Just Nobody

At 4:45 a.m. every morning, I make way up this mountain. It’s dark – and in most cases, there isn’t anyone else hiking. The coyotes are out – the howls can be heard from the bottom of the mountain before the ascent.

The trek to the top is dark, and the trail is rocky and uneven. I hike up, turn around, and come back down. On a typical morning, I repeat this three times before I finally settle at the top.

As I sit at the top, on the cliff face, in the dark, I am able to reflect upon the things that are heavy on my mind. I love being up there in the dark, because nobody else is up there. Nobody can see my tears flow heavily. Nobody can see the sadness on my face. It’s the perfect solitude.

As I sat up there today, it hit me. I am just nobody. Certainly, I am a mother to five kids. But aside from that, I am nobody. Nobody calls to check up on me. My own family doesn’t reach out to me. I don’t have a partner in my life that looks after me or treasures me. I literally am nobody to anyone.

I was in an 18 year marriage to someone that stayed with me out of convenience. Our marriage was far from what a marriage should be – in fact, it was more of a living arrangement, where I was the catalyst that helped him live a comfortable life filled with self entitlement, and fulfillment.

• He had a cook
• He had child care
• He had a house cleaner
• He had an emotional punching bag – someone to blame his bad days on
• He had a mechanic, a yard worker, and a maintenance worker to care for the house

Lastly, he had a very kind, patient, naive spouse that never questioned the late nights, absent weekends, or oddities that came with someone who was being unfaithful in the marriage.

Oddly enough are the things in the marriage that I tended to question but never acted upon my gut instinct:

• I was never introduced as being a wife
• Normal marriages celebrate anniversaries – in my case, our anniversary came and went with no mention of the day as being a day of importance
• Normal marriages celebrate birthdays – in my case, my birthday was just a regular day with no mention of it being a birthday at all
• There weren’t any romantic trips, weekend get aways or even lunch/dinner dates
• Family events were challenging – I was always assigned to sit at the kids table with the children, in the back corner of the yard or house, away from the adults
• There was no exchange of love, affection or otherwise

I grew up with very little attention from my parents, so I almost didn’t know anything otherwise. My mom was constantly put down by my father so I grew accustomed to thinking that this type of behavior was typical in a marriage.

But marriage does not involve disrespect.

One of my biggest fears in life…

…..is being forgotten about – being abandoned, by the people I love so much. I fear outpouring of love for my kids and not having that love reciprocated.

I fear loving someone who can’t reciprocate that love back.

I fear loving someone that doesn’t choose me, but instead chooses someone else.

So I isolate.

On a fundamental level, someone like myself could be considered boring – maybe not to everyone, but to the majority of people. I have learned early on in my life that most people would rather talk about trivial things that are mundane – things that don’t force them to think, contemplate or even self reflect.  I learned early on (in my early teenage years) that if I did try to talk about those type of things, that I would be shut down or isolated from the group as a whole.

As the years went by, I quickly learned that all the things I loved are/were vastly different from what normal people love. So I started to keep to myself.  I have, over time, managed to come up with a few mainstream likes and opinions on various topics so that I can hold some type of a conversation (when necessary). However, for the most part, I have learned to hide parts of myself that I knew would never be appreciated or even so much as noticed.

I learned to blend in.

Because to stand out is to be in the spotlight. And to be in the spotlight requires a lot of effort to keep up the mask of ordinary – and ordinary is not me.

I’d rather not reveal the real person I am in all of my weak vulnerabilities to be rejected for it by random people who play absolutely no part in my life.

All I desire is to keep my introverted self isolated from people, and my life private, until someone comes along that understands me. And when that day comes, it will take quite some time for me to open up. I would love for that person to discover how different/special/unique I am without me having to tell them.

• I am a private individual: most INFJ’s, like myself, are private about everything. We may keep a lot of things to ourselves – merely to save us the sting of rejection.
• Deep down, I am lonely: I have spent my entire life not being understood – especially as I grew up in my childhood. I am also very sensitive – this was always misunderstood by parents/caretakers.
• My relationships are always one-sided: I care for people deeply and more times than not, people will abuse that. My kind heart is commonly abused or taken advantage of.
• I am an idealistic person: I have high expectations of people. I have very strong moral beliefs which contradict other people’s beliefs – and I can often times find myself disappointed in the actions and behavior of others.

Isolation is part of who we are. It is part of who I am. I require that isolation to be my best self – not only for me but also for my kids.

Why does God want us to be alone?

God knows just how you feel. But he put me here at this place, at this time in my life – family and friends may have left. People turned their backs and left a huge space. God created this void in my heart that is only his to fill.

Maybe all these people came into my life just to pull me away from him. And have kept me in the dark all these years. Sometimes life becomes boring, meaningless and hard, it’s beceause I was filling it up with everything but him. And that void has to be occupied by him and him alone.

In the silence of the heart, God speaks.

Even in silence, God will speak to you.

It is only when you realize your loneliness and emptiness that God can fill you with himself. No person, no possession, no profession, no position can ever fill the cup of an empty heart. It’s an emptiness that only God can fill.

And sometimes, he brings you to this place in your life because he just wants you to call out to Him.