The Curious Case of the Rambling Rose...or...For the Love of the Under-Appreciated!

I’ve had the occasion, of late, to be a little introspective where my family is concerned. 

When we are born we are always automatically assigned a role.  Big brother, baby sister, the good one, the bad one, the sneak, the funny one.  It happens to all of us. 

My role, as I see it, is a confusion of mixed messages and disappointments.

I am the eldest girl child of an eldest male child and a middle female child.  According to a genogram, this is rife with conflict for me and my mother.  Genograms are right.

I am as different from my mother and her view of the world as day is from night.  Because of this we have little in common.  Nothing in common actually except our relatives.  If it were not for family, I doubt I would find myself in her company.

Some examples of my introspection are as follows…

My mother was recently admitted to the hospital for a major surgery.  Pre-surgery we are all allowed back to see her.  She sits in the bed, anxious and wanting it over.  Beside her sits my next younger sister, the “middle child” the “good child” and at the other side of the room is my other sister, “the baby.”

I am there too, but realize without hesitation that I do not fit there.  Why don’t I fit there I begin to think?  I can come up with no logical explanation other than that I am there by birthright…and only that.

I even write Left-Brain a text that says, “I do not fit here, I do not feel a part of them.  I am an outsider in my family.”  I feel this to the core of my “oldest child,” “disappointment child” soul.

When my mother introduces us I’ve noted that she says “my girls.”  She says it while smiling at the other two, it is never said while smiling at me.  In fact, one time at a meeting with a geneticist, she told this woman “I do not know what I would have done without my daughters (insert daughter #2 and #3’s names)" and my name was left out.

Granted, I was living in another state when she needed care.  I did call and ask if I could come up and help and was told, “no…you stay there and work we will take care of it.”  I sent flowers, I called to check, but my calls have always been stilted with her as it seems she has little to say to me.  When I speak it is all being weighed, judged and found lacking or wanting. 

There are myriad examples of how this has played out over my life, and I won’t bore everyone with a litany of those things.  Suffice it to say, I don’t fit.  I am not they. 

Yesterday, I go up to see my mother in rehab after this latest surgery.  She looked up from her bed as “the middle sister” is sitting beside her, as she’d been for days, and said “oh, hello.”  No warm welcome.  No, I’m so glad to see you.  “The middle sister” tries to step into the void.  She really does have a good heart, and I am not sure if she is even aware that she has had to be the buffer for all our lives between our mother and myself.  I think it is just a conditioned response.  She greats me with a smile and hug.

As I sit there with our mother and my sister, I speak more easily and readily with my sister.  Our mother has such an easy repartee with my sister, I find it fascinating as this is something I’ve never had or felt.  The closest thing I have to it is my relationship with my one aunt who in all reality is more pseudo mother to me in my adulthood.  Did I seek my aunt out for that role, did she volunteer?  Either way it just worked out that way.

As I sit and ponder my thoughts on how again, I don’t fit, in walks my brother-in-law, husband to the “middle sister.”  I watch the face of my mother.  Her eyes light up, she smiles and says his name in love and happiness.  In walk their children, again, warm glow and a genuine happiness in seeing them.  I am not jealous of them, I am happy for them and curious as to why it is not the same for  me.

I think again…I do not fit.

It is not really the fault of my siblings that this happens, however, as that genogram shows, they see me through the prism of our mother’s view of me, and that does color their view slightly on me.  I agree with this wholeheartedly. 

What would it take to make her smile at me that way?  I have no idea, and at this age I believe it utterly impossible to happen.  I think our roles were set from the day I was conceived. 

I am me.  I am the eldest daughter of a middle daughter, who herself was the middle child of an eldest male child.  She was mistreated by the her father, she didn’t like him much.  What she felt for him she felt for me despite my having nothing to do with her feelings or her treatment by him.

Here I was, going to a hospital to sit with people who would not care if I were not there or not, here I was with a basket of special goodies I knew our mother would love, a gorgeous flower, and the gift of my heart.  It didn’t matter.  I do not fit.

So…why was I there, I began to ponder.  

I was there for me!  I was giving myself the future of not thinking, ‘I wish I had gone.’  I was giving myself the future of ‘they can’t say I didn’t care and was not here.’  I was giving myself the knowledge that while I don’t fit, and likely never will…I am a “good person”  a “good daughter.”

I was once in the hospital one hour away from all of them.  Not one of them came to see me, not one called, no one sent flowers.  I was there day in and day out.  Nothing.  I think this is very telling.   Why do I cross oceans for people who won’t cross rivers for me?  I’ll tell you why.  Although I am an afterthought, and although I do not fit, I like the role I know I was meant to play.  While they see me as the "trouble or troubled one,"  "the blacksheep one,"  "the backslidden one,"  "the one who married an outsider,"  "the one who didn't capitulate to what I was taught,"  "the sneaky one,"  "the one who distances themselves" I know better. I believe even they see me as "the one who doesn't fit."  

I know what I am, however...I am the “thoughtful one.”  I am the “long-suffering one.”  I am “the independent one.”  I am “the non-judgmental one.” 

 The words of a Dolly Parton song say it best for me.

The hills were alive with wildflowers
And I was as wild, even wilder than they
For at least I could run, they just died in the sun
And I refused to just wither in place

Just a wild mountain rose, needing freedom to grow
So I ran fearing not where I'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

And the flowers I knew in the fields where I grew
Were content to be lost in the crowd
They were common and close, I had no room for growth
And I wanted so much to branch out

So I uprooted myself from my home ground and left
Took my dreams and I took to the road
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

I grew up fast and wild and I never felt right
In a garden so different from me
I just never belonged, I just longed to be gone
So the garden, one day, set me free

I hitched a ride with the wind and since he was my friend
I just let him decide where I'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Just a wild rambling rose, seeking mysteries untold
No regret for the path that I chose
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbZHguOCi3Q

I just never belonged, I just longed to be gone…

I still feel this.  I feel it to my core.  I am different.  I am not the role assigned, I am me.  A wildflower.  Different than they.  I don’t believe as they do.  I don’t live as they do.  I don’t want to adhere to their rules and their notions.  Because of that, I just never belonged…and that is ok.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t see it often.  I always will.  

It doesn’t mean that not fitting doesn’t make me uncomfortable, it does…or perhaps me being different makes them uncomfortable and I feel it.

I know my God loves me, as is.

I know my husband loves me, as is.

I sometimes wish I fit better.  Especially when sitting in a room and seeing I do not.  I then remind myself, however, that doing this is for me, pick my chin up and be myself.  If I am not as good as they or as good as they want to see me... I am for me.