A Love Letter

But what I realized last night, lying in bed, profoundly grateful for my niece's generosity but deeply saddened by and ashamed of my need, was that I was not truly receiving the gift. And I don't mean the gift of money, though that was nice, I mean the gift of her love. I was accepting it, but I was not taking it truly into my heart. And I thought, Diana is very smart, profoundly honest. She must love me for a reason. She isn't the kind of person who would just love me because she is supposed to, because I'm her aunt. She loves me. ME. Just as I am, warts and all. She loves me the way I love her and her brother and sister. I love who they are. I love their special, individual selves. I love the reflection of my sister in their beings. I love the evolution of them from tiny babies into unique adults. I don't think there is a "why" to that kind of love. It just is. I love the feeling I have when I think about them. Matt and Cindy - my sister's other children - are a little embarrassed by me, I think - their weird, fat aunt who doesn't work or go outside makes them a little uncomfortable. I don't mean that they don't love me. I think they do. And of course there is a good chance that I am just projecting my own discomfort about myself onto them. I don't know why I don't put that projection onto Diana. Perhaps because she goes out of her way to reassure me. In any case, the point I'm trying to get to - roundabout to the last - is that I hold that shame about myself up around me like a shield, as though love is something to be feared or earned or... I don't know what.

Some of the resistence is probably from lessons my mother taught me about vanity. She did not approve of self-approval. She considered it to be vanity. To be proud of yourself was grandiose or shameful. To like something about yourself, to feel good about yourself is vanity and vanity is a sin and sin is bad. To feel good about yourself is dangerous. I don't think my mother ever said that, but it was there in between the lines, in her body language, in silent

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic