Will ya still need me, will ya still feed me...

Yesterday I was 64.

Hard to believe, since at one point in my life I seriously doubted I would live past 30.

Even harder to believe that only two siblings (I have six), one of my kids (I have three) and none of my grandkids (I have two adult ones) wished me a Happy Birthday, although I received more than 25 wishes from friends scattered across the globe.

But I have lived past 30...and 40...and 50 and 60, but it makes me pensive. It makes me think about the people I have loved in my life, the people I would have given my life to shelter and protect...and it makes me wonder: if I knew this would be the outcome, if I knew this would be the result, would I have done it? Would I have given up as much, worked as hard, sacrificed as much, willingly subjected myself to the many heartaches that came with my life, if I knew that at 64, I would essentially be forgotten, written off, ignored?

I probably would have, because that is what you do when you love someone. Even if I knew what was in store, I probably would not have let myself believe it and continued down the same road, given up the same things, repeatedly offered my heart and my trust and my faith...because that it what you do when you love.

But McCartney asked a very prophetic question and in the case of my family the answer, obviously, is mostly "no."

It's tough...

It’s tough when you don’t know what you said…or didn’t say.

It’s tough when you don’t know what you did…or didn’t do.

It’s tough to know that you cannot change another or what they choose to believe, even when you know how grave is their error, even when that error carves a grievous wound.

It’s tough to find balance, to keep the love and shrug off the hurt.

It’s tough to find the boundary, to draw the line that protects you but does not punish them…for they are as entitled to make mistakes as you are entitled to bleed from them.

And yet—

There is nothing in the rules of relationship that says you must honour that which another has cast aside. There is nothing that obligates you to accept their errors for the truths they believe them to be, nothing that requires you to bend your neck to their disrespect, their disdain, their scorn. Nothing requires you to sacrifice dignity and self-respect to those who would malign you, even in error, and nothing demands that you give over your truth to the self-serving untruths that disparage you.

It’s tough when those you have loved since before their first heartbeat know you not and care even less.

But it is not the end of the world.