The trash was picked up a few minutes ago. We've had many occasions where they'd forget us altogether, but today they came. It shouldn't shock me, we pay for the service and they SHOULD pick up our smelly garbage every week. Still, every time they come, I feel a sense of excitement that something went right. What was supposed to happen, happened. Maybe it's because I keep waking up to devastating global news, that I'm feeling extra grateful the trash got picked up. We pay those political people too, every April, but lately they've overturned so many crucial things that I guess the letdowns pile up. You get letdown enough and the smallest thing like the trash being picked up becomes a victory.
Lately, I've been feeling like a letdown myself. Besides being blatantly told I am in recent past, I can't meet my own marks presently. I had a crazy good day Wednesday. Mammogram - check, Blooddraw - check, grocery shopping on my own - check, drove home by myself - check. Still, I didn't feel the pride in myself I was hoping to feel. Instead, I mocked and shamed myself for wanting to celebrate such basic life things. People do this kind of stuff everyday, why should you celebrate it? The next day, I was drained from all the outwardness. Assumed by the next day that I could go and visit with my family, but I was frozen. I guess my intuition knew what was coming... Turned out that it was a good thing I was home after my counseling session.
If I HAD gone to my family's house and excused myself for counseling, as planned, I would have been a fragile soul tearing up the rest of the day. The voice inside my head is the cruelest and according to my lovely Therapist, it IS something to silence. Up until this time, all my other counselors or therapists just tell me to coexist with this hurtful narrative in my head, but Victoria begs to differ. This voice is learned bullshit that aims to keep me small. Not her words exactly, but the words I'm using nonetheless. It is so strange to me that a voice within me wants to knock me down. It's so annoying that I have to stand up to it and be on guard, but alas this is enlightenment.
The other part that broke me open like a walnut was that the traumatic things that happened to me, were BIG deals. Very few people can claim these real things that I lived through and yet I've been denying myself that reality. I've been running from "playing the victim" or "letting them define me" because that's what I was told to do. Get over it and get on with it! The mind blowing revelation was that by trying to adhere to that get over it mentality and not speak about the incidents, I was suppressing my healing. "The only way you'll know you're healed is when you stop talking about it. One day, you just won't need to anymore." So, by NOT talking about it or feeling the unease of others as I dive in and diverting the conversation, I'm actually doing myself a huge disservice. It's hard to hear that what you've been doing is what's keeping you stuck. My motivation has been provided by outside souls who have been through more and seen worse, telling me to get over the most traumatic events of my life. Their motivation is hopefully that I wouldn't be hurting anymore. And if it's not and it's only self serving so that they don't have to hear my truth anymore, well why am I adjusting for those folks anyway?
Adjustment has been my go to. I adjust at particular events, in certain crowds, when others seem uneasy about me. I cave in, I stand down, I shine more light in their direction or whatever I can do to keep smiles on faces. Some see it as admirable, but others have questioned my motivation. If you're willing to give up your upper hand, what are you getting out of it? Nothing. I get happy, smiling faces and the satisfaction that by diminishing me a little, someone else got to feel BIG, which was what they needed. I see that and I lean in. I don't need what they want. Motivation is something that gets projected on me quite often.
Say that you are a person who gets really sugary sweet when you're working a room of potential clients, investors or even love interests. You see sugary sweet or even kind as having a motivation of acquiring something. So, from then on, you encounter a kind person and they MUST be after something and so they keep you on edge or even as your competition. They can't get what I want! Well, what if this person is adjusting to your need for everyone's eyes to land on you? What if she would give up any attention so you could have ALL of it because she cares for you and wants you to have what you need? Her motivation is love not greed or attention, but you can't see her through any other lense but that of your own motivation. Those blinders keep you believing everyone operates like you, but they don't. Maybe some, but definitely NOT all. Definitely, not me!
This girl that adjusts and watches the comparing of motivations and the projecting lies onto her, so that the others can go home and sleep well, starts to tire of this arrangement. It was made only between her and herself and so its easily absolved. Except, that once it is thrown out, she WILL start to take up space as she should. However, people get used to your role.They count on you to adjust and when you don't all of a sudden, they have to fit you back in some box. Without ever acknowledging any service you may have done for them or their ego, they stick you in a new box labeled: "Negative." You're no longer conforming and so you have to fit in their mind's filing cabinet somewhere.
Everything starts to get off balance. For instance, say there was a moral center established that showing up was most important, but the quality in the visit meant nothing. I was there... and yet when you brought up a retelling of events, they looked confused or had no recollection of your heart being set in front of them to hear. How is that helpful? Showing up and not being there at all? One time, because I felt insecurity bubbling up, I asked for guidance. I didnt really need it, but I knew it'd make someone I loved feel important. We made an appointment. I showed up. I waited and waited, only to be stood up. There was no respect for my time. Tell me, what bad motivation did I have there? After that, I began to watch more closely and see that other people's time wasn't a care and I had to accept that and adjust again. This time adjustment meant being more protective of myself and expectations.
It's funny how we all have expectations of people in our lives, but we take ourselves out of the equation. For instance, you could think that a person who loves you should read everything you write, call you once a week and meet up with you once a month. Though, many contradictions lie on our end. What your loved one writes doesn't interest you, you don't really call anybody and you will only be willing to get together if it's where and how you want it to be. We cannot hold people to "standards" we wouldn't rise to.
Life is messy and complicated and damn hurtful. Especially for those tender hearts. I watched a movie the other day... RACHEL GETTING MARRIED and I don't remember the exact line, but the main gist was not everyone is concerned with your suffering. It's not the most important thing in the world. Suffering is never necessary if there is support and acknowledgement. I often feel guilty for my melancholy or staying in pain longer than others, but it is my purpose. I believe I was put here to fully dive into my pain and the pain of others to help ease it. I know my poetry helps ease it for some, but I'm hoping to find other ways to ease it. Haven't found my full purpose path yet, but that doesn't mean that I won't. I don't ever want to bring someone down, but I know now that I can also be the one who needs pulling up and support. Anyone who really knows me, knows I have a hard time asking for help. I sit in my feelings through my poetry, but if we're together, I'm engaged and I don't sit in my suffering. I often enjoy two sided heartfelt conversation. Very possible that I'll take your suffering home with me and it'll take a couple days to unravel, but I'm not what I've been told I am. I'm just not.
I should have disagreed when I was labeled "negative," "too sweet," "weak minded," or "dramatic." When asked how I am, if my dealings of recent have been hard, it may come off as negative because I am too old to lie about my reality to keep anyone else comfortable. If I stood up to something you said that I blatantly disagreed with and you couldn't mold me like clay, that's a good thing. It is not "too sweet" to stand up for basic, human rights, EVER! If I allow for others to choose restaurants, games, conversation topics, etc... It doesn't mean I don't have my own choices and I'm "weak minded." Sometimes it's actually smart as hell to let others choose so you experience new things or because they just seem to care more. I have accused someone of being "dramatic" in the past and in that instance they were just being passionate. I stood corrected and apologized... When I have been called "dramatic," it had to do with boundaries and feelings. If I don't want to do something, I shouldn't have to. Instincts can often prove correct. And when I feel something, those are emotions and not some fake lines from a play. Nothing dramatic about being real with your heart. That's why I keep more to myself. Instead of it being accepted, validated or acknowledged, it just gets thrown back at me as excuses, pity parties or you're being "dramatic." Labels and summing me up is a sure fire way to create distance between us. We cannot know another person fully. If you think you can, that's called "judging."
There is such beauty and goodness in the world. There is a lot of unjust things happening in the world too. There can be both. Bothness. You can be happy and sad at the same time. To deny either is to turn a blind eye to truth. All that amazes, keeps us getting up each morning and soaking up as much goodness as possible. All that is hard and hurts our hearts is there to remind us that life is precious. As the sky grows dark each night, I watch in wonder as stars appear. When I find the moon, I think of all its witnessed. People evolving, growing and escaping old paradigms that no longer serve them. Life is for shifting and becoming. We are sent here to take up space, be emotional if we are, be courageous if we are and change the world as best we can. The easiest way to invoke positive change is to walk in your truth. Allow the cloud of lies that have been told about you to fly off in the wind, as it should.
