The Crosses We Bear
There's a phrase that goes something like, "Everyone has their own cross to bear." This happens to be one of the few age-old bits of dogrel I happen to agree with. What they don't mention is that they're usually not the obvious things we assume of others.
Let's take my darling Etienne for example. Most people would assume that his CP, his inability to walk straight or articulate his thoughts easily would be his so-called cross. It wasn't--it was his perception (and very likely it was true) that his mother never accepted him. I'm not belittling his CP, but that's more like...a secondary cross. Maybe more like a thorny crown. The point is, he was far, far more handicapped by her coldness than he was his disability. You could see it in his big blue eyes, just this unbearable sadness under the surface.
My dad's cross isn't his Parkinson's; it's his broken relationship with his parents, his inability to make peace with them and everything that happened between them.
My sister's cross isn't her obesity; it's her desperate need for any sort of affection and attention that stems from something...very likely her being overshadowed by our oldest sister.
I assumed for a long time that my cross would be my scars, everything that happened that night. It's not. It really isn't. To be perfectly candid, it's my ability to pick The Wrong Person at every turn. My adult life is nothing but a string of failed relationships because I'm blinded by charm, or pretty eyes, or...pretty fingers. Pretty words. Poison words. It's all the same. I don't think it's necessarily that I'm naive, because if anything, I'm overly cynical (See also: This whole entry.). I think it has more to do with the fact that I have huge, huge emotional needs stemming from a whole slew of hurts early in life. Invariably, there's someone that gets sucked in by my green eyes and love of having fun, real fun, and then they don't have the ability to cope with what I really need.
You're just one more failed baggage handler, babe. Take a number, get in line.
And that's the thing, is to not let your cross become an albatross. I know I'm going to fuck up; I'm going to get hurt again. But you can be for damn sure that I'll have fun along the way, and I'll have a solid grip on who I am.
Let's take my darling Etienne for example. Most people would assume that his CP, his inability to walk straight or articulate his thoughts easily would be his so-called cross. It wasn't--it was his perception (and very likely it was true) that his mother never accepted him. I'm not belittling his CP, but that's more like...a secondary cross. Maybe more like a thorny crown. The point is, he was far, far more handicapped by her coldness than he was his disability. You could see it in his big blue eyes, just this unbearable sadness under the surface.
My dad's cross isn't his Parkinson's; it's his broken relationship with his parents, his inability to make peace with them and everything that happened between them.
My sister's cross isn't her obesity; it's her desperate need for any sort of affection and attention that stems from something...very likely her being overshadowed by our oldest sister.
I assumed for a long time that my cross would be my scars, everything that happened that night. It's not. It really isn't. To be perfectly candid, it's my ability to pick The Wrong Person at every turn. My adult life is nothing but a string of failed relationships because I'm blinded by charm, or pretty eyes, or...pretty fingers. Pretty words. Poison words. It's all the same. I don't think it's necessarily that I'm naive, because if anything, I'm overly cynical (See also: This whole entry.). I think it has more to do with the fact that I have huge, huge emotional needs stemming from a whole slew of hurts early in life. Invariably, there's someone that gets sucked in by my green eyes and love of having fun, real fun, and then they don't have the ability to cope with what I really need.
You're just one more failed baggage handler, babe. Take a number, get in line.
And that's the thing, is to not let your cross become an albatross. I know I'm going to fuck up; I'm going to get hurt again. But you can be for damn sure that I'll have fun along the way, and I'll have a solid grip on who I am.