I’m feeling much better now, I’m not one to pout and sulk.
Decades ago I read a short book called “Love” by Leo Buscalia. Pretty much it teaches how to love unconditionally without any expected return. Life without love is sad and not really living.
Some people are not capable of love, true love, their love is conditional.
I can give my love unconditionally. You can hurt me deeply, but I will continue to love you.
Some people though like Snoopy and JJ don’t deserve my love, so I will not waste it.
Some people love others, that don’t deserve it. I see this also, but at least the giver is capable of love, even though not deserved.
Anyways an interesting spin on love. Kinda rare now-a-days.
In the end you get what you give…
So many people love in an “extra-medium” manner, but not me.
Got a birthday message from my little brother, 1 1/2 years younger, but only a grade lower in school. My brother because of his birthday was a runt in school, and of course my birthdate is well into the school year, and research has shown that this is a big advantage.
I decided not to tell my brother about my aggressive Cancer. My love for him is to protect him. I don’t see telling him being of any benefit to anyone involved. I put him first, and I want him to be happy. This is love. This is true love. I put him first.
I also did not tell him of our older sister’s passing. She died of Cancer, and in her case I believe it likely was uterine Cancer. About 30 years ago she underwent surgery for fibroids, her uterus was riddled with them, and it was so bad that she resembled being 3 months pregnant.
She had no children, but she wanted to remain fertile even though she was of an age where child bearing would be dangerous or impossible. She wanted to remain an intact woman, and it likely ended up costing her life. My sister was 5 years older than me, so at 71 she was “Maggie’s” age when she died.
I found out through my niece, I’m estranged from my two older brothers and my deceased older sister. We didn’t grow up together. My younger brother and I were in Foster Homes for a decade, so no real bonding happened.
Then there was survivor’s guilt that separated us that compelled our older siblings to hurt us further by pushing us away and excluding us. My sister first was abusive to my younger brother and then separately and later me. My younger brother and I made them feel bad about themselves.
We were disturbed angry kids, we were left alone to struggle alone, and it was clear we were messed up kids for good reason. They had to know we were abused kids and experienced horrors. They had to know bad things happened to us.
So on one hand we were abandoned and left in a destitute situation. It was neglect, not by the government, or Foster Partents, but by family.
But on the other hand, being 5, 9 and ten years older, they were adults when I was 13 and had to be a man. So blood has no meaning here, but I also have the love and the capacity to see that they could of done things differently and do better, but I also can see they too were too young also to do very much.
That is what I call love, but of course this is one sided… this love and this understanding.
In Foster Care my younger brother suffered great abuses. The anger and rage embodied in him is scary, and there is great potential for evil is all I can say. Out of the decade we were institutionalized only three of those years were we in the same Foster Family. It was not a good one…
My younger brother was hospitalized from abuse early in his life, and he was given his “last-rights” because he was not expected to live.
Out of the 5 offspring I kinda was the pick-of-the-litter. I had the fine features and the looks of my mother, and I was a painful reminder of the mother they lost. I did not know my mother, only the shell of a woman destroyed by electroshock therapy and Thorazine.
My older siblings projected upon me that I would be the one to carry the legacy of mental illness in our family, but my mother really likely just had what they call today Post-Pardon depression.
I realized this, and of course our relationships were loaded, fraught, and charged. Pretty much one-side, and pretty much unlikely to be healthy ever. I withdrew for the better of everybody. I understand their pain.
This too is an act of love even though they don’t deserve it.
Realize at one Thanksgiving my oldest brother told me my mother had a breakdown before I was born and she recovered, “Then you were born,” he said. I was standing in his kitchen in his house as his guest when basically he is kinda saying that I should not have been born.
I stood there waiting for him to realize what he said in an off-the cuff manner, and basically controlled my rage. He stood there in silence. Maybe he was scared for his life, because I could of ended him there, but I said, “Thanks,” and walked away.
This is not love. Blood does not matter.
There is a quote, “If you love something, set if free, if it returns, it is yours, but if it doesn’t it never was.”
In high school there was a poem written in one of my text books signed “A.”
“Alone is one, never two, always looking and longing for love, and someone leaving.”
Fact is I am a man of passion. I don’t do “extra-medium,” but I know how to live passionately to be fully alive, and I know how to love, even if it is one-sided.
Perhaps this explains why I am a loner…
Cal