The scars never seem to stop being sensitive.

I feel empty.

Then comes the pain.

And the reminders that it has never really felt like anyone loved me as much as I wanted to be loved. 

I know that sounds selfish, perhaps a little silly, but tonight I don’t care. I know God loves me like that, but it is so rare to feel it so strong, so tangible as to be undeniable. I get emotional, and no one knows what to say. People call me, talk to me, and ask for my help because I always seem to know what to say. You know why I know what to say? Because I work at it. I search and find the words, because words are important. If I start crying everyone gets nervous and all I hear is the sound of my own sniffles (and crickets). Every.Single.Time. I make people nervous by suddenly needing someone else to have the words.

My parents divorced when I was 10 and strangely enough for 1980, my mother agreed to give custody to my father.* That’s it, one day my mother lived with me and the next day she didn’t. No more seeing her every day or talking to her every night. No more of her cooking dinner or taking care of me when I was sick. There were no cell phones or social media websites to stay in constant contact. It was all distance, confusion and silence. And even though the visitation arrangement was pretty standard (every other weekend), that was never consistent. (Don’t be too quick to judge what I haven’t told you yet.) There are a multitude of reasons for all of that and it’s all been discussed in the family, dealt with, and forgiven. Blah blah blah. But none of that changes the fact that it happened. It created pathways and understandings in my brain that are damn near impossible to destroy; hence the sensitive scars.

Author Gary Chapman speaks of each person having a “love tank” inside that is filled with the fuel of love expressed to them in whatever love language they speak. (Read: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) Anyway I have figured out that my scars lie at the bottom of my love tank. When it empties or stays really low for a time, those scars start to smart. They itch, throb, and ache to be covered by love once again. It’s seems so hard to get anyone to understand that. I often continue to give in spite of the nagging scars and the empty love tank. I tend to stay silent and feel guilty for needing more. I tell others they must speak up. I suppose it’s time to listen to the words I speak as though they were for me.

*it’s all a really long, complicated story with lots of parts, this is just one.