And that's okay. But sometimes it's not.
I've learned that they know. They know I don't belong. There is a cognitive and verbal acknowledgment that I am "other". I am left out, and left behind in favor of others.
I accepted this abandonment based upon the premise that it wasn't intentional, that they didn't know what they were doing.
Questions surface within my heart about what their knowing means about me. What is wrong with me?
Shame overwhelms me. I have caused this. I must be unworthy of love.
And then the truth bursts in like a cowboy in a saloon. It began long before I could have had any culpability in it.
The truth is that it has nothing to do with me. The preference for others is not about me. It can't be, because they don't know me well enough to make that judgment. This assignment of otherness isn't based upon some characteristic of mine that is found wanting. It's based upon a lack of knowledge.
So, what now?
Acceptance.
Even if they know they prefers others, they probably don't know what this has done to me. They probably don't know that this has left me alone and vulnerable. They don't know that like a sheep left behind in a wilderness, I was taken out by the roaring lion seeking to devour me.
Even if they know there is favoritism, they don't know what it has cost me. And they don't know what it has cost them.
So, I accept what is. I forgive them for the favoritism, and I forgive myself for the things I did when I was vying for their affection.
I don't belong, and I don't know whose fault it is. It isn't theirs, and it isn't mine. I just . . . don't belong.
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