"Bones" is one of my all time favorite TV shows ever!! I started watching from the very beginning and have seen every episode multiple times. It was the incredibly intelligent, quirky, socially inept Dr. Temperance Brennan that drew me in. Week after week her desperate attempts to fit in and understand the relationships around her felt so familiar to me.
I remember very well the day I sat in my therapists office and asked, "Where do normal people learn all these things?" He laughed a little bit, but I was desperately serious. I am intelligent and perceptive. I learn quickly and pick up new things with speed. If there was any possible opportunity for me to learn the emotional and social skills I so desperately needed for my life, I would have jumped at it. But the opportunities were not there, and as my therapist explain, "There are no normal people, and nearly everyone should be in some kind of therapy for at least a little while."
There are so many things I have learned watching this show. Is it pathetic that I learn healthy emotional behavior from a TV show? If so, oh well. I learned how to fight fairly, disagree with dignity and hold a physical boundary. I learned anger is better than numbness, forgiving is better than running away, and most of all, I learned how incredibly important people are in our lives. People provide a reality check. When Dr. Zac Addy, Brennan's most brilliant grad student, becomes a cannibal (maybe a bit dramatic), we learn how even the most brilliant, logical minds are swayed when arguments, causes and emotions are not shared.
After a short series of really small but intense moments, my view of life and relationships have changed. This song, "How Bad We Need Each Other" by Marc Scibilia, was played during the end of the episode a few weeks ago. It really struck a chord with me. I've been listening to it over and over again. When we leave this planet, we leave with two things, knowledge and relationships. That's it. And though knowledge is important, I have a feeling the relationships we have with others will be more important.
I've always known this. The church teaches us how important it is to think of and serve others. I did that over and over and over and over and over again, yet never found the relationships with these people rewarding or fulfilling. I learned why. We didn't have a relationship. A relationship is mutual. Two people have to show up to have a relationship. I never showed up. Though I was there physically, I was never there emotionally or mentally. I was there, but I didn't bring myself. I never valued myself enough to show up. I figured the best way to have a relationship was to do whatever the other person wanted, to feel the way the other person felt, to take care of the other person. But like my friend said recently, "I don't want to be married to myself."
I lost myself. I don't know if I ever knew who I was. No, let me take that back. I know exactly who I am. I know what I like about myself, I know what my challenges are. There are things about me that I really like. Actually, most of the things about me I really like. My problem was that I felt like being me wasn't working. I've just never felt valuable or important. I've never felt that who I was mattered. I never felt like who I was could accomplish what I needed to. And in the fantasy world that was my reality for a very long time, who I was couldn't accomplish anything. But it wasn't who I was that was the problem, it was the false reality that was boxing me in.
Today I look at relationships differently. And that's because I look at myself differently. I love this part of the song:
People gonna be ok,
Storms never come to stay,
They just show us how bad we need each other,
How bad we need each other!
And the trials of today,
They are signs along the way,
To remind us how bad we need each other,
How bad we need each other!
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