The One Where I Do Not Let Go

I am a ten year old girl sitting on the floor of my bedroom closet. It is the middle of the night. I wish I could sleep, but I cannot. I have penned poems, my favorite nocturnal activity. I have even created my own well-organized file box so I can easily refer to my hidden writings. They are my secret, my treasure, my key to survival. Without a pen I wouldn’t last. I’m a closet writer in every sense.

Tonight the poems don’t resolve my slumber though. Something is weighing on me. I feel unsettled. My future is hanging in the balance. I think of the last time I sat on the stairs leading up to my bedroom, perfectly situated above the kitchen, the venue of my parents’ arguments that are within earshot. I like to journal their heated discussions and later dissect them. I look for themes, then I look for solutions. Money, travel, adultery. I can find trends, but can I solve them? I will give my best effort.

Their marriage is so important to me. I am willing to sacrifice my well-being for it. I have a vision of family. I know what I hope for in my parents’ marriage, but the execution of those objectives seems harder than my youthful understanding conceives it to be.

If the pieces of the puzzle don’t match up correctly, what does one do? Do you rearrange, or do you decide the puzzle never would have become a clean, clear picture, regardless of all attempts at restructuring? I am not sure, but I search for answers in a song called “What’s Forever For?” by John Michael Montgomery. It’s become a favorite for this ten-year-old. I evaluate the words: “What’s the glory in living? Doesn’t anybody ever stay together anymore? And if love never lasts forever, what’s forever for? ... I see love hungry people trying their best to survive when right there in their hands is a dying romance and they’re not even trying to keep it alive.” Is that my parents? I wonder and consider that maybe it could be. I vow that I will find someone to love forever. And in the meantime, maybe I can help my parents somehow.

But I don’t know how to do either tonight. There are the fights. There are the romantic greeting cards I found tucked away in my dad’s closet. They were signed his adulteress, always with only one initial. They say personal things and I often replay the words in my mind.

Can you keep love alive when a marriage seems so crowded?

Eventually, life will move on, but even when it does, I will long remain that ten-year-old sitting on the closet floor seeking solutions.

My parents never gave me that job. They probably didn’t even know I was doing it. I got stuck troubleshooting and it would later become so hard for me to walk away when things turned badly.

I had developed a habit. I would try and try and try to make things work out. Look for the silver lining, press for the happy ending by making sure every stone was unturned. That role would create one in which I would make myself a prisoner of a bad situation, not leaving when I should.

When the relationship turned sour. When the circumstance would never work out. When the environment became toxic. When… when… when… all those whens I would not walk away from.

I rewind and can see it started even earlier in my life than age ten. I was the three year old whose hair fell out when her dad left. At that age I was not trying to solve; I was trying to merely survive.  My foundation was broken before it was formed.

I would later be labeled as having a fear of abandonment. It took me a long time (still does) to believe that’s right. But when I slow down and see my choice – to unnecessarily make myself captive – I can also see that fear of abandonment can cause codependence.

Codependence looks like me clasping my hands another around the ankles of a person who is trying to run away. For me in that pathetic moment, it feels like everything is at stake. Behaviors and words of the one trying to flee are rationalized, even distorted. I focus on the person’s potential, not the abusiveness that became habitual in the relationship. When poor logic replaces reality, fantasy reigns. The truth is that pain from childhood was not resolved during it, and I moved forward with bad habits.

It has been a long road to address it. But I try. I cannot change people. God changes people, and I am no one’s Holy Spirt. I need to bless and release them.

With this opportunity to move on, I ask myself:
- What has me stuck?
- Do I want to be stuck?
- Am I ready to make a different choice?
- If so, what is the next right choice to make?

- Will I exercise the courage to act on it?

And because I don’t do this well on my own, I pray that God will help me win this battle.

I think that’s the best I can do. I know I don’t see the whole picture, but I can find the next right choice and take my next step in faith. I can develop new habits. I can remember that even if I am scarred, I am still standing. And moving on in faith.

Love,
Clarity Mint