I remember back in the day when I first started going to a shrink. I was trying to break up with some hapless boyfriend and I just didn't know how to do it. Because of my "daddy issues", I had set up my life where I had all of these characters and "friends" that needed me. I was indispensable. I got people jobs, set them up with their future husbands, provided shelter, food and even designer clothing. One day when I was bemoaning my fate during a pro rated therapy session (I always manage to get some sort of deal), I went on and on about how hapless guy didn't want me to leave and how he told me how much I meant to him.
"I felt validated when he 'expressed' himself to me and said how much he wanted me in his life."
I told the shrink proudly, knowing that I must be having a breakthrough, someone wanted me around.
"That's because he needs you," the all knowing one replied.
"Well that's good isn't it?"
"You are getting your validation by being needed, that's not good."
I was stumped. Here I had a guy pleading with me not to walk out the door, and it was a bad thing because he "needed" me. The all knowing one said it wasn't based on love. Needless to say I spent the next 10 years collecting people that needed me all because I had an absentee father or whatever. These dots were way to heavy for me to connect and at the end of the day all I could do was pray. It was like untangling electrical wires in a rainstorm, sometimes I felt like I was going to die. My emotional valiance brought me to my knees one too many times until I finally gave up. I opted for the bench. I wasn't going to play that game anymore until I picked people who played by the rules. I've been on the bench for quite some time and my bench is comfortable. If I were to paint it I think it would look like a candy cane. Sometimes I get up from the bench, it is brief, I learn my lesson and I sit right back down. It is safe and it is where I should be for the time being. I read lots of great books from my bench, I write, I watch amazing movies and I have the most outrageous visitors that sit next to me. The most recent one was wild, he reminded me of my college boyfriend, a classic alcoholic, drug addict who charmed the pants off of most people. I didn't budge from my bench, I let him come and go as he pleased and minded my own business. It was so much easier this time around dealing with someone like that. I took care of myself and didn't worry about them self destructing. I didn't coddle or care take and this is when I knew I had grown. I was acting like a grown up woman, not a fatherless girl.
So the bench had been my breakthrough. Tending to my side of the street and putting myself first. No one was hurt and in fact we all had a great time. I called up that shrink from yesteryear and shared the good news.
"Keep up the good work and don't maneuver your life to fit into someone else's who doesn't deserve it."
I thought about how I loved to dance. Bending and turning and sculpting myself to be what the other person wanted. It was exhausting. It so much more glamorous to not lift a finger, to just smile and laugh. If they go there is always another knock on the door and eventually they know how to dance the way you do. If you're lucky they know how to lead. That's hot.
