I’ve been pondering my attachment to the past a lot recently.  The last of my belongings from my former home were delivered last week.  It was a long time coming and I opened each box with anticipation, looking for certain items that I was sure would be there.  Alas, two treasured books were missing … and I mourn them.

Through the twists and turns my life has taken since 2006, I’ve experienced a lot of loss.  One would think that it would get easier to shrug it off but the memory of these things, and the loss of them now realized, sort of makes me sad.

All of the stories that my readers have so generously shared at this site have been heart-wrenching to read.  The demonic behavior of Narcissistic people in our lives can shatter every belief we’ve ever had about Love.

Eventually, we all begin to seek answers so we can heal.  This is the core of human-ness that causes us to want more than mere survival.  Transformation and recovery from a Narcissistic Relationship takes courage … and belief.

In self-dialogue, I frequently hear my questions about what it is that I’m searching for now.  It isn’t a person, place or thing.  It is this:

The belief in life that I had in youth
The belief that I can make a difference
The belief in happy endings

And there you have it … the quest for a happy ending.

It’s that time of year again.  We’re supposed to be festive and joyful.  Our families and friends bring us close and we’re all cheery, right?

I recognize that attitude is everything.  Every day I have a choice about how I respond to stimuli in my environment.  I can choose to meander off into emotional gloom or sunshine .  Aside from the holidays, it is very easy to flush my feelings of disappointment down the drain and recenter my inner peace.

It could be the fact that a friend of mine died suddenly just before Thanksgiving.  She was younger than me.  It could be that her death reminds me of unaccomplished dreams and goals in my life.  It could be that I miss my mother … whose death and funeral memories are all tangled up in the final betrayal that I experienced at the hands of a Narcissist.

Although I take full responsibility for every choice that has brought me to the life that I know today, I continue to stumble over the hurdle labeled acceptance.  Accepting responsibility for one’s part in a drama is very different than accepting the disappointment that resulted from those decisions.

This is a movie that Julia Roberts starred in.  Although she excels in roles like this and I truly admire her skills as a performer, I didn’t rush to the movies to see it.  I guess I’ve become weary of the formulaic predictability of most romantic comedies.  As some of us know, real life is not all that predictable.

Thanksgiving is a holiday of note in the history along the path into my relationship with a Narcissist.  The first time he invited me to a family holiday meal was Thanksgiving.  I wept with joy at his invitation and played the voice mail message again and again to make sure that there was no mistake.  I may even have the recording of that voice mail message somewhere on my hard drive but I don’t listen to it anymore.   He knew that my previous lovers had not included me in their family gatherings.  That is why his invitation meant so much to me.  I really felt that I had arrived in his life.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video from a show that he watches called Mad Men.  It was a clip from an episode called The Wheel and it was quite touching.  Here is the meat of the quote that I found online:

Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.

Considering our memories as sort of a time machine, is completely apropos.  When we are reflecting on our pasts, we are catapulted into it.  Sometimes it is the way a sunbeam crosses the trees or a song, maybe even a smell, that stimulates memories.  Once they are stirred, we have to revisit those experiences whether they are delightful or painful to recall.

I’m a big fan of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion show.   There is a segment of each broadcast entitled News from Lake Wobegon, wherein Garrison pokes fun at Minnesota styles and behaviors.  Similar to Monty Python’s jesting about the Masons, Lake Wobegon news pokes fun at religious sects.

This week’s program was live from the Minnesota State Fair.  This is an annual program that I truly enjoy because it is a great fair and, by reports from folks in other parts of the USA, perhaps one of the largest in the entire country.  During the Lake Wobegon portion of the show this week, Garrison Keillor explained the reasons why someone should not hire Lutherans (I’m just paraphrasing and truly do not mean to disrespect to any Lutherans among my readership!) as competition judges at the fair in his segment of the show.  He said:

It’s in scripture!  The last shall be first, the first shall be last.

You are quietly coasting back an forth in the gentle summer breeze on your porch swing, deeply engaged in conversation with your partner.  The warmth in the air mirrors the glow in you are feeling inside, until they casually use a confidence you’ve shared with them in jest.  Your partner studies your reaction.  You feel the clutch in your stomach, for their remark seemed more cruel than funny, but you don’t know how to respond.

It’s a turning point you will only recognize as a Narcissistic attack after the relationship has ended.  At the time, you whisked away your intuition and wrote it off to a joke at your partner’s suggestion.  How many more times did you do that during the duration of your narcissistic encounter?  How many turning points did you choose ignore?