As-yet, undetermined

I’m feeling some kind of way today. One moment I think I’m going to throw up; the next, I’m overwhelmingly tearful. Unfocused, even after today’s dose of Pink Productivity (aka Adderall for my ADHD.) There are knots in my tummy, tightly wound. Something in me is trying to escape, and lately when that happens, I’ve been trying to write it out.

I used to be a travel writer for Visit South and Visit Natural North Florida, and kept a blog through my early years of mamahood, but my affinity for writing was rediscovered during a writing workshop at my church retreat in April, where participants were asked to select objects from a table as inspiration for a short story. It was 6 days before I graduated with my M.Ed, before my own MHA students graduated, in the midst of admissions season at work, and the string of upcoming events and deadlines was wearing me down. This was the only workshop I’d wanted to attend, having decided early on that I’d dedicate much of the two day retreat to lazing about in my hammock reconsidering all of my life choices, and I was struck by the simple instructions. Keep your hand moving. Don’t think. Use your senses. Pick an object.

I watched others circle the table of trinkets laid out before us, before choosing the two that spoke to me: champagne flutes and a set of measuring spoons.

Every time I’ve swirled a celebratory glass of bubbly around, joyful, smiling for the pictures, offering toasts and hugs, radiant and glowing, there’s a part of me that is reminded of all the ways I haven’t measured up. My wedding that wasn’t quite as I’d pictured it, or the first house we bought together and promptly had a fight in, the first time we crossed the threshold. At my house that I bought on my own, a year ago this month, I staged a perfect picture of my Waterford crystal champagne flutes, and remembered how one of them was chipped, and how this “celebration” was markedly somber compared to the other times I’d filled their delicate vessels. I couldn’t fully celebrate this house; it didn’t feel like an accomplishment, but a failure. I am in this house alone, because the marriage I had in my other house has died, and I have stayed so busy baking, planning events, participating in groups, throwing myself into school, so I don’t have to feel the grief. I’ve kept doing, so I don’t have to feel anything and remember all the ways I haven’t been enough. Nothing I’ve ever done, nothing I’ve ever completed, has measured up to what I think I could’ve been capable of, if I hadn’t let fear, grief, or busy-ness get in the way. Even my upcoming graduation, the next time I will presumably pop a bottle of champers in celebration- I know I earned it, but I could have done better. I didn’t give it my all, I’ve never given any one thing my all, because I’ve been spread so thin there isn’t enough of me to do any one thing well. I have FOMO pretty bad, which makes everything appealing, and impossible, as a recovering people pleaser, to say no, but what I’ve really missed out on is pouring myself out completely and fully for any one thing, and knowing the feeling of truly earning what I have. I want to feel worthy, but I’m afraid when I finally free my schedule enough to allow any feelings in at all, they’ll be feelings of Not Enoughness.

It pops up everywhere, my inner Not Enoughness. At work, at home, with friends. The story I’m telling myself is that I am unworthy, that I don’t belong, that the connections I do feel are temporary, situational, not meant to last. In regards to my writing, I’m feeling like it’s presumptuous to believe that anything I have to say matters. And I should just. Stop. Talking. Stop. Writing. Stop. Sharing.

That story was crafted over time, reinforced whenever I felt unheard, or was interrupted, or was (literally and figuratively) patted on the head with condescending false assurances of “there, there.” Anytime, really, that my thoughts and feelings were dismissed at a time when I was making a bid for connection.

Connection. That’s the price of believing in my own unworthiness. Just this morning, I pulled my daily Affirmator card and I’d unknowingly chosen Connection. I read it, took a picture to post on Instagram- in a windowless office around the corner from most of my colleagues, much of my daily connection is virtual- but I discarded the post. Then I deleted a video I’d shared on Facebook this morning, from my housewarming party a year ago “on this day.”

For some reason, today I am tending my fortress of solitude in an attempt to keep connection out. Perhaps I feel like lately I’ve let too much vulnerability in and it’s starting to feel real and uncomfortable and the likelihood that I could get hurt has increased, so it’s time to shut it down. I’ve had my fun and spent some time with my people, I’ve made a new friend or two but the time to close myself back off again has come.

This pattern of pushing people away and retreating is a long-standing one, and even just this morning, I once again built a case for unfriending and blocking the phone number of a friend of mine, telling myself the friendship is inconsequential, doubting that I’m adding value to their life, questioning the value they’re adding to mine. I eventually circled around and advocated for uncertainty, but only on the grounds that my mental real estate is currently overdeveloped and there’s simply no more room in my head for this kind of constant wondering.

I do realize, this is all part of my story, the one that I make up anytime I feel uncertain about anything. It seems crazy, it seems beyond absurd, but it serves me by protecting me from the possible (okay, in my mind, inevitable) pain and loss that follow love and belonging. Nothing lasts forever, right? So what’s the point of trying anything that is doomed to fail? Enduring the dull pain of living disappointed hurts far less than experiencing the stinging bite of crushing disappointment.

Brene Brown says that emotional stoicism is not badassery, and I am inclined to agree; I greatly admire those brave enough to live their truth and share their stories. I want to be brave like them, to let loose the stories that are entangled within the knots in my tummy. And yet I’m judging myself here, a little, because what kind of person am I, needing to channel my bravery just to post on social media? Is my distrust for my own thoughts and feelings so far-reaching that it’s come to this? And am I wasting my bravery on shit that doesn’t even matter?

I don’t even know where I’m going with this, I have no solution or resolution or epiphany or growth opportunity to share. I feel exhausted just from the contemplation of it all and after too many sleepless nights lately, my neurons aren’t firing so effectively. And maybe that’s it, really, I’m noticing the ways I’ve abandoned my self-care practice in recent days and weeks and I know there’s something that’s not quite right, a lesson for me to learn, a voice I’ve been trying to drown out with music and white noise, that’s trying to tell me what I’m lacking. For now all I can do is continue the search and hope that I recognize whatever it is, when I finally happen upon it. And keep writing, even if it’s only to get the words out of my crowded headspace and into someplace more freeing.

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