Wanting to be rescued

I sat on the ledge of a hill a couple nights ago looking at the darkened sky and watching fast moving cars below wiz across Pacific Coast Highway. I was crying. I felt alone, hurt, sad and confused.

My feelings were real. Someone I cared for had disrespected me. And yet the intensity of these feelings seemed over the top, seemed irrational. I put the weight of another person's actions on my shoulders and allowed it to affect my happiness.

My friend did something that hurt my feelings but instead of logging the injurious act in my head and speaking about it with him the next day, I chose to walk away from a group of about 30 loving, caring friends who had gathered to enjoy the night's nature and I chose to allow the darkness of my insecurities to seep into my conscious. I chose to listen to the voices in my head telling me, "Your friend doesn't really care about you. It's probably because you are too needy. You know, you are too needy. You're so fucked up inside. Why would anyone care for you? You're broken. You're weak. "

The voices in my head were bitter, angry, hurtful, and deeply, deeply painful. I sat on the ledge of this hill, wishing and hoping that my friend would return for me. My ears cranned to hear his walk and to hear his accented, "hey" but there were no sounds. Only the silence of the dark and the maddening mind chatter of my insecurities screaming to me that I was a weak, pathetic loser. I felt inadequate and needy. And I felt so alone.

Somehow, someway dependecy had creeped into my heart. I couldn't move. I wanted my friend to rescue me from this loniliness. I didn't know how to do it myself. I didn't know how to move away from the darkness of my insecurities. Somehow, someway, I had given him power over me. He didn't know it. God knows, he wouldn't want it. But somewhere in my subconscious a little girl voice said that I needed a man to rescue me.

Giving my power to a man.

It is this action which contributed to the demiss of my 17-year marriage. Even my husband tells me now that he had never wanted to be my rescuer. And here I was recreating the same role again. I wanted someone to rescue me.

The sad fact is that my self-esteem can not stand on its own. It is dependent on the approval of a another -- usually a man. When my friend did not return for me, my self-esteem plummeted and my insecurities flowed to the surface. I did that to myself. I sat there wanting to be rescued instead of simply taking care of myself. I chose to go off alone and wallow in my hurt, instead of surrounding myself with people who genuinely cared about me.

I chose to sit in the cold and cry and feel insecure. Why? Because I am not strong. I am just out of a marriage of nearly two decades. I am floundering now. I am vunerable. I am scared. I don't want to be alone. I have the same insecurities that I had before I married my son's father.

My weakness, my reaction to being alone, my intense self-doubt atop the hill that night made me realize the dangerous game I am playing upon my heart. I will never truly love another until I love myself. And I can't love myself until I experience life on my own.

It time for me to let go of my need to be rescued and to start growing up.