Recognize the End

What was the last thing you contemplated leaving? What were the pros and cons? Have you made up your mind? What will you choose?

It’s rather funny that today’s prompt should be about endings. This day has revolved around that very subject. Actually, all week, I’ve been contemplating leaving things in a number of ways, some less than healthy and some much needed. When you come to the realization that where you are is not where you’re meant to be and that you’re beginning to wither from being planted in the wrong place, everything begins to change.

While there are times I feel blessed to be in my job, for example, when a family has truly found closure because of what we’ve done, it’s great. Most of the time, however, I find myself emotionally drained by it. For the most part, I try to be someone who is compassionate and helpful during one of the most difficult of life’s challenges and transitions, but what I’ve found is that I give much more of myself than I should and end up taking home grief that doesn’t belong to me. There isn’t much joy between these walls and they are the same four walls every day, spent alone or with grieving family members. It’s become a challenge for me to get to the end of the day, and when I do, I find the rest of my day much the same.

 It’s what routinely is referred to as “a rut”. I can tell you, I’m tired of listening to this record skip over and over again. I’d like to get to a chorus eventually. Some joyful singing. A revelation. A plot twist. Something new is needed.

While, lately I’ve been convinced, due to I’m sure what is partly my illness, to shuffle off the mortal coil, the rational brain that’s in there somewhere is actually crying for a change. I just can’t see the direction. I have to believe that one will make itself known. The wait is sure unpleasant though. As with any painful transition, there are growing pains.

It seems like I’ve been searching for my purpose forever and I’m still not sure where it lies. I’m opening up to the possibilities. The one thing I do know is that it’s time. When you begin to hate your life, it’s a big, fat sign that you need to move on. Right now I have no idea what the choice will be. There are no pros or cons to weigh until a direction opens up, but the decision is the first step. It’s time. I’m done here.

The other big revelation is that I finally got closure, well, somewhat, in my strained relationship. It is indeed over. The bandage has been ripped off and there’s nothing left to ponder or wonder about. I’m on my own to discover what it is that makes me happy. Things feel at once more hopeful already, even though, as an ending, it feels sad. This one gutted me though and through, but I needed the lesson. The finality of it has set me free in a way. The world is open to the boy and me. It may seem silly, but there will be some way shown. Things do have a funny way of directing you. I just wish the universe would hurry up a bit.

Day 28: Function

Do you consider yourself high-functioning or low-functioning?

Well hell, can’t there be a mid-grade in there somewhere? I mean, some days I’m on it and sharp as I used to be. Some days I’m a little ball of  nerves on the floor. For the most part, I tend to float somewhere in between, or at least swinging back and forth several times a day. (Insert Pit and the Pendulum joke here) I have bad moments and good.

So the question is a little hard to answer. I can’t really tell. It depends on your specific definition of functional.  If I could see myself from the outside it might be clear. I suppose I can tell by how well my life is working for me (not very) and how I get through day to day, but I also happen to be a bit of a perfectionist and intensely judgmental when it comes to myself. The vision must be blurred from my view.

I have a lot of people say that I’m such a strong person. That speaks to function a bit. I take care of my kid, I get meals made, I keep us roofed and clothed but in terms of thriving, not so much. I’d like to be able to plan crafts and activities for us, take him places and not have everything be a spur of the moment thing. I’d like to have birthdays planned and do vacations and have my house perfectly clean. From that point of view, I’m a big walking mess.

I manage most days at work, I manage the house by myself. I do everything alone. I function. The machine is in order, but it could use a good tune-up for high precision performance. I need a little loving care, some oil, some attention paid. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s the importance of maintenance in all areas. In the absence of any caring company, and that’s been made quite clear lately, I have to look to myself for these things. My relationships are the least functional things I have going on. Not functioning at all, truth be told. My understanding is that relationships bear the heaviest toll in this affliction, and so in that category, I do believe my mechanism is broken.

A little break somewhere where I didn’t have to think of anything, some invigoration, a change…

I’d love to finally get to Britain. All of those plans fell through. In looking at what would bring me to life and that would do it I believe. Happiness heals so much. Nothing would make me happier.

Happy leads to enthusiasm which leads to action which is the essence of living. That’s where I’m hoping to get. Back to entering contests to get there. Until then, I’ll plod along a little broken with the check engine light on…

Day 26: Character

Name three fictional characters you relate to.

Well, I’ve already covered two here. I have a thing for villains I suppose, but really, the self-destructive behavior that I relate to, the loneliness, the abandonment, have come from a deeper archetype that at least Hook can be said to resemble in his character makeup. There is no greater tragic heroine or symbol of the abandoned and used. So, after my beloved Captain Hook and the Evil Queen, the third answer would have to be Ophelia.

I know that I mirror this pattern at the very least in all of my intimate relationships. They tend to turn into the be all and end all. I want them to be the one so much that I ignore everything else, lose myself, defend their intentions and in the end, usually end up letting them kill me on the inside because I wouldn’t heed anyone else’s warning. In the midst, my every thought is bent on it, looking for fractures and then talking myself out of them, or feeling the pain of them as though they’ve already happened. It really is enough to drive someone mad. It’s a bit like your mind making up scenes for itself and then acting them out as if they were really happening. It finds some minute anecdotal evidence and runs with it. That’s sort of another story…

Briefly I relate to, the Queen, getting older and fearing her younger replacement, Hook, being wounded and left all alone, and Ophelia, losing her already shaky place in the world, devalued by every man in her life she looked to. They are all models of what I can become if I don’t reign in my moods and reactions.

The queen is full on wrath and comes to the surface when I’m angry.(That heart collection starts to look enticing…) Hook is my loneliness and pining for understanding. He’s wounded and then turns on a dime to anger. (I’ll make you feel something for what you’ve done to me and for mocking me on top of it!). Ophelia is the hopelessness. The loss of the envisioned future that was probably all in her imagination to begin with; the sinking I feel when that realization of loss hits and the depression comes on and the seeking out of that outcome.

My list isn’t so cheerful when you look but that all have their fabulous side. The Queen is beautiful and has mad magic skills. Hook has style and deep feeling, which I love. Ophelia has a determination and a courage to look head on into what Hamlet couldn’t, even if it wasn’t healthy. Gloomy gloom, gloom. One day I may find someone who mirrors my droll side. I’m sure there are many if I look. At one time, I was an angry anxious mess in the vein of Basil Fawlty, but without the hi-jinks. I love Black Adder, though  am hopefully not that mean, Abby Normal in the Christopher Moore novels is frightfully close in her style and dryness, but for now, these are the three. I’ll pick up the jokes on another day.

Day 14: Obsession

Question, Do you ever become obsessive?
Well, there was that Calvin Klein ad I couldn’t stop staring at… Actually, real obsession I’ve seen in spades though I’ve denied it in myself. When my ex read the subject, he fell into fits of laughter. I looked at him and said no. He laughed harder. As I spy my kid watching the same two episodes of the same show he’s seen every day this week, I have to concede that yes, he gets it from me. I probably get it from my mom who has a never-ending fixation on her wrestling. Everyone has their thing.

Growing up I saw it as going through phases. I’d be all about one thing, it would pass, and then there would be something else but while I was focused, it was all about that thing, whatever it was. Unfortunately, the destructive part of that cycle is when it happens with relationships. I get overly attached sometimes and it’s too much pressure for a single person to handle. I’ve always wanted a best friend, someone you share everything with…a Gail to my Oprah, a Holmes to my Watson, a Chong to my Cheech… you get the picture. The problem with that is that it isn’t realistic. No one person can be the be all and end all. We all have different sides and layers and those differences are usually expressed in different friendships. Too bad it’s taken me this long to learn that. For a long time I was always looking for that one best friend; a soulmate.

It’s a lousy way to be in that sense. The second the person you focus on does anything without you, it becomes a deep pain. A very real pain and you instantly feel left behind. It’s one of those realizations I’m hoping will change now that it’s got the spotlight on it. The same is true of relationships of all sorts. There is , of course, supposed to be that “one” but it doesn’t need to be that be all and end all, desperate, die for each other kind of thing. I’ve always had that idea in the back of my mind, but even in the most romantic movies, those types of relationships never last. The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Those stories always end in tragedy and that’s a pattern I think I’m ready to end.

With thoughts, it just happens. Your mind circles around and around a subject sometimes debating with yourself back and forth but always on the same issue. As of right now, there’s only one thing on my mind and I wish to God it wasn’t. It’s always the painful things your mind gets stuck on. Where did I go wrong? Was it all my fault? Will anyone be able to stick with me? Am I completely unlovable? They spiral and spiral downwards and darker until you end up having a Nine Inch Nails fest and drinking gin until you don’t know your own name. Not the healthiest of things. I’m not that bad off right now, but I do have to keep catching my thoughts and distracting myself so I can shift and keep from going into the maelstrom. I’m managing. It’s improving slowly.

As for my kid and his television fixation, it’ll pass. He’ll be into things and out of things. It’s the nature of growing up, you try on different personas. I think that my fixations have grown fewer and far between the more that I have learned who I am at the core. There’s less searching for my points of view expressed though others; for some form of validation through other people’s personalities. I don’t need to be like anyone else or to agree with anyone else to be ok or to be “normal”. I hate that word. Besides, who wants to be normal anyway, it’s been done to death.

Day 12: Family Dynamics *

What’s your relationship with your family?

Like everyone, my relationship with my immediate family is complicated. I’m focusing on the family that’s local since I have family in another state who are really quite different, but I don’t get to see them often, unfortunately. Locally, there is a lot of criticism running through everything like blood through a major artery. There’s non-stop negativity and some high drama, though, also like most people, things look nice and normal from the outside.

My parents were a bit of a mess and honestly, I find it difficult to write about still. Things were not happy growing up. My dad is an unhappy person and particularly self-involved. My mother was extremely caring but had her co-dependence issues. My mother is now ill and in care. My dad remains as he always has, though now that he’s all alone in the house, I believe he understands what he’s lost. He’s a bit nicer but still remains up to his drinking shenanigans and doesn’t take proper care of himself.

The rest of the family is, like I said, critical. There’s a lot of it disguised as lighthearted jabbing, but really, no one has anything nice or supportive to say. If there’s a flaw, it gets pointed out. If there isn’t one, something is found. It’s easier to deal with now that I can see what’s going on, but as a kid, it was difficult to gain any kind of positive reinforcement.

Now that I’m older, I go out of my way to make sure my son gets that from me, since I don’t want him to think that there’s no safe place to be himself. He’s fully accepted for who he is in our tiny corner. Elsewhere, he knows to take everything with a grain of salt, or if he’s upset, I make sure to talk to him about it. Nothing is fun when you feel like you’re picked on 24/7. I know. That’s how I grew up and look at what a ball of positive confidence I am! Bahahahahaha!

These days, in my older age, I’m learning to identify other people’s crap, to distance my values from theirs, and accept my views and identity as ok, even if no one else agrees.  That’s a hard thing to do in that dynamic. I’ve tried to help another member of my family get there, but she’s a mini me if I ever saw it. I keep hacking away.

Coming upon the holidays, I’m starting to fortify myself for the dynamic of everyone being together. It’s its own kind of dysfunction like every family. All the same stories get rehashed, the insults fly, laughter erupts, I have to try to set new boundaries so that I don’t get triggered and hope for the best. Some things still set me off but I’m finally starting to get better at seeing what they are and to diffuse myself. I still get to be the acting babysitter of the drunkards, and that’s stressful for a number of reasons and sets off all manner of bad memories, but all we can do is take it a day at a time. I just got hosed with the hard stuff.

I just remember that everyone has their particular family issues. Everyone has the holiday battle to fight. Most of us make it through relatively unscathed. My job now is making sure my kid comes out less damaged than I did. If I can manage that, I will truly have a happy holiday season.

** You know, I was looking at this this morning and realized something that further shows me how skewed my thinking can be, not that any of it is untrue. It all is. It’s just the view from the family from when I was a kid. What it doesn’t show is just how lucky I’ve been in the family lottery. While I realized that I tend to see only the dark side of things, (I’m learning that’s a big part of this) I realized that my family has been there for me when no one else was. My uncle’s family took me in when I had nowhere to go. He just found me a car and fixed it up when my last car tanked it. Despite my differences in some values and beliefs, I really like them, a lot. They’ve put up with my neuroses as well, regardless of the cause and have, I believe, always wanted the best for me and my son. So, that makes things a bit more even and equal and shows that every family, and every person, is made up of the good and not so good; of what works and elements of things broken. Somehow all the pieces come together to form the intricate emotional experiences of our lives. I just needed to remember that mine aren’t all black. There have been bright colors too.

Hung Up

So, today. I’ve been doing my daily gratitude but I’ve kept it to myself for the most part. I spend a few minutes reflecting in some quiet if I can on how lucky I am. Today, I was lucky enough to bring my boy with me to work and to have a somewhat quiet day. A little too quiet actually.

I don’t really know what it’s going to take to open my eyes. I’ve decided to give up completely on the quest for love because, well, it’s enough already. There’s some burnout from all the trying, focusing and striving. I always had in the back of my mind though that maybe, just maybe something would finally tip the balance with DG. I’ve waited, I’ve hoped, I’ve tried. The truth is, the answer really is and always has been right there. I just don’t want to see it.

I’ve seen really clearly this week. I’ve made every dumb mistake in the book. I’ve waited by the phone. I’ve made excuses. I’ve accepted excuses but the truth is, everything really points to him just not being into me, for real. I’m broken down. I’m tired of trying to make something happen that just isn’t. Sometimes you want something so much that you can’t see what’s right in front of you. If it was real and meant to be, there would be nothing stopping the guy from doing everything in his power to be near me, either physically, by email, snail mail or phone. That’s what guys do apparently. If they want you, they show it through actions. No sweet talk or apologies needed. If he’s not chasing, he’s looking over the other wildebeest on the Serengeti.

Somehow the titles of “Miss Backup Plan” and “The One Until a Better One Comes Along” weren’t my dream achievements as a little girl.

So, I guess today, no matter how bad it feels,  I’m grateful for clarity.  I should respect myself more than to wait for someone who shows no interest in being with me…I’ve spent far too long looking for someone to love me instead knowing my value and operating from a place of asking who deserves me instead of who will have me. As I just read recently,  settling for someone who’s endgame isn’t me makes no sense. Yeah, the guy may never show up. I could be wrong but feeling bad all the time should tell me something about the truth I’m not seeing. I should be thankful to know now I suppose, to see with my brain instead of my heart so that I can machete through all the emotional BS. I need to remember that Big, despite the Hollywood happy ending, was really never all in or ever all out. There’s a word for that, “Limbo”. As the lovely meme lady says,”Aint nobody got time for that.”