Right now I am filled with pain. I hurt. My heart pounds inside my chest and my eyes are so sore from crying. My body is exhausted and my mind is numb. I do not have the flu or an illness to blame this on. I want to choose to forget or at least forget for a little while my pain and move through this day. I don't want my children to see me cry and worry. There is nothing they can do to take away my pain. I know where it comes from. It began long ago. I hurt.
I cannot change this pain. I can't cover it with make up or eat enough food to fill it up. Nothing I buy or give away will change how I feel. No matter how many times I donate blood, break my back for a friend, help my kids with their homework, read to their classes, throw parties for them, give my energy to make another's day it does not stop this pain. No matter how much I love my life or love the people in it, I will always have this hurt. No books or religion hold the remedy for this hurt. No medicine internal or external can relieve my pain. Nobody can love me enough to make this torture end.
Sometimes I wake up and it's better. I see the beauty in the sunshine and the smile of my loved ones. I kiss my kitten and she almost giggles at me. The drive to work isn't filled with no-driving egg heads out to ruin my day. Work is blissfully easy and goes quickly. I have food and cook quietly while my children tell me about their fantastic day of little miracles and we spend time together laughing. Some times I lay my head down and my pillow feels like heaven. Not today.
What do you do when you know what causes your pain, but there is no remedy? I cope. I talk. I try. I lie to myself. I get busy with other things in my life that I can enjoy, but the pain still returns. I am still grieving for my expectations. I have acceptance, even forgiveness, but I have so much pain because in all the stages of my life I have had no parents. It affects me in so many ways daily. I realize I'm not alone and I'm old enough now that I don't need a parent, but there were so many times when I did. Children need adults to guide them. Children need to know that they are not alone. Children need a time when they aren't afraid. Children need to be encouraged to try even if they fail. Children need to hear that the only opinion that matters is theirs. Children need parents that can model these behaviors. If they don't have these things, I don't think they can truly ever grow up or change life for the better. They are left with a horrible pain, anger, incredible resentment, fear, mistrust, and independence.
Worst of all, it is a cycle. I understand my parents. I know my grandparents. I have talked to all of them so much about how they felt as children. What happened to shape them into the people they are. It is the biggest challenge in my life to PARENT my children and stop this cycle of abuse. I want my children to be proud of me and to learn from me about being responsible and being an adult. I want them to develop their own passion and confidence to guide them in their decisions, not fear. I want them to know I will stand with them through any consequences, but I will not take their choices away out of my fear. I want them to know real love, the kind that comes from within themselves, and never doubt they will always be alright even long after I'm gone. I want to love my children for who they really are, not how I want them to be or what they do for me. Most of all I want them to grow up at a normal pace and have a normal childhood. I just don't know what a normal childhood is.
I don't want my children to have so much pain in their lives. I don't want so much pain in my life, but I know I am the only one that can stop my pain by letting it go. Today I bought a blue balloon and let it go. It was only a little pain. It was that I didn't have a wedding because I was angry. I didn't want my step-father to walk me down the isle and too hurt or too scared to ask my biological father to attend, because of the changes that would make in my life and the people I would hurt. So I gave up my dream of having a big wedding and gave up my dream of having a good marriage the same day by marrying the wrong man being desperate for someone to love me. It was only a small part of my pain, but I let that go. It felt good. I feel a little better. I still have a lot of hurt to let go, but there are a lot of balloons.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Bent
I feel like I'm bent. Not broken, not incapable of functioning, but there is a difficulty. I'm affected somehow on a subconscious and every increasingly conscious level that there is a fundamental difference between the way I think, speak, function and they way other "normal" people do. I'm different somehow. I don't seem to fit in, but I have many friends. I don't have a best friend. I realize at 41 best friends may be an outdated concept, but I just feel strange about reaching out sometimes just to have a conversation. I'm jealous of people that do have that kind of connection. I am starting to become more internal and I'm not really sure why. I have less tolerance for immaturity except from people who are truly immature like children and it seems I'm surrounded by drama queens and Peter Pans. I want to pursue Buddhism, gardening, and write. I have a hard time seeing the point in developing any work relationships, because I don't want to work at this job for any longer than it takes to become an independent writer. I love my friends, but I also can't stand some of them for more than an hour. I get home and take a shower and thank God I'm not them. I have ever increasing empathy for all the people I get to know, because it is easier to see their reasons and courage despite their circumstances. It is easier to understand the why, but my choice is just to not participate, join or belong. Maybe I just need a different place to belong, different friends, different definitions of normal. How does a person do that? What is this pull to someplace different?
I think this bending began a long time ago. I think I've been bending and bending trying to fit in to what other people's expectations were of me. I think my divorce was a breaking point. Either I quit bending or I would break, but I am now forever bent. My focus is different. It's like I was standing up my whole life and now I'm in one of those weird yoga poses trying desperately to stretch out the kinks and find some inner peace. I gravitate toward people that are in transition. I crave new books, new ideas, new anything. Maybe this is what mid-life crisis is like? Maybe I'm just bored with everything. Maybe I'm just starting to define what is really important to me.
One of my biggest fears of getting older is that my children will grow up and have these wonderful experiences going to college and being on their own and I will just be old and lonely. I refuse to do this! I refuse to keep working a dead end good job and eat myself into a 300 pound misery cushion, because all of my coping mechanisms have been stripped away except for food. I have changed my eating habits, but when travel, art, and age limit you between what is financially possible and what you really enjoy, then you have to really start to look at what you CAN really enjoy right now. When you begin one life and build up your dreams stacking them neatly on top of each other, you are at the bottom and can't see everyone else slipping their own added expectations on to your pile. The weight gets heavier and heavier until all of the sudden you're bent. Even worse when life comes along and rips the foundation out from under you, the stack of dreams falls all over smashing to pieces and you are left bent with nothing you recognize. I don't mind being bent and rebuilding, but I'm not entirely sure what to build. The pieces of my dreams don't fit and little slivers of expectations keep getting stuck where they don't belong. It's like changing your make up for the first time since high school. You stand back in the mirror and ask, "Is this me? Can I pull off this pink of a blusher? Do people wear this color of blue or am I going to look like a total prostitute?" You want to trust the sales woman who just spent the better part of 15 minutes applying the new product, but you also want to retreat back to the same old comfortable brown eyeliner and lip gloss that carried you through two of the most important relationships of your young life. Maybe the NEW just needs time to grow on me? I guess I have until my son's graduation.
I bought a house a short time ago and couldn't be happier with the purchase. I, however, didn't buy a house for me. It is a huge debt, huge responsibility, and a huge hassle since I'm not the best at maintenance. I bought a house for my family. I wanted the children to have a home. I wanted to paint their rooms and decorate with their artwork in a space we could truly express ourselves. I wanted them to feel comfortable an invite their friends over. I wanted to invest in something that might give me a return or help me pay for college if I sold it. It gives me a place to practice being myself. I'm gaining confidence by repairing my broken drain and fixing the toilet. I feel good knowing that my children think of my house as their home. I have noticed that the first week excitement has passed and now the reality of being stuck here until my kids graduate high school is bumming me out. Still, I have decided to use this time for improving the curb appeal and resale value of this house and to really begin to write. This house doesn't have to be prison, it can still be my refuge until I decide I'm ready to swim for it and brave the unknown ocean again. I don't know where this restlessness is coming from? Is it possible that it's just a side affect of freedom? Do I feel like this because for the first time in my life I'm just not afraid of what comes next?
Being bent is not being broken and I guess at some point we all look within and acknowledge something is different. I'm not a girl anymore. I have wrinkles. My back hurts sometimes when it rains. My friends are different people and some are exactly the same as they were in high school. It's harder to maintain friendships and feel that closeness that you had when you told someone everything, because frankly we all make mistakes and might not want people to know everything. Maybe I am afraid of being that intimate with anyone? Maybe I don't trust them enough to understand me? I do entertain a lot of crazy notions and ideas. I think that is why I like writing. Blank pages don't judge or mock me. They are open and friendly waiting to be filled with details. Unfortunately, telling a joke on paper is not as fun as hearing your friends laughter. Books don't hug you, although they may tug at your heartstrings and stimulate your brain. Maybe I'm just bent in a weird direction right now and as time goes on that part of me will loosen and my perspective will change. I am much more conscious of all my decisions and the consequences of all my decisions now and I like that awareness even if it brings more stress. Cautious has never been who I am, but I guess that is why it feels different. It's hard to be the same person, yet different in so many ways. I struggle with bent.
I think this bending began a long time ago. I think I've been bending and bending trying to fit in to what other people's expectations were of me. I think my divorce was a breaking point. Either I quit bending or I would break, but I am now forever bent. My focus is different. It's like I was standing up my whole life and now I'm in one of those weird yoga poses trying desperately to stretch out the kinks and find some inner peace. I gravitate toward people that are in transition. I crave new books, new ideas, new anything. Maybe this is what mid-life crisis is like? Maybe I'm just bored with everything. Maybe I'm just starting to define what is really important to me.
One of my biggest fears of getting older is that my children will grow up and have these wonderful experiences going to college and being on their own and I will just be old and lonely. I refuse to do this! I refuse to keep working a dead end good job and eat myself into a 300 pound misery cushion, because all of my coping mechanisms have been stripped away except for food. I have changed my eating habits, but when travel, art, and age limit you between what is financially possible and what you really enjoy, then you have to really start to look at what you CAN really enjoy right now. When you begin one life and build up your dreams stacking them neatly on top of each other, you are at the bottom and can't see everyone else slipping their own added expectations on to your pile. The weight gets heavier and heavier until all of the sudden you're bent. Even worse when life comes along and rips the foundation out from under you, the stack of dreams falls all over smashing to pieces and you are left bent with nothing you recognize. I don't mind being bent and rebuilding, but I'm not entirely sure what to build. The pieces of my dreams don't fit and little slivers of expectations keep getting stuck where they don't belong. It's like changing your make up for the first time since high school. You stand back in the mirror and ask, "Is this me? Can I pull off this pink of a blusher? Do people wear this color of blue or am I going to look like a total prostitute?" You want to trust the sales woman who just spent the better part of 15 minutes applying the new product, but you also want to retreat back to the same old comfortable brown eyeliner and lip gloss that carried you through two of the most important relationships of your young life. Maybe the NEW just needs time to grow on me? I guess I have until my son's graduation.
I bought a house a short time ago and couldn't be happier with the purchase. I, however, didn't buy a house for me. It is a huge debt, huge responsibility, and a huge hassle since I'm not the best at maintenance. I bought a house for my family. I wanted the children to have a home. I wanted to paint their rooms and decorate with their artwork in a space we could truly express ourselves. I wanted them to feel comfortable an invite their friends over. I wanted to invest in something that might give me a return or help me pay for college if I sold it. It gives me a place to practice being myself. I'm gaining confidence by repairing my broken drain and fixing the toilet. I feel good knowing that my children think of my house as their home. I have noticed that the first week excitement has passed and now the reality of being stuck here until my kids graduate high school is bumming me out. Still, I have decided to use this time for improving the curb appeal and resale value of this house and to really begin to write. This house doesn't have to be prison, it can still be my refuge until I decide I'm ready to swim for it and brave the unknown ocean again. I don't know where this restlessness is coming from? Is it possible that it's just a side affect of freedom? Do I feel like this because for the first time in my life I'm just not afraid of what comes next?
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