I think the problem here is that I'm not feeling appreciated. Don't get me wrong, I can be a real bitch sometimes but I'm not crazy, I'm a low maintenance bitch if ever there was one. I don't ask for much, I usually don't bother asking at all. It just seems the particular sand in my oyster lately is for people to let me down: In addition to the opining of the previous blogpost, a couple of friends have said insensitive things. I didn't let them know my feelings were hurt and I doubt they knew any better anyway, but it bothered me.
As a recovering fat child, I've grown used to the two rules of survival: self-deprication and laughter. I make 'em laugh and thus diffuse the situation--for them. I worry about bullies that way. (Hey, at least I've grown beyond apologizing for falling down. Yeah, boo-hoo, that really happened.) But once you've stepped in shit it can be hard to lose the smell of it.
Maybe I do expect people to read my mind too much; maybe I am not extending to them the grace that was never offered the younger me, but it sure doesn't feel like it. There are the people who KNOW you and the ones who think they do and it's best if you remember the difference. You don't have to hang signs around their necks, but you need to know who's who.
I'm not sure if anyone really knows me and I think that is the great fear in life; not death, not being mortal, just not being "gotten" or "understood". We want to go where everybody knows our id. Too bad that bar isn't around every corner.
We have to let people make their dumbass mistakes and be their worst selves at times, no matter how much it hurts. Maybe they'll repay the favor and perhaps they won't, but we'll know we've done the good and just thing. Because while we cannot control other people's feelings and words, we can certainly try our best to be honest with ours. In the end, that's really all we can do.
I'm not sure what the pearl of my sandy discomfort will turn out to be, how it will look in good or bad lighting, but I know it's coming for a reason. One of my dear friends told me just this past weekend that 2013 is the Year of the Woman. I went into a Salem Witch Trials/Triskaidekaphobia reference and she loves me anyway. Maybe she's right no matter the historical-patriarchal precedent. I'd like to think so.
The balance to strike is one where you can softly correct a person's ill-tenored utterances while exuding grace. That, ending hunger, and creating world peace...that should do it. (Oh, that's all?! Why don't you put that to some nice New Age music and we can all dance it out. What, too snarky?)
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Happy Birthday to Me
You ever wake up one day (or fail to be able to sleep) and realize that all of a sudden you have no idea what the hell is going on? It's like having Alzheimer's while still functioning at your normal level; you're getting to the airport just fine, you just can't seem to make your connections. Add to that the teenaged angst of "everything is about to go kaput at any moment", and you're caught somewhere between old and young: You're middle-aged, whatever that means.
I don't feel like I'm in the middle of anything. Some things may be beginning, others ending, but this is not what the middle should be; if it was, no one would bother to stick around for the unhappy ending. Maybe I'm a sleep-deprived worry wort, but that's life from my side of the heart.
Your kids are becoming teens and no longer want the bother of you, your husband is going through the same middle-agedness and busy with his own life, your mother is too old to remember when your birthday is... Anyway, you begin to realize how the hormonal shifts of this time of life affect your judgement and you see how you've become dependent on those outside yourself for your feelings of self-worth. It's as sad as an empty room after someone dies when you are no longer safe in casually taking those closest to you for granted.
I'm not a good person when I'm nervous, when that constant low-level of terror is present. I'm great in a crisis: Someone else's crisis, but I suck at my own. Cried upon shoulder, heal thyself! The only thing I know to do is reach out to my friends.
I remember being at one of the many Metaphysical Faires I used to attend and hearing a woman speak about the circle of six. (You know, like the pottery candleholders with six identical figures rounding the flame.) Her idea was that it takes six people to fulfill all your social needs and that the mistake many of us make is in putting too much "work" on any one person. I didn't know I was doing that, but I would imagine if I polled my "intimates", they'd agree. Still beats hell out of the complementary theory that we have to go around in six bodies before we reach enlightenment. I don't care which figure I'm at this time folks, when I die, I want to be very, very dead. It's exhausting to think of doing this again. The possibility of an afterlife is the only part of death that scares me. Screw enlightenment!
But whatever the reason for the predicament in which I find myself, groggy and afraid, it's got to be my fault. I just read a handful of men's relationship sites and they assured me of that fact. (I don't dare go to the parenting ones.) Seems no matter how we feel or what we do, we are all destined to become caricatures at some point in our lives. Draw me less-than-intrigued.
Whatever I've done, I'm sorry. Whichever god, goddess, diva, or fairie of aging women I've wronged, I didn't mean it. The dog ate my homework. The man on the tape wasn't specific. Professional drivers on a cleared course. No animals were harmed...
I feel like running to the desert to watch a sunset. (I'm too old for sunrises, I guess.) I feel like crawling into the woods for shelter. I feel like standing in cold water for way too long. I feel something I'd never felt until very recently: I feel old.
I don't feel like I'm in the middle of anything. Some things may be beginning, others ending, but this is not what the middle should be; if it was, no one would bother to stick around for the unhappy ending. Maybe I'm a sleep-deprived worry wort, but that's life from my side of the heart.
Your kids are becoming teens and no longer want the bother of you, your husband is going through the same middle-agedness and busy with his own life, your mother is too old to remember when your birthday is... Anyway, you begin to realize how the hormonal shifts of this time of life affect your judgement and you see how you've become dependent on those outside yourself for your feelings of self-worth. It's as sad as an empty room after someone dies when you are no longer safe in casually taking those closest to you for granted.
I'm not a good person when I'm nervous, when that constant low-level of terror is present. I'm great in a crisis: Someone else's crisis, but I suck at my own. Cried upon shoulder, heal thyself! The only thing I know to do is reach out to my friends.
I remember being at one of the many Metaphysical Faires I used to attend and hearing a woman speak about the circle of six. (You know, like the pottery candleholders with six identical figures rounding the flame.) Her idea was that it takes six people to fulfill all your social needs and that the mistake many of us make is in putting too much "work" on any one person. I didn't know I was doing that, but I would imagine if I polled my "intimates", they'd agree. Still beats hell out of the complementary theory that we have to go around in six bodies before we reach enlightenment. I don't care which figure I'm at this time folks, when I die, I want to be very, very dead. It's exhausting to think of doing this again. The possibility of an afterlife is the only part of death that scares me. Screw enlightenment!
But whatever the reason for the predicament in which I find myself, groggy and afraid, it's got to be my fault. I just read a handful of men's relationship sites and they assured me of that fact. (I don't dare go to the parenting ones.) Seems no matter how we feel or what we do, we are all destined to become caricatures at some point in our lives. Draw me less-than-intrigued.
Whatever I've done, I'm sorry. Whichever god, goddess, diva, or fairie of aging women I've wronged, I didn't mean it. The dog ate my homework. The man on the tape wasn't specific. Professional drivers on a cleared course. No animals were harmed...
I feel like running to the desert to watch a sunset. (I'm too old for sunrises, I guess.) I feel like crawling into the woods for shelter. I feel like standing in cold water for way too long. I feel something I'd never felt until very recently: I feel old.
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