Fragments

Yesterday morning I woke up with a start. I'd dreamed about a boy I went to elementary school with, who hadn't necessarily be a friend. His name, a name which I probably hadn't thought about it in twenty five years, floated into my head and lodged there.

I knew him since we were six. He had always been very popular, at a time when I was decidedly not. He had often given me a hard time when that was what everyone else was doing. But, in the end, around the time we were in fifth grade, I'd seen something different in him. A gentleness, a kindness, compassion. A heart there where I hadn't realized there was one before. I'd met his little sisters and saw that he adored them, and maybe that was the moment that I decided he wasn't who I'd assumed he was. And when we started Junior High, and bigger boys on the bus had picked on me more viciously than I was used to, he'd sat beside me. He didn't say anything, didn't stand up to the older boys, but he sat next to me in a way that felt protective. I've never forgotten that.

Except. Except I had. Except I'd forgotten him completely, hadn't thought about him at all in so many years. When I started Junior High, I'd found a group of friends for the first time who really thought like I did. I'd belonged in a way I didn't know was possible before and so had left behind most of my elementary classmates, who probably never wanted me anyway.  I had found and created a group that made me feel, for the first time, seen and heard and known. And then, at the end of seventh grade, I'd moved away.

My life, it seems, is remembered in fragments.

I feel like I've had so many lives. Elementary school separated from seventh grade by what seemed such a new beginning and opening into the world. Seventh grade separated from eighth grade by distance, by a move which was completely traumatic at the time and from which came some of the most meaningful friendships of my life - and of course, also my marriage. High school separated from college, college from grad school, grad school from my first year teaching. That year separated from the next year when I lived in Indiana, separated from the three year long lifetime I spent teaching in Texas, separated from the now in which I am a mother, a PTA mom, a Girl Scout leader. So many lives. So many fragments. So many puzzle pieces from which to work out who I really am.

Brene Brown says that we orphan the parts of our story that don't fit with our vision of who we are. I don't know. I don't know if that's why my life, my memory, is so broken apart.

But I want to put it back together.

Deserving

My therapist asked me last week why I stopped blogging. I told her that I just kind of ran out of things to say.

She looked at me for a minute in silence and then said "So, if it's because you're afraid, then you should probably look at it. If you're just not interested in it anymore, then that's okay ... but then again, losing interest in activities you used to enjoy is pretty much the definition of depression."

Womp.

There's so much to tease out. I criticize myself, I can't live up to an expectation based on something I did once, at the peak of my writing, when I'd been actively in it for a long time. I worry about what other people think of me, I worry that other people aren't seeing me at all.

But fundamentally, at the core, there is shame. Shame at the idea that I think I deserve to have a voice. "Who are you?" the shame says, "Who are you to think you deserve to be heard?"

I don't know. But here I am.

They looked at me like I was stupid. I'm not stupid.

On Thursday night, I was volunteering at my daughters' school. I walked in confidently, like I owned the place, and walked right up to the principal and asked if she knew where the PTA president, my neighbor of 8 years, was.

She stated at me blankly, and my neighbor who was standing right next to her said, "I'm right here."

It was such a small moment. I'm probably the only one who remembers it by now. I laughed, hugged her, and made fun of myself.

And I haven't stopped thinking about what so idiot I was since.

This is my worst fear. That people will see me as stupid or crazy. Because deep down I'm afraid it's true.

I make fun of myself when I forget to put coffee in my coffee maker because if I laugh at myself first, then I am in control. I apologize exaggeratedly for every little mistake. But mostly, I stay small.

If I hadn't talked to the principal like I thought I deserved to be there, then I wouldn't have embarrassed myself. If I never post on Facebook about anything that matters to me, then I never have to worry about being judged.

I'm tired of failing. I'm tired of being an idiot and a clown. But I'm also tired of playing small.

I wish I didn't care what people thought. I wish I wasn't so sensitive. I wish I said eff it instead of crying in my bathroom. 

I'm not stupid. I'm really now.

People

Do you know the feeling of being both lonely and peopled out at the same time?

If yes, welcome. Welcome to the club, sweet sensitive introvert. Come sit with me. I have coffee. And I won't talk.

It's been a long week. I had company, I had volunteer commitments. I had places to be and people to see. And to a lot of people that probably sounds amazing. Fun. High energy.

All I want to do is curl up in a ball with a blanket over my head.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE volunteering at my kids' school. I love being their Girl Scout leader. Being in a room with all of those kids, and even their parents (sorry grown ups, you really do make less sense to me) gives me a feeling of wholeness.

And it gives me the equivalent of a hangover.

I walk out the door and all I need to do is hide. And rehash everything that I could possibly have said or done wrong. I spend hours completely drained and also beating myself with a mental stick. What are all the things I did wrong? What is everyone saying about me as soon as I leave the room?

So. It seems bizarre to say I'm lonely. I've seen people every night this week.

But it's just been so long since I've been seen.

I am lonely. I am longing for connection. And I want to do get that connection without having to leave a dark room or in any way risk humiliating myself.

Sometimes, that makes the Internet wonderful. But it also makes the Internet dangerous. Because when I come to rely on pocket friends to meet my emotional needs, I withdraw even more in "real life." Even when I'm out in the world doing real things, I'm not completely there. I'm not sharing myself with the people around me. Because it's so freaking scary.

But, the Internet isn't enough. And I need connection. I need to be seen. Which is going to require peopling.

I'm just going to spend a few more minutes under this blanket first.

Negativity

Today I took a nap for two hours in the afternoon. And we're going to Panera for dinner.

I also ran errands, made phone calls, planned Girl Scout events, sent emails, and will volunteer at my kids' school. But if you asked me to evaluate my day, what would come to mind is the nap and the lack of cooking. Today would chalk up on the board as a day of laziness and fail.

My laundry isn't done. My house is a mess. My kids are home from school now and are watching TV. My hair is a disaster. Why do i feel overwhelmed and behind? Everyone I know does more than I do. Most of my friends work full time, have kids who are at least as committed as mine, volunteer for school and scouts like I do, and still seem to have it altogether. Meanwhile, I'm home all day while both of my kids are in school, and I'm rocking the strugglebus.

It's embarrassing. I feel ashamed. Things shouldn't be as hard for me as they are.

I feel like I don't deserve a nap. I don't deserve to be having a hard time. I should just be working harder, doing more. If I'm falling apart it's a failure of character. If people knew how much I'm barely holding it together, they'd think even less of me than they already do. The only way to keep from being completely kicked out of the community is to

1) Pretend that I have things more together than I do

Or

2) Publicly laugh at myself in the moments when I clearly don't.

I am never going to be the Alpha wolf, so I'll settle for being the omega. I'm funny. I'm not threatening. I'm the comic relief.

But god, sometimes it hurts.

I'm tired of being small. I'm tired of playing things off, of acting like taking 3 tries to make a cup of coffee correctly is the entertainment when on the inside it feels like evidence that I don't deserve to exist. I'm tired of seeing everything I do as not enough, of always comparing myself negatively to everyone around me, of beating myself up for falling apart.

I'm tired of living in silence.

Where am I?

The person who lives in my body takes a pill every night which is supposed to make her happy. Not happy. Functional. Able to live the life she is expected to lead. And she does. She functions. She leads the life she's expected to be.

Every other week she drives 15 minutes to her therapist's office and sits there for an hour. She tries not to look at the clock. She nods along. She flounders and stumbles when her therapist asks her about "goals" or "fun" but she knows how to speak the language of self care and authenticity and pays every bit of lip service to it.

She puts dinner on the table every night. She showers. She wears clean clothes. Which she washed. She gets her kids to all their activities.

And in the back of her head she hears a voice telling her that somehow this isn't enough, this isn't right.

The voice. I think that's me.

I used to be in here too. It was so long ago I don't even remember.

I'm supposed to see friends, but I don't have any friends who have time to see me. It's probably my fault. I haven't done the best job maintaining relationships.

I'm supposed to do things I enjoy, but I don't even remember what those things are. Or if I do, like writing, I find reasons not to do them because what if I fail, and what if the only thing I remember that makes me me lets me down?

There was a time when functioning was the finish line. But here I am now, functioning, going through all the motions, fulfilling all my responsibilities, meeting everyone else's needs.

But where am I?

Now is the moment

I was sitting on my couch last night, curled up in a ball, watching the previous night's Daily Show and scrolling through my facebook feed when all of a sudden a thought pierced my brain.

Now is the moment. 

And I started to feel excited and nauseated and teary.

My girls are in school. I am home alone. For how long have I been telling myself that it was all waiting for now, that this was the moment when I could really "be a writer." That this was my chance to do what mattered to me, to be who I always wanted to be.

Jesus Christ, that's a terrifying thought.

I don't wanna put myself out there, I don't wanna take risks, I don't wanna be rejected and embarrassed and fail.  I just want to stay safe in my cocoon.

But what is it Brene Brown says? "Unused creativity isn't benign. It metastasizes."

I can feel it growing inside of me.

Every day that I don't write, that I don't take steps to in some way TRY to do this thing that I want more than anything and that terrifies me even more than I want it, I start to feel this thing inside me grow. It's dark, and it's hard and scary. It has a voice that tells me "See? You're nobody. You're a quitter. You were never meant to be great or beautiful or anything but ordinary." And every day that I feed it that unused creativity, the words that I'm not putting on paper, the rawness and vulnerability that I don't want anyone to see, it gets bigger. Stronger.

I think I've been waiting for it to blow up. For something to just happen where all of a sudden I couldn't help it anymore and I just needed to finally become.

But that's not how I feel. It's crushing me. It's not pushing out, it's pushing in. It's making me smaller.

Now is the moment.

It's time to explode.