Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Dixie Cups


I think that we are all in some way, shape, or form looking for where we need to be loved.

For years I thought that I was missing love and thought searching for the right person to be my right hand man would be the way to fix it. Unfortunately my finder was broken for many years. After much "heartbreak" I walked away from the world of deep meaning relationships and sunk deep into therapy.

Many years later I feel like I have found the man I am destined to be with and in a healthy way. I do not crave something from him but I felt an odd nagging in my bones. I dug deep and found it was family love that I was craving.

The truth is I know that due my past I have a lot of abandonment issues and they will most likely never fully go away completely.
Fast forward to last I tried to nurture a relationship with my Step-sister after a long distance that started when I was diagnosed HIV+. I blamed myself for years over ending our relationship but when it came time to re-invest I was thrilled.

I explained to my sister that I do not want to have a relationship that that was seemingly forwardly mobile and then get dropped. This seemed to happen often with the oldest of my 3 younger brothers. She assured me it would not and even went as far as to tell me that I would be the most amazing uncle to her baby she would be having within a few months later.

I was so excited when in Jan my niece was born and trying to arrange time to see them and heard nothing back. I sent a gift and to this day I have heard nothing. I beat myself up again.

I think we try so hard to build love and nurture and when not reciprocated most of feel defeated. I think that is why we crave love especially from our parents and the ones we care for the most.

Last week I had one of the largest A-HA moments of my entire life. I was listening to Dr. Laura Berman on OprahXM and she was talking to a caller who's dad was trying to etch a new place in her life and the caller was just not sure how to react and said that until she could have the apology from her father she could not be friends with him.

Dr. Berman spoke about how we all have so much love to give and that she believes most people do all they can to share all the love they have. BUT....( yes always that but in there.)She pointed out that some people only have a Dixie cup to fill while others of us have a BIG GULP.

HOLY COW!!!

This spoke so much to my soul. I thought of my mom who has struggled so much to build a relationship with her mom and after losing her father has struggled with this exact issue. My grandpa has one of those 920z big gulp of love to fill. Unfortunately, my grandma was given only a Dixie cup. It makes me sad to think of that.

I truly think we are all born with a Big Gulp and I think as we grow our experiences can nurture that cup or it can spill. It was in that moment I started to see that I have been spending so much of my time being surrounded by so many Dixie cups.
I NEED... not want... NEED to have the large cupped people in my life. The one lesson I still work through is being able to accept each person's cup and how it is not me to fix their capacity.
I think that it is time to grab my BIG GULP and run with it and let it spill and continue to stay full.