Proving My Worth Feels Inauthentic
Who is the judge?
My ex-husband is frolicking in Hawaii with his girlfriend and my children.
Yeah…things are going swell.
This is the longest stretch I’ll go without my kids. Instead of working my way through the pain, I took a week off of work. I might as well be productive, right?
I overextended myself in my planning. My phone has a checklist of tasks per day but I’ve accomplished a third of it. My procrastination taunts me, dangling a carrot of completion knowing I’ll chase but never catch.
It dawned on me today how people grow up believing they’re worthy of greatness. When good things happen, they think it’s because they’re the results of hard work or fate.
I’m trying to get in the headspace. But deep down, it feels inauthentic.
I know. I know. It’s a “fake it till you make it” situation. I have to believe as much as I can and continue drilling the point home. But even on my own, with no one watching, I feel judged like I don’t belong in that world.
Tears sneak their way to my eyeballs and I work hard to not sit in the negativity.
It’s so fucking hard to work towards bettering myself when I don’t feel like all the good things are mine to have. The good things I have in my life aren’t from hard work or fate; they’re from luck and happenstance. I was in the right place at the right time.
The problem with believing your life stems from luck is knowing they’re one-time flukes and that each stroke of luck might be the last.
It also means that the things you want aren’t things you can work towards earning. Don’t get me wrong, I have the degree and the job and all that stuff. But I know I can get laid off at any time. I know I could lose my house.
There are the things I don’t have. I’ve never felt safe in my own home (whether as a kid or a grownup) when another adult lives with me. Luck hasn’t granted me that kind of love. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to date consistently but each time I find someone I want (instead of only them wanting me while I mentally cringe at their red flags), they choose someone else. Sometimes even someone else who doesn’t exist yet.
When my firstborn was diagnosed with a chromosome disorder and developmental delays, I couldn’t help but feel jealous of parents with neurotypical, “easy” kids. While others put their kids in sports, my son was in therapy. Others could travel with their kids but we couldn’t go to Chili’s because my son would only eat pasta in the shape of wagon wheels (God forbid any of the pasta wheels broke when mixing, there’d be a Defcon 1 meltdown). I love my son with all my soul, but unless you have a special needs child, you won’t know the loss of a life you planned.
This isn’t the right mindset. Logically, I know this.
I want to feel worthy. In the past, I’d run back to my comfort zone of depression and self-hatred. I have to push through this forest of discomfort. My sixty-year-old self will look at pictures of my current self and wonder why I was so hard on myself. She’ll say she wished I had been kinder and patient with myself given the upheaval in the past two years.
I channel my energy into making my kids feel as loved as possible. It’s not easy when they think I’m a dick who won’t buy them random garbage or let them spend hours with electronics. It’s a comparison against their Disneyland Dad.
My son is entering seventh grade. That was around the time my suicidal thoughts flourished. I hated myself and my body. I had few friends because my childhood ones transferred to a new school closer to their homes. I see Ashton’s self-esteem plummeting and I want to smother him in bubble wrap as protection.
Because I’m poor but desperate to keep my kids busy, I signed them up for online classes over the summer. I signed Ashton up for a self-esteem clinic. On top of making sure my kids don’t become criminals or homeless college dropouts, my goal is to make them feel loved and worthy.
It’s gut-wrenching when my kids struggle with their self-worth. I want to lock them in a room and scream their amazingness like a psychotic act of parenting will ensure they won’t end up as I did.
This is the part where I’m supposed to say, “I deserve to feel loveable and worthy too!” I’m supposed to parent myself and give myself what I didn’t have growing up.
That’s not me.
What’s more realistic for me is to enjoy the moments where I feel neutral. I’m not rah-rah “I’m a princess who deserves the world!” but I also don’t feel like I’m a gutter rat.
The neutral moments leave me feeling chill. I’m not focusing on my value as a human. I’m focusing on tasks. They’re not necessarily tasks I enjoy; they’re activities that provide fulfillment. Sometimes, that means completing laundry.
I’m the Queen of Procrastination. While I can be a productive mofo (especially before divorce), I thrive on deadlines. Without my kids, my schedule is all over the map. Money also helps in completing tasks. I can easily buy the tools and supplies I need to finish things and do them well. Money also gets me resources. I didn’t understand the extent that money provided freedom until it went away.
I’ve been staring at this page, unsure how to end it. It’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It simply…is. Much like everything else in life, there is no magical solution. Every day’s focus is moving forward knowing that some days are a struggle.
Just some days are harder than others.