The sun will come out tomorrow, but today I found out that I am an orphan. Webster defines an orphan as a child who has lost one or both parents to death. Although my father physically passed away in 2004, he died that night he showed up to my grandmothers’ house around 4 am to tell me he was going away to “make money”. He was preceded in death by my mother who lost her life to drugs, emotional and physical abandonment long before I was placed in her womb. Then there was I, the orphan at my grandmothers’ house.
For 33 years I had convinced myself that the dysfunctional relationships in my family were a result of different people simply not being able to “get along”. I was oblivious to the presence of death that festered deep within the souls of those I called “family”. I cherished them more than they cared for me. The more I blossomed and tried to grow, the more the infertile soil I had been planted in tried to snuff out my roots. Is it possible for a beautiful flower to bloom in the midst of unturned soil? Yes, but the process is one that we don’t witness until the beauty breaks the ground that tried to kill it before it even had a chance to see the sun. I am that rare flower.
Many of you know my struggles internally and externally. I’m no stranger to being talked about or ridiculed publicly. I lived the majority of my life on a public stage and I never knew it until now. The realization of being an orphan came to me by surprise like a gut punch by the person you had been bullied by all year. The bully has and always been myself and the illusion of “all-togetherness” that I tried to portray in the midst of utter chaos.
As I mentioned in my literary piece I read in the 2016 Listen To Your Mother showcase, I was taken in by my grandmother after my parent’s inability to provide me with a stable living environment. Maslow’s Theory on the hierarchy of needs expresses specific milestones that must be met in order for a person to reach self-actualization. Self actualization is total personal satisfaction with ones’ life that comes later on with age equipping he/she with the ability to love and nurture others. The most basic stages before self actualization include physiological needs met in infancy, safety, love/belonging and esteem. I’m certain that my grandmother, father and mother had not achieved any of these before I came into the picture. The deficiencies of all three of my parents yielded me little to no chance at achieving my own self actualization. However, my competitive will to survive and win compels me to fight this predisposition with everything in me.
As I started to piece together some of the most damaging experiences I had encountered in my earlier stages of development that shaped and molded my outlook on the world, I recognized that I still had some healing to do. I had to admit to myself that I was not ok with being an orphan with living parental figures and that that was ok. I had to accept the harsh, but much needed words that rang in my ears and hurt me to my core. But that was ok too. I had to tell the truth about this past life I had constructed in my heart and head that was filled with mostly positive experiences that hid the darkness I had inherited by simply being born an orphan. I accepted me.
Despite what many see on the outside, my life has been very short of a cake walk. The moment I decided that I wanted to obtain my self actualization, I’ve been met with numerous obstacles seeking to deter and essentially make my children orphans. Today started another milestone in my journey and healing that I call vulnerable transparency. To me, this means that I am no longer harboring the pain and feelings associated with the decisions of others. I’m choosing to acknowledge, out of secret, that those experiences damaged and changed me. It hurts and is very unpleasant. I even feel sick to my stomach. But I FEEL. I’ve been numb for far too long allowing more and more hurt to ensue without the ability to process any of it. Annie said it was a hard knock life, but damn this is ROUGH.
This is one of the very few pictures I have where my grandmother is smiling genuinely. When I ran track, she always had a big smile on her face when I would return to my seat after competing. Every piano recital ended with dinner and flowers. School accomplishments were praised without regard. I’m sure she was very proud of me and I reveled in that. Anytime I did what she wanted me to, that big smile would be waiting to greet me. I’m sure this is when I became a people pleaser and deathly afraid of disappointing others. When I decided that I wanted to be happy and live for me, our “relationship” changed permanently and that smile soon dissipated. I think she is struggling with aging, many unfulfilled desires and her own unhealed pains. I still love and respect her nonetheless. I wish her life had been different long before me. Maybe she would have been able to see in herself what I admired in her all along. Maybe this is what needed to happen to help me grow into what I was meant to be. Maybe………
organizedchaosdeconstructed 