Oprah, a self-proclaimed champion of "live your best life" ended her 25-year talk show host reign last week with what I saw as a heartfelt and sincere lesson in living. While her life was admittedly filled with unbelievable blessings, making it sometimes hard to identify with her, she offered some good advice. In a recent interview, she noted that those individuals who are lucky enough to have been raised in families where they have been cherished and loved have the distinct advantage of starting off life with their "cup already full." The rest of us...those raised in dysfunction and pain....must spend the rest of our lives figuring out how to fill that cup.
I so identified with that comment. For those of raised by Ns, we struggle through out lives to fill our cups. But we must do so with the realization that our own families will not be a part of the process or indeed, will not have a place in that cup, at all. I have struggled with that concept and a one which I believe mirrors the process----which is to let go of hope. So often, we talk of hope in terms of a very positive trait....and it is or can be. But not being able to let go of hope, where there is none, can also be detrimental to our experience.
You would think after years of living with or raised by an N, that you would finally "get it" and let go of the hope....but sometimes hope is eternal. I was faced with this reality recently in my own N family situation. After spending 7 months caring for my ailing dad, literally sleeping on a hospital chair next to his bed every night and then going to work, chasing after nurses at 4 in the morning to get the pain meds he needed, I have found that now that he is home recovering, he has reverted back to his original self as a co-N. He and my N mom have reverted back to spending all their time, attention and effort on the Golden Child N sibling. And even though my dad beseeched me to light candles for him and pray for him while he was ill (which I did without being asked of course), he has yet to return to church. My N mom, who always made a big deal to everyone she met about how she never missed a Sunday's mass---has refused to go to church since my dad became ill. She is "punishing" God, I guess, for putting HER through the last few months. As a consequence, my dad just goes along with her. It is just one example of how he has reverted to his old co-N self. I suppose I assumed that having come so close to death, that he would have learned a lesson about what is really important in life, perhaps reflected on how poorly he treated my brother and I and tried to make amends. But he did not and will not.
I realized that as my brother predicted, they just used me during those few months. Unlike my brother, I don't regret that I cared for my dad in the complete way I did. I felt it was the right thing to do and I know I would not have wanted to be left alone in a hospital or rehab facility when I was sick and in pain. The ironic thing is I know when my time comes, that is exactly the position I will be in for there will be no one to hold my hand. But, nevertheless, it is painful and humiliating to realize that it meant nothing in the long run. As hard as it is, sometimes it's really essential to let go of hope. I am now in that space, facing that and the aloneness that comes with it. I am trying to console myself in thinking that it is they who are the sick ones, not me....but I'm wondering if that's just wishful thinking on my part? When you grow up without a voice, with no validation, it is sometimes hard to distinguish what is normal and what is not.
Even Oprah, who has so much, who has experienced so many blessings, still ended her run with a monologue that talking about growing up a "lonely, little girl" with not a lot of love. She, of course, was able to fill her cup with lots of love from others, a small, tight circle that acted as a surrogate family as well as a world-wide audience that loved her. But still, that hole in your heart left by an unloving biological family, never seems to go away.
