What I really want to say is --

What I really want to say is –

You haven’t really failed me, you know. I realize that it may seem so because I’m so down on you all the time, telling you all the things I wish you were instead of praising and expressing my gratitude for everything that you ARE.

What you ARE is courageous, forgiving, and patient – especially with me. You keep plugging even when I’m sure you can’t move another step, you demand next to nothing and complain very little when you don’t get it. I know I’m not good to you. I try, but -- ?

Why do I keep running the negative-hyper-critical script through my brain 24/7? That’s a lifetime of listening to and watching our parents and older sister, my friend – another ingrained habit I’m working to dispel. Your brain is a good one. It’s full of creativity, laughter, and compassion. You shared the humor gene with Uncle Bill, who absorbed a lifetime of negativity in addition to the alcohol and tobacco that officially killed him. Was it the booze, the cigarettes – or the constant feeling of never being good enough? Did he ever feel as though he belonged? Was he ever able to sit on his front porch after supper and tell himself that he was okay, that he mattered to the world, that he’d done a great job in this life, made a difference to one person or to one of his many strays? Did Bill ever do that, or did the negative scripts programmed into his brain eat away at him until he just let go?

He mattered to me.

I hate the word ‘should.’ Don’t you? It just screams failure before you even leave it and tack on what all those critics – including you yourself – tell you that you ‘should’ be doing. Work harder, make more money, lose weight, be ‘nicer’ and tick off every single chain-link on that endless ‘good girl-do’ list until you’re as bound and deformed as a geisha’s crippled feet. Can’t make the end of the list? Ever? Well, you SHOULD.

Unhuh. Tell me more. Wait, I have to grab a big spoon for the ice cream.

I talked to my niece Kathy last night. She’s overwhelmed, stressed, and feeding herself the same negative script. There it is – third generation that I know about – the endless ‘should’ and ‘good girl’ lists chomping down on another good person who deserves far better than what she’s being given right now. She’s scared of losing love again, of watching her husband walk away from her just as her father did when his heart gave out ten years ago. She’s scared. She doesn’t understand what she’s done wrong, how to go about ‘fixing’ it, and most of all why she’s somehow still not good enough. So she allows her frustration to fuel her angers, pushing her to lash out at others when she’s really screaming for help.

Been there. Can’t tell her exactly what to do it’s up to her to grab the guilt-cutter, hack away the chains of ‘should’ and shove everything else aside. All I can do is listen.

Remember.
Remind myself of what it was like.
How far I’ve come.
How far I have yet to travel.
How every day, every hour, every second is a new beginning.


What I really want to say is – I appreciate you. You’re a body to be proud of. You have a brain that works well. You have a heart that’s still wounded and hiding away, but I’m trying. No more ‘should’ or ‘good girls do…’ taking the place of what’s real and true and mine.

You’re MINE – and I’m grateful.

I’m working on the love thing, working to reprogram the lifetime-till-now script and revise the definition. Accepting love from others means first embracing love from within myself. I know that.

I’m trying.

What I want to say is --