The Ghost at my Dining Table

I have been writing a lot lately, maybe enough to be a book ( hint hint). Here are some of my own words that have hit me like a truck.

When I was five, my parents got me a cat, her name is Taja, she’s a black domestic shorthair cat. I can’t remember why they got her for me, but I know she was mine. Until she wasn’t. For some reason, she loved my little brother but hated me, and I just had to deal with it. My parents would say to me “He just has a way with animals”, and I believed it. I don’t know why or how but that sparked the idea that I wasn’t lovable. It wasn’t my parents fault, It wasn’t my brother's fault, it was that dang cat's fault. I loved her, but she didn’t love me. And for some reason, in my young brain that meant I couldn’t be loved, I wasn’t worthy.

This thought has never gone away, since I was young, I have always thought that I was not worthy of love in any form, romantic, platonic, even from that stupid cat, I didn’t deserve it. This insecurity that was caused by a cat has followed me like a ghost, I can't always see it, but it's always there. I still struggle with this to this day, as I write this chapter, I am less than three months away from getting married to someone who never makes me feel any less than loved, but even with his constant care, there are still times I don’t feel worthy. There are still moments where I catch glimpses of the ghost I thought I had cast out. There are days I forget to put salt around all the windows and doors and the ghost slips into the house of my brain like an old familiar friend. He pulls out a chair at the dining table and has himself a cup of tea, and then whispers into my ear that I will never be good enough for anyone, and I sit there frozen, believing every word he utters, because he’s so compelling. Logically, in the math and science side of my brain, the side with the formulas, and the biology, I know nothing he’s saying is true. I know that everyone deserves some form of love. But the not logical side of my brain, the side filled with romance novels and poetry, the side that is far too emotional, believes every single syllable that comes out of his mouth. This side believes that no matter what I do I am not worthy, that I am destined to live in the painful agony of loneliness for the rest of my life. 

When I moved into college, I told myself that I would not let him back in, that I would get up early every morning and salt the doors and windows extra, to make sure he wouldn’t get in. I told myself that I was worthy, that I was going to be good enough to be loved. I was going to make sure of it. I didn’t know when moving into my college dorm on the first floor of Commons Two, determined, wide-eyed and excited, just how wrong I was. That the salt may have been enough to keep him at the doorway, but outside of the salt line, he was waiting, lurking, waiting for his time to pounce. He would wait, but not for long.

Praise God, Praise God that I don't feel these feelings often anymore, Praise Him that I live in freedom, and Praise Him that I went through the hard to get to the good, only He can bring me out, only He can raise me from the grave, only He can break my chains. Praise Him, Hallelujah.

Only He can beat the ghost, praise Him.