The Me I Never Knew

I wanted to avoid blogging or journaling at all costs today.  This morning I awakened with that familiar anxiety staring me in the face. I could never identify what the source of my anxiety was in the past.  I'd try to quell it with all sorts of activities, food, books, books and more books.  But, this morning it came to me when I opened my eyes staring into abject space, balled up in a fetal position that my anxiety stems from always choosing between my own welfare and someone else's. During my lifetime, someone else's welfare has always won out.

You would think that with this discovery would come a freeing of the mind and body...a free-wheeling joyfulness.  But, when this revelation came to me..guess what?  I became even more anxious.  I really didn't know what to do with the information.  So, I began to look for a tranquilizer to calm myself down. (Some of my anxiety may have also been due to the fact that my daughter called me to tell me that her little brother had been abducted.  Which turned out to be false.  Actually it was her uncle in Africa...which still didn't help the situation). I found the tranquilizer which made the anxiety worse still initially and then I curled up in a fetal position and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.  (I really wanted to sleep for a couple of days straight, but I didn't think that that was a good idea.).

You would think that this information would be particularly sobering.  It is in a way.  But, I think that this knowledge also brings with it the prospect of a responsibility that I have run away from my entire life.  The responsibility to take care of myself.  I have always looked for others to take care of me.  To give me the care that I never felt that I had during my childhood.  I was taught that I was selfish for wanting anything and that I should always put the needs of others before myself.  I have lived with that fallacy of mind all my life and all of sudden...while reading Codependent No More (for the second time in my life) I realize that I have been abandoning myself all these years.

I am stil a little anxious because I think for the longest that I have doubted my ability to care for myself.  I still have some doubts but I have to start.  I keep wanting to catch up to all the stuff that I've left undone within myself and out for that past 53 years.  I don't know if I will ever "catch up".  I don't even know what I mean by " catching up".  I know that I have more work to do and that I will do it at a slow and steady pace.  Buy, I will keep going. 

As I learn more about myself, I am learning to appreciate life.  The journey becomes more and more interesting each day.  I vow to take it one day at a time.


I

Who Is You?

As I drove my young son to school this morning, it came to me that my self-image is terribly dependent on my perception of what others perceive about me. I never intended to put the "c" in crazy, but there it is.  How do you build a solid self-image on what you think someone knows about you?

You don't.

So here is where I really start getting to know myself.  Really.

Anxiety is the mainstay of my psychological diet.  I hate it it.  I want it to go away and get rid of it.  It is a monster that is generated and fed by lies and lifelong guessing games that stem from a poor self-image.  I don't know how I have survived all of these years like that.  My poor mom.  She was anxious 100 percent of the time. Anxiety is a real energy depleter.

I've played Jedi mind tricks on myself and other people.  I have found it extremely difficult to look at life and face it on life's terms.  Some say that life is a bitch.  I wouldn't go that far. No more Jedi mind tricks. But, I think that they are a habit that I have to break. It's like I've been walking around all of my life peeking through my fingers because I was really afraid to look at anything at all.

The "i" in insane. 

As the illusions about myself and the world peel away slowly and then again more  quickly sometimes than I thought they would I brace myself.  It is so much easier to seek out truths about other people places and things than it is to face the truth about myself.

I'm not a bad person.  I've just been nuts all my life.  I'm not sure how I managed to function all these years with such a distorted view of myself and the world at large.

Journeying to My Center IS My Angst

I have tried to get my life all tidy and neat and presentable for the world...but my efforts are not enough.  Most people, who try to reach a goal and can't...quit.  I think...maybe they render it impossible.  I don't know.  Maybe, it is possible to reach the goal but just hard so they quit.  Gibberish, I'm writing, I think.  What is possible and what is not possible is in the eye of the beholder. 

Is it possible to push pass perceptions that you have,  to perceptions that you wish to have?

I want to run to another place with out tripping and falling down the rabbit hole.  But, what I've found is that I can only get to another place via rabbit holes.  They are always unfamiliar, frightening and welcoming.  A strange combination those wonderland states.  I don't like being there but how do you get out AND get to the place that you want to be?

Do you a) Walk through the looking glass?
             b) Click your ruby red slipper heels three times repeatedly reciting, " there is no place like home"?
             c) Just stand there (in that place) and let the back drop around you just melt away like so much wax?
             d)Wake up and smell the coffee?
             e) None or all of the above and then some.

I don't know.  Somehow...I always welcomed the thought of being set in my ways when I reached the age of fifty.  It gave me the fantastic comfort of thinking that everything would be cut and dry, I'd have a good sense of who I was, my world of growing pains would end and so there.

The thing is...no one told me that we change throughout the life span.  No one told me either that questions concerning life and our existence become more numerous and complex with age.  Curiouser and curiouser...

Flowers grow in gardens in various and sundry bright and beautiful colors blooming without shame.  The sun continues to generously and indiscriminately shower it's glorious rays all over everyone.  I will continue to wake up in the morning and live as best I can. 

I can't say that I've been doing that.  Life gets hard.  I get lazy and go back to sleep most mornings...

Love...is the answer.

Redefining Me

I never understood what it meant when people said that they were redefining themselves.  I think that it means that they need to make some changes in their life.  That's the simplistic interpretation anyway.  But, to me it means being who I am...Unequivocally.  Not stepping over dead bodies to get to me, but loving who I am and spreading that love all over to everyone...Consciously.

I have learned over a period of time to love myself.  It's been a difficult process when I've tried to pull others into the pool with me.  But I can love myself unencumbered.  It's a scary process, almost like walking a tightrope without a net.  But, it's exhilerating at the same time.

Actually, God is my safety net.

I'm not happy today but, I'm satisfied.  Not because of circumstances but just because.  The sky is blue...and that's nice.  But, if it weren't, I'd feel the same ways.  Freedom, true freedom is scary at first. 

I am going to love me in spite of...  I am going to love others in spite of.  That can mean a lot of things.  But,  life being the journey that it is, I am ready to discover whatever awaits.  I've made some decisions within the last few weeks that I hope will be a game changer for me. (Whatever that means).

I will no longer stew in my own juice. I promise me.

Out of Denial and In To the Light

I slept all day today.  I'm still tired.  It rained very hard this morning and I just lay down.  With the house being a mess again (I found the young sons dirty socks on the kitchen table this morning), I can't ignore the fact that I let go of my responsibilities to once again go out and try to save the world.  I'm tired. 

I decided about a month ago that I would take another job.  Not intending to work two jobs, I then became uncertain of whether or not I wanted to leave the job that I had.  So, I decided that I would try to work two until I was certain of which one I really wanted.  I'm still tired." flat on my back tired".  Perhaps it's a combination of fatigue and grief at once again being faced with my limitations and hurting myself.

• I am fatigued and overstepping the bounds of 53 year old single parent.
• I am agrieved at the fact that I could not accomplish the impossible.

Is this sick or what?

While I was sleep I had another family betrayal dream.  In the dream, the family had had a gathering without me, my oldest brother had come to town without saying anything to me and left. But,  I confronted my older youngest brother (who does it all of the time), he didn't really respond the way that I had hoped and I cursed him out.  He was like, "who cares about you?"  So,  as usual I became upset and started spouting a stream of swear words and it made me look like a real idiot.  And just drove an even bigger wedge between me and my other family members because I was being disrespectful and disruptive. Black people scare me sometimes...more than white people do.

It was a sad and painful dream.

I feel very depressed.  I don't know why.  I think that it is the physical fallout from eating too much sugar and fat.  And...

Coming out of denial and seeing everything clearly and brightly.  I don't know why I had to have an epiphany today. I never asked for it.  But, I know it is a gift.  I just need to accept it and learn to appreciate it.  Unfortunately I'm not there.

The epiphany is that I need to make changes in my life.  I need to once again detach from those who don't have my best interests at heart and try to hurt me. I also need to not forget that it's not my responsibility to make the world spin on it's axis.  Somedays, that knowledge is lost on me.

I need to pull my head out of the lion's mouth once again.  I don't think that a wild beast can truly be tamed.  Can it?  Everyone and everything will always be true to their nature or who or what they truly are. (Including me. Who or what am I?)

You can throw a rock and call it a feather but it will still knock someone unconscious if it hits them in the head.  Nothing can change that fact. (Well, maybe something can I just don't know what it is).

I also need to take care of myself and put myself first.  It has been difficult doing that but I have done it so, I know that it can be done.  I am off and running...I'm still wondering what makes me sad.  Maybe it's best not to dwell on it and as the kids say, "keep it movin'".

The First Day of the Rest of...Huh?

I've never understood that saying: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".   It always kinda sounded stupid and I wondered exactly what that meant.  Today is not the first day of the rest of my life, yesterday and all the preceding days were too.  Maybe that's what they meant.  And so what?  (Crickets chirping).

I'm tired.  I have just arrived home after rushing my son from the sitter's  house to school.  He was late.  She didn't even bother to get him up.  She had been having him ready and at the door.  But, she says she overslept.  I guess it's kinda because of the daylight savings thing.  But, she was acting kinda funny this weekend too. 

I'm sleepy.  It was a weird weekend.  At the end of the shift, one of my coworkers walked up to me with a pathway  in hand and said he found it in another chart.  I think he was sequestering it so that I couldn't find it. . It wasn't the booklet that I had been writing on so I really didn't need it.

Whatever he had been plotting didn't work.  Ha ha.  Some sick ass creatures roam the earth these days.

They are everywhere.  Beware.

This Day In the Life of...

I always say that Scott M. Peck made an understatement when he wrote the famous words, "Life is difficult".  I couldn't have said it better.  Then, you have people on the radio who are paid to gripe for 2-3 hours and make you feel worse than you already do.  Don't they know that they are contributing to the ills of society by sitting on their soap boxes and criticizing everything that s happening in the world today?

What's worse is that their rants are usually inaccurate, ill-informed, false and they offer no solutions. I have sat in bed for a week listening to Neil Boortz spew his false illusions about the news and politics.  I'm just as crazy as he is because I actually listened to what he was saying.  Doesn't he know that if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem?  Amazing that some can get paid to deliver verbal ignorance.  Only in America.

I'm tired today and I just want to go back to bed.  The sky is gray but I don't think it would make a difference in my mood.  I would just sit here, staring out out at the sky and typing.  I am trying to take care of myself.  I can't say that I didn't know how difficult it is  to do this because I kind of came to terms with that when I cried after I quit that hospice job this week.  I extricated myself from that job because my psyche is becoming more and more incompatible with dysfunction.  What I mean is that I recognize a bad situation quicker and can move out of it faster. 

But, why did I cry? I cried (I think), because all of my illusions of who I am seem to be melting away.  I have always been a caretaker...a rescuer, a fixer and I realized that I was in the process of destroying myself of sacrificing my well-being for someone else's and to look at what I was doing really scared me.  Two full-time jobs? I have never in my life worked two full-time jobs.  When I am at work...I work as though I am working two jobs.  I give it my all. So, I don't need a job in addition to the 40 hours a week.   

I got so sick last week trying to do that job. Actually, half of the nurses in the company called out on Monday.  I realized that I had let so much of my life fall by the wayside.  I got behind on my bills.  My electricity got shut off and I forgot to respond to voicemail and e-mail.  I was not writing.  It was like I just dropped everything to go out and try to benefit someone else.  That used to work for me.  It just doesn't anymore.  I am beginning to understand what it means to take care of yourself more and more.  But, it still doesn't feel comfortable. 

I know that one day it will.

When I am not taking care of myself, a part of me rebels. I lose stuff, forget stuff and just get generally anxious and confused. Initially I wrote that I never used to do that, but I did.  The more I ignored my inner yearnings...the farther away I drifted from my purpose in life.  It made me anxious and confused.   In the past, I have gotten so much of my self-esteem from the compliments and pats on the head that people gave me when I did stuff for them.  I don't care about that anymore.  It is just so weird.

So, this last attempt to run from myself just didn't work.  I got sick, realized that I was about to kill myself and I left the situation.  Wow!  That is such a miracle. I wasn't angry either.  I usually have to get really pissed off before I act on my own behalf.  I really want to focus on fixing my own life and to stop living vicariously through the masses.  (But,if I could just convince Neal Boortz of how terribly distorted his views are). 

Okay...I didn't write anything about my day or what I did yesterday but, this is how I like to start the day. LUV YA!

I Quit...Or Do I?

I started working a second job.  I thought it was a gift from God until I got sick and realized that I had to work five days per week in addition to my other full time job.  Then, I thought maybe God was tryna tell me something.  I didn't go back to work the first week after I accepted the job.  I didn't call.  I ignored their phone calls.  But, one day I was sitting on the side of my bed and I inadvertantly answered the phone thinking it was my daughter and it was THEM! (That was the following week after I tried to just leave without telling them).
 
When I answered the phone, I let the administrator con me into coming in the following day.  I rode with one of the nurses to some patient's houses.  She was real good at what she did.  I was kind of enthusiastic and was going to quit my other job.  Then, I asked the secretary for the health insurance prices.  That kind of put the stops on stuff. It didn't stop there.  That Friday, I came down with a stomach flu...a nasal infection ensued and I ended up calling out of my weekend job the entire weekend because I was sick. As much as I hate going to the doctor, I went to the doctor and a got a note for work and some antibiotics.

I started taking the antibiotics and began to feel better but I have this lingering malaise.  I wasn't supposed to go to work until Friday but decided that I would go on Tuesday after resting on Monday.   I ended up getting a traffic ticket for running a stop sign at the end of the day and having this disturbing fatigue. Not only that, I had to finish my paperwork after I got home which I did not want to do because I wanted to lie down. And...what good was that? None.  I spent the time talking to and joking with Karyn and deciding that I was going to quit.  My original plan was to go into the office early in the morning and leave my stuff. I ended up oversleeping.

So, I went into the office to talk to the administrator so that I could give her the courtesy of knowing that I wasn't coming back.  It was hard for me to do that.  I felt so sad.  I really wanted to do that job and quit my other job but could not afford the health insurance there. I liked everybody in the office too. They were cool!
But, I confessed to my boss that I did not want to nurse anymore.  Not feeling remorseful, but incredibly sad.
I have lost my spark.  I think that after doing something for 29 years, you would be tired as hell.

I didn't love myself when I began nursing.  Now that I love myself my tolerance for  nursing has decreased.  I realize that caring for others was a way of vicariously loving myself...Hmm.

I'm tired today.  I want to go back to bed.  I tried to hide from myself when I accepted a second job in addition to a job that I already have.  I feel guilty because I could not keep the other job.  I feel anxious because I have been consuming an excessive amout of sugar in order to try to keep up with both jobs.  I'm tired today.

I was going to close "Angst" but I will continue to write until I this blog is complete.  If you live a life of angst...is it in vain.  It's cloudy outside and I want to go out.  Maybe I should try going for a walk.  I journaled this morning but dare I go back and look at what I've written. 

Issues with my family plague me.  It is strange to feel so far apart from my siblings.  I can see clearly who they are...but can they see me? Do they even care that I'm here? 

I remember being suicidal in my life.  People commit suicide when they feel that they've exhausted all of their options.  It is an act completely born out of desparation and hopelessness. Suicidal people feel cornered by life and claustrophobic, what else is there when you can't seem to move out of the place you are in?

The operative word is "seem".  Things are not always what they seem to be.  In a society where comfort has to be instantaneous and everyone wants to be loved and admired and important and rich and thinks that they are entitled to that just because they were born...what's left when you find out that you are not? 

Seem.

To keep on going and work at finding out who you are.  A reason to be.  Everyone has one...

Random Thoughts

Aw heck, it's morning. I forgot to put out the trash.  I'm tired and I think...Random thoughts.  It's cold in here.  The sun is up and the street lights go off.  Stormy sneaked into one of my dresser drawers leaving a trail of shedding hair behind her. My knees hurt. Bad Girls Club is fun to watch.  Never occurred to me that people who claim to be grown women would choose to act like animals.  Charlie Sheen...I'm angry at and fascinated with him at the same time.  May he rest in peace.  The epitome of arrogance and foolishness.  I don't feel sorry for him.  But, I do have sympathy for Lindsay Lohan.  Why are we prone to do the same things over and over and over again and expect different results? I have never watched Groundhog Day in it's entirety because I think that it hits too close to home for me.   I don't want to nurse anymore...I want to be and feel free.  I can be and feel free.  What is freedom anyway?...Life is a prison.  We are bound by "have tos", too many of 'em if you ask me.  I am so proud of my baby sister Debbie and I stlll feel like crap from having the flu.  Still too weak to get up but I think some of the weakness has to do with my eating too much sugar.  I need to lose more weight and go to the doctor. Cora  functions better than I do.  But she sits a lot.  She has a membership at the gym.  Maybe, I should get one too.  I was supposed to read Hat's cover letter but I never did. Maybe I shouldn't post this stuff...What should I post? Something else?  I don't know.  I suppose that all of my posts are kind of random thoughts.  Oh I love cats....I love cats.  No I don't.  I got stormy by default. My daughter asked for and then left her with me when she went of to college.  I think she didn't like Storm because she kept saying that Storm would not let her hold her. My daughter has asthma.  Why would you want to hold a long haired cat if you have asthma? Maybe she has inherited my self destructive tendencies.  I remember that lady who had those cats upstairs that kept falling off of her porch and they got their eyes injured and the affair that I had with that guy in my building.  I did some stupid things in my life.  That was pure evil and hatefulness.  I hated me and everyone else.  You can tell when someone loves themselves.  They don't hurt other people.  I have hurt other people and tried to justify my actions.  I thought of myself as a bad person at the time but now I know that I was just ignorant.  I just didn't know any better.  I thought it was okay because I hurt.  Hurt people hurt people....had I known how much damage that I did just by hurting, I would have thought about what I did before I did it.  But, I just used to do stuff.  My life is still kind of haphazard.  A kind of "catch a as catch can throw it in the air and see where it lands" kind of existence.  But, sometimes I think that it 's because I want so badly to be normal that I ask everyone else what they think I should do.  Most people have difficulty figuring out what's right period.  Throw my life in to the mix and it really confuses them.
Random thoughts.  I wake up in the morning with things on my mind.  I go to sleep with things on my mind.  I ride to work with things on my mind. I wake up with things on my mind and things are still on my mind...Amen.

Depleted

I got nothing left... Or do I?  I feel empty.  Hollow.  Emotionally emaciated. I am heaving and nothing is coming out.  It is unseasonably cold outside and Stormy is sitting in front of my bed yawning and staring at me as though she is trying to figure out exactly what I am and where I came from.  My head hurts and I am wondering if I have a job...anywhere.  For now it's nice to pretend that I don't.  I'd like to complain about myself and say that I am just crazy because there is no other way to explain my state of existence and not wanting to work in the profession that I am in.  Tin drum feeling...I think about the lady next door who died and hope her exit from this world was a memorable experience.  I  also think about that movie I saw a couple of weeks ago called Afterlife and realize that being dead must be as daunting to some as being alive is to others. I try not to wonder why God went through the trouble of creating earth with humans on it because even if He were to explain it over and over again in full gory detail...I don't think that any of us would ever get it.  There is just no way to comprehend why a being as intelligent and powerful as God would create  a species that is hell bent on destroying itself.   It doesn't make sense to me.  I picture God as a little boy with baggy jeans, a blue and red striped tee shirt, black high top keds and a backward New York Mets baseball cap sitting on his head sitting on the curb on 5th Avenue in Manhattan with a magnifying glass holding it over us as we traipse aimlessly up and down the street waiting for the sun to burn us all to a crisp and not laughing but being somewhat awed at watching wither spontaneously from the heat... and marveling at that little wisp of smoke floating up from our remains.  God is not that cruel I tell myself daily...and then I add a question mark to the end of the sentence.  Paradox...Someone who loves us in spite of ourselves.  That's a hard task.  I struggle to love ME in spite of myself,,,forget mankind.  If we can love each other at all...I think we are doing good 'cause apparently that seems to be a task that is lost on most of us.  Truly loving.  I sat up watching one of those documentary things where a lady killed her husband.  White people kill their spouses rather frequently it seems.  Black people don't do it as much but maybe it's because fewer of us are married.  I'd like to put a picture on my blog but I don't have anything relevant.  There is a camera on my phone.  I have taken lovely pictures with it before.  I need to go to the grocery store but I keep thinking that I don't really want to get up.  I called my young sun a couple of minutes ago and I know he heard me but would not answer.  I know that he heard me because when he got ready he came in my room and asked me what I wanted and I lied and told him that I forgot because I had changed my mind about going to the store and buying stuff that I probably don't need anyway.  I like going to the store and spending money just for the hell of it.  Like I have the money to spend for the hell of it.  I didn't call Karyn last night.  She gave Ashley the computer...that sucks.  What a bummer.  I feel empty, depleted.  I drank lots of coffee because that coffee gods beckoned me. The coffee gave me energy that I really didn't have.   The coffee gods  were warning me that my body was breaking down but my brain failed to read the memo...Ever like watching animal shaped clouds float across the sky while you lay on your back when you were a kid?  Or twirl around on the grass when you were a kid and watch the world go in circles...Life was like having your own amusement park back then.  And you were so wonder laden you didn't even need money to get on the rides....THE END