Deserving

"I don't deserve this!"

How many times have I listened quietly as someone expressed that thought?

I listened to my mother ask that question regarding her own life when she called me after finding out that I had been diagnosed with cancer in 1999. I hung up on her.

I have listened to countless female friends ask the same question after some ridiculous and unimportant romance has hit the skids and they have been left alone after breaking every covenant that makes a relationship real.

I have listened to people vent about the unfairness of a spouse or significant other who has cheated, or become an addict, or turned out to be a sizable professional failure.

I have listened to people vent about the unfairness of all they have given being taken for granted.

I have listened a lot over the past 8 plus years to others venting and ranting and raving about "deserving" and "unfairness".

I always laugh.

I am a snarky bitch.

This I know.

Why?

Because the people bitching are not usually people who have been through serious shit, they just think that they have.

They are victims of their own circumstance and at least partly responsible for the shit that has befallen them.

Guess what, Pumpkin. He/She didn't commit to your whiny, needy ass because:

a)you fucked him/her within the first 5 hours of meeting him/her in person.

b) you got stupid drunk and showed your "10 cat crazy" side.

c) after fucking him/her on the first meeting you laid in his/her bed describing the breakfast you were going to cook him/her and babbled on about the fun that you were going to have in the future.

d) you bought him/her a watch, iPod, dog within the first month of knowing him/her. (Hint: 10 dates and 20 fucks does not equal an iPod, watch, or a dog...even at Christmas.)

I hate to quote John Mayer because although he is super physically hot, he is such a fucking poser that he makes me vomit. That being said, he is snappy with the phrase or two and one stands out:

" ...Take all of your so called problems, Better put 'em in quotations..."

Right the fuck on!

I know women who were getting fucked by family members when they were 4 years old.

I know women who have been beaten within an inch of their lives.

I know men who have lost their wives to a disease that would not be beaten.

I know men who have had their brains cut into to save their lives.

I know women who were abandoned by their parents when they were young children.

I know a woman who fought everyday to hold on and to breathe and to not feel pain and in the end she lost.

Not one of those people have I ever heard say, "I don't deserve this!"

They didn't.

Who does?

What is this "deserving" that I hear so much about?

Everyone (yes everyone) deserves to be happy and un-tortured.

Everyone (yes everyone) deserves to be healthy and without pain.

Deserve?

You don't deserve to be dumped?

You don't deserve to be cheated on?

You don't deserve to have to raise your children alone?

I assure you, you do.

You deserve it.

If I can see my life as an adventure and be grateful for the things I have learned along the way, so can you.

I can tell you why you should kiss the person and thank them for cheating on you or leaving you. I surely can. Likely, it is the extreme they went to to make you see how wrong they were/are for you.

Likely they wanted you to see it more than you wanted to. If you were to take a step back and look, would you see all the signs that were left along the way?

I don't mean to be an ass, but it suits me. I will say that I will gladly take your cheater, your addict, your finances, your spouse that won't fuck you, your spouse that will fuck everyone but you and trade you....for just a moment. I know at least 30 other people that would offer the same...for just a moment. Because I, like them, have learned that it could always be worse. And we are all happy to afford you that cute little lesson.

I was 7 years old the first time some asshole would try to stick his dick in me.

Deserve?

I was a brat for sure. I constantly left my toys all over the floor of my bedroom and threw away my dinner. Deserve?

My mom left when I was 10.

Deserve?

Dead dad, dead dog, dead grandpa, dead husband. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Deserve?

Single parent at 20.

Deserve?

Cancer as a birthday gift on my 27th.

Deserve?

Chemo. Radiation. Surgery.

Deserve?

I may not be there when my daughter loses her first tooth.

I may not see my son graduate high school.

What is this deserve that you speak of?

Is there something that I did in my mother's uterus that made her hate me upon sight? Made her want a sunny life in a tropical climate instead of taking care of her children?

Were we too loud? Too quiet? Too ugly? Was the constant need for groceries more than she could handle?

Was I too sexy at 7 with my Dorothy Hamill haircut and ripped Gloria Vanderbilt's that a high school aged boy could not resist my gap toothed charms of tripping over sidewalk cracks on my duct taped roller skates?

Was I too successful at 26 and taking care of my young son that some powerful being had to put my shopping in check with an adorable touch of cancer?

Did a company car equal 4,000+ stitches, chemicals pumped into my body to destroy me further, radiation to fry me from the inside, and an eternity of disfigurement? Was it my karma?

Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! What is this goddammed "deserving" that people rant about while decrying the life that they have been dealt?

I am exhausted by it.

I have lost everything. EVERYFUCKINGTHING!

And I have gotten it back and lost it again. *Repeat as needed*

So fucking what!!!!

Yes, I'm sorry sugars, but you do deserve to have your eyes opened. Your life freed. The hassle lifted.