post, post

I am back. I am refocused. Thank you.

Different day

Unlike the last few days, I am fresh faced and bushy tailed. I am smelling the roses and seeing the horizon as past the hurricane. I got here through patience and that old optimism. As Dane Cook the Comedian said in one of his acts, after crying your eyes out you have to get better again. This is so true. Today I can write that I am now focused as I was doing before the crisis and triggering.

A word came to me as I was about to go to bed last night. That word was dissatisfaction. I feel that most of the time. I believe that that was one of the things that connected my ex husband and I as a mentor of ours had said to me decades ago. He said we were tied by misary. When he had made that statement, I was naturally offended.At the time he was my boyfriend, and I listened to his story with an ear of wonder and wanting to comfort him. But now, I see that connector. I see it because I am always at odds with myself. I cannot recall a time where I was satisfied with myself fully. I am also so conscious about everything to do with me. The way that I look. What I say. How I feel. I worry constantly about putting the right foot forward in a conversation. What happened last week really set an example for me to be more mindful of and challenged everything that I think that I am. This year I have also had a moment where I questioned whether I should just quit my field! I was just overwhelmed and devastated by the constant juggling to make ends meet. Even as I write right now, I know that I shall not ultimately achieve what I set out to in my psycho-analysis because I am writing from within a framework of so much bias and hurt that the most I can expect is to observe this and to do my best to do better. Does dissatisfaction help propel me forward? Perhaps? It has its advantages. Without it I may become so set in my ways, so comfortable that I might not strive to do better.

one more thing

after all of that griping, there is a sense of resiliance. There are no guarantees. I am proof of that. But also, there are no endings as long as you decide to change the story, the game, the thinking...whatever you want to call it. At my age, I can look back and remember what I was thinking when I was starting out. I can see how I put my footing. How I dealt with failure aplenty. I cannot then say that that is all that I am if I am truthful. I am way more than a one act. I feel down today and I will feel down again. But guess what, even within the down the up is always somewhere close.

...and so...

As I take care of myself, I take a moment to mull over the statement...TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. I sometimes find myself quite moved by someone saying 'I' or 'Me.' It sounds so poignant to me. I marvel at the self possession of those pronouns. It tells me that there is a nurtured side to all of 'us'. Here we are, in this world at this time and 'we' believe that we are who we identify ourselves to be and we use a simple monacher to make it clear. I almost want to walk alongside a person and say 'we' and 'I' to their 'we' and 'I'. As 'I' too. It is delightful. It is an assurance in an unassured world. But, going back to what started this very longpost...in my trauma and my reaction to my friend/colleague...I had a flash back as well as a gradual coming forward, and in coming forward I was a bystander to myself. I saw how I react to certain things. I saw how I was wrong, or oblivious at times. It all felt as though my naivity was only a few years old instead of decades of my existance. Young, yet old...knowledgeable yet absolutely clueless. I can always cut others some slack...myself...not at all. I do this because I want slack cut for myself. Today I even felt weary about putting yet another desire into the world. I find that I ask for a hundred and I get like one percent. It is said that you must shoot for the moon to get that one hundred. So I wondered about whether my mindset is the cause of my one percent? It has to be? When I see so much success coming from everyone else around me, it has to be me who never got the rule book or memo or hints. ...but again...I am going down another road that I cannot navigate today. So I shall leave the footnotes here for another time. This may most likely read like a seesaw. I am up and then I am down, and this is what I am trying to come to terms with, this war with myself. These 'people' who are having all of their wild successes...I think that they just set their intentions and things work. I don't think that I cannot do that too. I just have to not be so splintered...too much of my resources are being used. I am heamorriging as it were. I must conserve my energy for the things that can benefit me. I am too drained...I cannot be of my best when I am doing so many things trying to make ends meet and none of the ends are catching....that's it for now...I wrote a lot, and I have much more to consider...but for now...this is what I have to type here.

alighting

What can you do when you feel disappointment with yourself? You can say, I will try again. As I stated in the last entry, a relative of mine is a good example to me regarding how to climb out of the hole. Yet, I am now faced with other holes. There are things that I confront every day. Exhausting things.Things that I wish I could shake off and laugh at. But the effort to ignore them ...and that's just it...ignore suggests to me to pretend that I don't see them. Again, that trauma from childhood worked itself very well into my psyche...that sense of failure...that belief that I was just no good! It made a permanent stain on me. But I was also lucky because I found early successes too. I had some very strong moments that I pulled out of myself. I am writing this morning to remind myself of that part of me...and I also remind myself that I was having a conversation on day two of said volanteerism about being mindful of one's confidence, one's strength...cultivating a sense of wonder and acceptance of who you are and all that is possible through you is key. I think that that is my saving grace. I also said that acknowledging the sides of myself that I struggle with that I just don't like...like the tantrum throwing...it came about because that is also me. When people say, 'that's not me.' To me that is always absurd. Of course it's you! It is very you. I cannot accept myself and ignore the parts that make me feel that my veneer is slipping. I am ugly, I am cranky, I am stupid, I am lazy, I am a lot of things along with brilliant and kind and funny and charming. So, I was done in by my absolute acceptance that I was worhtless in the eyes of other children or authority figures who judged me.But I also deflected the blows by sensing that those words could not hurt me. I was way more than those words could dent. I am never to forget that. It is only that sometimes, that old gramophine plays and its dented melody scrapes across my emotions and leaves a whiff of doubt and fear and I sometimes don't feel that I am nimble enough to remind myself of better, and that comes about when I am so high in my thoughts about getting to the finished line only to see the horizon change on me. So, yeh, I act as one would expect...I rail, I weep! I throw a tantrum! I have said to my students. it is ok to throw a tantrum. To scream and cry and say it is unfare. But it is not good to live there. PART 5

the void or avoid

This lack of belief or confidence or whatever it is that creeps up on me as a mascot for failure that I accept as fact has worn me down. I know all too well that thinking on what isn;t working only continues to give you more of the same. But this morning, I want to turn around and fight that monster and kill it for good! I have a dear relative whom I am fortunate to see this similar architype in. I have seen her tie herself in knots to make decisions.I have seen her be wishy washy and taken advantage of. She is the most beautiful, kind and wonderful person I know, and I can see from her that when she is in her moments where people ...including me, are not leaning on her for support. she can flourish. It is her very supportive ways that do her in every time. It is her wanting to be agreeable, wanting to help, wanting to please others that gets her in a place where she has to forego being herself. I see it becuase that tantrum I mentioned before had a lot to do with me overextending myself yet again. I can't seem to find one thing to pursue, excel at and be richly rewarded. My mind starts out with one task and then I splinter off into many directions trying to be all things to all people and mastering none. I have even found that sometimes I want to quit a conversation in the middle. Not because I know what the other person is going to say...but because what I am going to say is so shallow and stupid! What I mean by that is, I am paying lip service to a conversation that brings no solution to the topic...no change for the better...It is just me making small talk...even if I do have solutions I know that they are not going anywhere because the other person isn't going to make any adjustments either! Now to be fair to myself...I do think about ways I can take steps that I discuss. I do. I do try! I do splinter myself off to ponder and even act. But I splinter myself off so much that I also get nowhere because my efforts are only from me...so I really don't see any reward, any improvements after all my posturing! Now that is a hopeless statement I am giving about myself. But perhaps I should confront it. I do all of these things, thinking that I am making a good difference. But I am no better off for it. The hole that I am digging here is falling back on my head...I may be going too deep in the wrong direction...but this morning I want to peel back all the layers of this onion and get to the bottom of what is going on with me. So this is now....PART FOUR