Fix me: Part 2

Can you fix me?


Long before I admitted I was broken, I spent a lot of time asking other people to fix me. I didn't even realise it.


In my teens, I moped. I was an excellent moper, an expert, some might say. When I was feeling a little down, a little in need of some sympathy, I knew exactly how to position myself - slightly out of the way of a group, alone but in the line of sight of key people. I would tell myself that I just wanted to be left alone, but really, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted everyone to see poor, sad Pip with her sad, broken heart. Moping.


But I can't congratulate myself too quickly on getting over that. I don't mope so much, but my sympathy-seeking has merely changed its form. When I find myself walking home from work, or driving to rugby training or sitting on my bed saying, “it’s not fair, it’s too difficult, everybody else has someone to rely on, someone to comfort them, I’m on my own and I hate it”, I'll text someone. Not to tell them that there's something wrong but so we can have a conversation that makes me feel better. In my head, it goes a little something like this...

I’ll text them something pretty normal, just asking how their day has been. They’ll reply and ask me the same. I’ll tell them that it hasn’t been the best day. They’ll ask me what is wrong. I’ll tell them. They’ll have the perfect answer and the perfect words and ultimately, come rushing over to make sure I’m ok. 

That’s how the script goes in my head.

Unfortunately, other people don't see the script in my head, so they only reply 2 hours later, or they tell me all about their day and don't ask about mine or any number of other normal things. Then I get frustrated with them, I feel let down, misunderstood, more alone, more unhappy.

I'm pretty sure it happens in a lot of relationships (and I use that word to mean friends, family, couples) all the time - two broken people come together and expect the other person to make them whole, but no person can ever do that. Sure, they can make us smile, they can make us feel better for a while (there has to be a song lyric in there somewhere), maybe they can even point us towards the solution, but there is no way they can get deep enough into the root of the problem to be the solution.

So, we stand there alone, crying louder and louder and louder , somebody, anybody, fix me!

But it's only when we realise that a relationship, another person cannot be the solution that we can have any sort of functioning relationship. It's only when we turn our eyes and our aches away from ourselves and away from each other and turn them towards God that we can begin to become whole and our relationships can be restored. 

Of course we can help each other, love and care for each other and there's nothing wrong with asking that of other people.

But asking them to be for us what only God can be...