I am taking this blogging course. Those of you that have been following along know I am computer illiterate and cannot figure how to create a blog on my own. Day 8, I was suppose to comment on four different blogs. There are many different types with many different discussions and many different stories. But there was one that really struck my heart. On Day 9, I am to write about that blog. The blog titled, “I remembered the tree and the tree remembered me”.
It started out with the subject of marital problems. I don’t know why but my heart instantly felt for the writer. I kept reading because I wanted to see if the relationship was going to be reconciled or if they would go their separate ways. I wanted to know what the tree had to do with the relationship. I do not know why that interested me when I first began to read. I guess, I was just looking for a happy ending.
As I continued to read, I was even more inthralled over her tale of a tree in which she marked with her initials. I could feel her pain, her discontent as a child, her longing to matter to someone.
I was drawn into this story because that is the way I have always felt. I often wonder if I have made a difference to someone. Have I provided any valuable meaning to their life? Did I matter to anyone? If I have, then to whom and in what way? I have always wanted to be apart of something bigger and greater than I was at that moment. I want to be someone important. I wanted to have a job that I was highly successful in; the person that everyone turned to for answers.
As a child, I was extremely shy and did not make friends easily. I just wanted to know that others knew I existed. Instead, I felt lost in the crowd; unrecognizable, invisible. I often felt rejected by people: family, co-workers, other people. I wanted someone, anyone to reach out to me so I would know they really cared. In the end, I just felt thrown away.
Oddly enough, those feelings don’t always disappear as you grow older. Sometimes, you just want others to reach out to you. I am married to the most generous, loving man. He captivates a room with his presence. He has this amazing ability to enlighten everyone with the tales of his adventures. I am often the invisible one in the corner, secretly admiring him and hanging onto every word he says; just wishing I could be like him. Wishing I had an interesting enough life to tell a story that an entire room of people would want to stop and listen.
I have family that I never hear from despite me trying to reach out to them. I wanted to bridge a past that was destroyed long ago. I grew up not really understanding who I was or where I came from. There was a whole other side of the family that I longed to know. Divorce can be a brutal thing. It is one side against the other. Kids caught in the middle. Their feelings never being taking into account when grown-up decisions are made. One parent, always loses out…yet the child longs for that parent to fight for them. In the end, the feeling of rejection is all that is left for the child. Then they are uprooted from the family they do know and tossed into a whole other family they do not know. That too ends with a disconnection and rejection. I always asked myself…who am I? where did I come from?
As for others, I just want someone to reach out to me. Instead of me making the telephone calls, sending the text, making the visits. I just want to matter to someone for them to pick up a phone or send a note.
I may never know if I have made a difference to someone or if people really ever think twice about me but what I do know is…
At the end of the day, I may still be invisible but I do matter. I matter to my wonderful husband, whom for the last 25 years, as dealt with all my childhood baggage, insecurities, and anxieties. I matter to my two sons, whom have grown into the best independent and strong men a parent could ask for. I matter to the woman that gave birth to me all those years ago. She welcomes my phone calls at all times of day or night; even if it’s just to say “I love you, Mom!”
If you ever feel like you don’t matter; just stop and take a look at the people around you. You matter to them in one way or another! Stop and think about your challenges and how you have overcome them. Those people around you were there to help you get over those hurdles. Remember, the laughs and the giggles…those people were there too! You do matter!
I do not know what ever became of the relationship with author and her husband writing about the tree. I do hope that it was a happily ever after ending!
Revealing Character True 