venting: my hat

I have a hat that I love.

Or, rather, I HAD a hat; now it's a misshapen disk of rattan, which made me cry. "Someone," in doing the chores laid out yesterday, put quite a pile of books on top of my hat. It was not in the best shape to begin with--as I said, it was my favorite (and I don't have favorites easily!) and as such had been bumped around a bit. Still. The worst part? The "Someone" is apparently No One who lives in this house.

Isn't that always the way?

Of course I know the hat is just a hat. To you. To me, it is not only protection, but it was quite a find. I have a rather large, round parietal bone, and therefore have so much trouble finding hats that fit without giving me a headache or a rash on my forehead. This one was marked down AND I bought it while shopping with my brother, to boot! It was a special hat, to say the least.

It's what the hat represents that bugs me. In our house, so much of the "stuff," though replaceable and material, does have meaning to me. That's not to say I can't live without it, or would call it more valuable than my family, but I am very sentimental, and tend to identify with the emotions  and feelings related to my stuff. All I have ever asked is that my housemates show some respect for my stuff.

Because it represents me.

There are many people in my life that care about me, and I appreciate each and every one of them. For some reason, though, many of the people that I care the most about--my children, my mother, my blood--seem to think I'm just a hat. That I can be scrunched and mashed, stuffed, tossed, and simply re-blocked. For most of my life, I've lived with it; rolled with it. I can't. What I have to say, and what I find to be important are no less valid than what others say and feel. It's beginning to hurt me physically that my spoken words, my actions, my being do not carry weight; that when someone else says the same things, they are suddenly more authoritative and compelling.

Respect me. For me.

Don't get me wrong: I do not need someone to come save me. My husband is wonderful at talking me through the times when I need it most; I genuinely matter to him. What I need is to stand up myself. To tell those who dismiss me that they simply cannot. They are not people I can ingenuously walk away from--I love them for what we have shared, for who they are to me. I'm not angry with them. Just hurt by their offhand manner. I have value, I mean something. I can only be re-blocked so many times.

My hat represents me. It is not me, but it stands for my spirit. Don't try to break it.