

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