I Want to Learn to Not Dread

A couple of weeks ago, I went into work 2 hours early to cover for a friend that needed to leave early. While there, there wasn't much going on, so I got to spend some time with some of the day shift labor nurses and one of our doctors. The subject of marriage came up because one of our little day shifters had just gotten set up (that day!) with an IT guy at the hospital because he came up to fix a computer on our unit. We got to talking about how it would be "okay" for this girl to marry the guy by November (her dream wedding month and a mere 7-8 months in the future) because she would have the rest of her life to get to know him. She was concerned with not knowing him well enough before marrying him. I was helping the rest of the pack encourage her in this matter, and I mentioned that she would be "stuck with him" the rest of her life so it would be fine! The doctor, who just so happens to be the one I have the most contention with on the unit, then point blank asked if I was married. I responded that I am not, and he told me that that is the problem with our culture today, we don't see it as getting to be with a particular person. Instead, we see it as being stuck with a person.

Of course, I use words that I don't mean. Usually it is for comedic affect or to diminish the seriousness of the situation. That is was I was doing, but this guy already doesn't like me so he used it as a time to take a bit of a jab at me.

Honestly, I want to begin to not dread things so much. But, for as long as I can remember, I have learned to dread things so that I don't get my hopes up to merely be let down. It's a pattern I can pick out in most of my early memories and it has continued on into my adulthood. I feel like that's part of why I stuck it out with those stupid boys for so long, I was hoping that thing would get better, but I was mostly resigning myself to the fact that if I just stuck it out, I could survive. I didn't get my hopes up about grad school very much, and wasn't as hurt as I could have been when I got rejected. But maybe that kept me from fighting the way I could have for a spot in the program. Who knows?

After exboyfriend, I gave up my hopes that I would have a solid, healthy relationship. I stopped hoping for a good, let alone great, marriage. And I resigned myself to a life alone. After exfiance, I was sure that my life was meant to be carried out alone. Once I started having hope again, along came frickin ex-best friend to break all of my boundaries and I was set back several milestones, again.

With each of these traumatic instances and their fallout, I get farther and farther away from even being able to hope. Along with this, I begin to dread relationships more and more. Now, I not only avoiding hope, I am absolutely terrified of what a relationship would be like, how he will take the news of my story, how life would continue on, if the relationship would continue on. I freeze when I think of what marriage would be like. When I contemplate how my abuse will effect our marriage, our kids, our time together. I wonder if marriage will be unbearable and if I will simply be a thorn in his side because of how I've learned to handle things and the baggage I bring to the marriage. I downright tremble with legitimate fear when I think of what our marriage bed will hold. What horrors I will be pulled back to, the pain I will cause him as my story continues to mar this type of intimacy between us. I wonder if these painful experiences (for both of us) will be things that we will be able to work through, or if I will regress horribly again and it will end up with all of us damaged beyond belief.

To say that I am in a place of dreading relationships is a great understatement to my current season in life.

I desperately want to find excitement when I think of what a relationship would be like. I want to imagine joy and friendship and other good things when I think of marriage. And I wish I could look forward to what a honeymoon and marriage bed inevitably brings.

I wish I could figure out how to love my body better, my whole body and my whole self. Don't think I haven't tried for most of my life. It starts to get better, then goes through extreme rough patches regularly. Now, I have a ridiculously tall, thick, iron-clad wall around my heart. I can feel it. I see it. It's next to tangible. Plus, my mind won't let me associate anything good with sexuality. Not with flirting (which I recently figured out with major help from my sweet counselor), not with dressing cute to where a guy might think I'm cute, and not with kissing or thinking about anything further with a husband. Apparently it's called avoidance... if you want to get technical. For me, however, there's a literal block and unimaginable fear associated with such things. How am I supposed to love my whole self if there are parts of me that I would't touch with a 1000 mile pole? And if I can't love my whole self, how is anyone else supposed to?



One thing I allowed myself to not dread this month/week/year, though, is my birthday. I told a couple of friends at work and they planned a whole little birthday surprise for me. We had sundae's and a cake (even though I wasn't supposed to eat cake because of the Feast of Unleavened Bread). They sang to me, told patients about me, and made me feel special all week. Then, my mom drove from Home Town to College Town (an hour to an hour and a half each way) to personally deliver a bouquet of flowers to my floor. She spruced up a beautiful bouquet of mixed flowers with an extra dozen roses, for a very specific 2 dozen that she was very adamant about. I couldn't figure out why I needed so many roses, until I got a moment to think about it. She got me 2 dozen roses because I turned 24 this year!!! Duh! Thing is, she drove all that way, was super creative by adding roses, and dropped them off without calling me to the front desk because she wanted to surprise me. Then, silly lady, she left before I could give her a hug! She didn't wait or anything!!! I called her as soon as I got out of my patients room and was presented with them from our unit secretary, and I thanked her profusely as tears streamed down my face. I don't believe I've ever felt so special as I did for my birthday this year. I felt so loved at work, my family and extended family all texted me, and a dear friend from work got me a card and went out to dinner with me before work. I allowed my friends and family to celebrate with me and it was a wonderful experience! I feel, still, so cherished.

What that tells me is that I'm learning to slowly start to open up. You know this, I'm sure. I'm the one that is the slow one to realize it. I'm able to share parts of my story instead of avoiding it completely. I'm beginning to find friends and find enjoyment instead of fear when I am with them. And I'm sure, someday, maybe marriage could be something that G-d could use as a source of joy and grace and perhaps even a little enjoyment. I pray G-d heals me in this area. I pray that I am not always so fearful, so terrified of relationships. I hope that someday I can be a success story for the L-rd. But, for right now, I'm in another heavy season, and it'll be awhile before we know how this story ends.

I'll keep you guys in the loop ;)

With love,
BA