Insecurity rears its ugly head

I’m still happy that my daughter and her son have reconnected.  Insecurity is starting to creep in, though.  I guess I should have expected it, but I didn’t.  I’m all scared that now that they have each other again, neither will need me anymore.  I don’t WANT to believe that, and they’ve given no REASON to believe that…I guess it’s old patterns haunting me.

Lately, I’ve been trying hard not to text or call my mother.  This does have a bearing on what I wrote above. 

A lot of rough things have happened to us in the last few months, and when I reached out to my mother, I was rebuffed.  People tell me I am a grown man, I shouldn’t need my mother so much anymore.  Where were these people when Mama needed Memaw til the day Memaw died?  What is so different about my needing Mama?  But again, she has distanced herself so much, and it hurts like hell.  I guess that’s why I feel insecure about Nathaneal and Tiffany.  They have each other, no need for middle-man Herman anymore.  They haven’t given me any reason at all to think they’ll react that way, and I feel guilty for it, but I’m terrified that, once again, I’ll find out that I don’t really matter.  After all, if my own mother can let go of me, act as if I’m not really here…what makes me think

I don’t like this, and it makes me not like ME. 

All I ever wanted was to feel important to someone.  K, let me correct my thinking here and now.  I KNOW I’m important to Elisabeth and Bug.  No doubt about  that.  I have a strong feeling that Nathaneal loves me as much as I love him….but his circumstances are so different….he’s been separated from his mother for a decade, and they’re not separated (entirely) anymore.  I WANT to be okay with giving them each space and time to get to know each other.  Jealousy may be a part of it, though I’d prefer to think I wouldn’t be jealous of my child and her child.  It may be so, though.  I don’t want to feel like I’m not as important to them as I was before.  I don’t think that’s QUITE the same as jealousy, but if it is, then I am guilty.  And I don’t want to be guilty.  I just want my family to be happy, close, whole, and TOGETHER…emotionally, if not physically.  

Sometimes I want to go back in time and obliterate anyone who caused me to doubt myself so much.  Other times, like right now, I know it wouldn’t make any difference.  I might have doubted myself, anyway.  And this is really NOT about me…gotta convince my stubborn brain and heart of that.  This is about my beloved daughter reconnecting with her long-lost, beautiful, loving son.  He has been so anxious to get to know his mother, and not one day has ever gone by that she didn’t miss him.  That in itself would make me happy even IF I were to be put out of the picture somehow.  

It’s not about you, Hermy.  It’s about your babies.  Be happy for them.  You’ll survive, and you’ll be happy, because what you want most in this life is for your family to be happy.

Yes.