I'm trusting everyone to carry on...
Wasted away yesterday mixed between self-pity and numbness and depression and mostly on the pause button. Knocked off my feet by a couple of words. Trying to understand what boundary I might have crossed by texting Jackson for the first time in more than a week (as opposed to just waiting for her to text and responding to her texts). Likely she (and you) would say I am overreacting... and I know she does not think of the deeper meaning of her words too often... and I was probably just in a very vulnerable mood because I was so happy and bouncy and in a child-like state just waking within my unconditional love bubble where I sometimes forget the world does not love unconditionally the way I do... and my reaction to a life without biological family is very misunderstood by most humans... I just never thought, after all these years, that she misunderstood me.
I have no biological family. So I adopt people as family the way I was adopted into family. It is the only definition of the word family I have ever experienced for myself. As a young child and even through my teens, I used to be sad and jealous of others who had actual biological families. I chose to insert myself into others families and become a surrogate family member all through my childhood. I was the brother from another mother for a few different families during my first twenty years in this life. I thought I was doing that with Curly, but that ended in disaster as he was too insecure to deal with my unconditional love. It appears that Jackson, even after ten years and being invited to family gatherings and with her parents and siblings and taking care of her financially and emotionally more unconditionally than most biological families care for each other, stepped back from that bond. No family. No BFF. No more.
What prompts this lament is a simple text exchange. First, in case I did not clarify (because I don't like writing this possible reality because I keep wanting to believe it is not true because I want to keep believing in her heart and her words), I stopped reaching out to Jackson a few weeks ago. For years she was the go-to person in life for me - for anything - and I was the same go-to person for her. When she needed anything, I was there. When she needed a place to live, we moved in together. When she needed a ride to Maine to follow a dream, I drove. When she needed a place to live when she returned here six months later, I picked her up and drove her back and she moved back in. I stayed in the two bedroom apartment in case she needed to come back. When she fell in love, I stepped back and cheered her relationships. When they ended, I was there for whatever she needed. So we were family the way family ought to be, or so I thought. And so she said. I was the big brother she never had. I was her BFF. Her words, again and again, BFF.
Now we agreed, after she fell in love this most recent time and decided to move in with Brandi, that this was it. This was the relationship that would last. It was time for me to step back. My neediness because I lost my job and depleted my savings (taking care of her for years) was very inconveniently timed and I asked for too much time in text. Mind you, texting, as we've hardly seen each other since she moved this year. I doubt we've gotten together 10 times and each time was less than an hour over a meal (which I really should not be spending money on) or when we meet in a parking lot like when she dropped off her laptop (and I am still very grateful for that).
I did reach out too much in text. During work hours, especially. I had no one else I trusted with the fears of homelessness and the medical news and other challenges this year has been bringing. Curly and Excel did not have the time or interest and I decided I was not in a good place to try to trust another else). So a few months ago I stopped texting as much as I had and in the past month or two I stopped telling Jackson about the medical issues and the daily challenges and in the past month I stopped initiating texting. Until about ten days ago, I would get a "Nite nite love ya" text every night and I'd text back the same - sometimes I'd text it to her if I went to sleep earlier (which was rare). It was sweet and really gave me the sense that someone in this world cared about me and I loved that she initiated it all year.
All the while I've been pulling back on anything about me. For the past week or so, I just respond. I respond with just a few cheerful words, smiley faces, hearts, and love - mirroring what she would send to me, trying not to babble on (as I occasionally do as you may have noticed now and then).
Not wanting my shorter response-only texts to misrepresent the unconditional family love I thought we shared and waking up in a wonderfully unconditionally loving the whole world mood, I sent this:
I can completely stop initiating texting and only respond as I have for more than a week but that might trigger a little insecurity about whether I am mad at you or something sometimes so I decided to text just this once to say hi I love you little sister just so you know I do even when it is not just a response or when I don't text 😊 Hope that is ok 😇 Make today fun and focus all of you on you and Brandi 😁
She responded almost immediately in two texts with this:
No worries. There's no insecurity. We need to set some boundaries. 😊
Have a wonderful day friend! 🐸
I did not ask her what boundary I crossed with my first text in more than a week. I sense the boundary is using a family word, little sister. She used to turn to me for everything and we were family. She called me the big brother she never had. Words. She used to text me and leave me notes using BFF constantly. She said we were BFF. Now we are not. I thought the second F in BFF meant Forever. I thought we really were family. It hurts.
Sigh.
So I accept what is. Money can't buy love or family or friends. Neither can time. All the years I give to others does not give me anything everlasting like families have. I still enjoyed the giving, caring for others, and even though I am alone and the giving drained me of savings and the ability to live independently (or care for anyone else), I will do it again next chance I get. I will believe again, albeit maybe less, because that is who I am. Just maybe less. I shall move on, farther on, and find myself as I've always been, alone in words and music.
Anyway that's how it seems, it's hard to tell.
Maybe people only ask you how you're doing
Cuz that's easier than letting on how little they could care
But when you know you've got a real friend somewhere
Suddenly all the others are so much easier to bear.
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