Be the Blanket

I am sitting at my work desk basically in tears. My life has just become “too hard” for me and my body and mind have reverted to the state of quivering five year old who’s just been yelled at by her father and then spanked for crying.

It’s kind of absurd the kinds of things we ask of one another as a society, and even more absurd the kinds of things that people like me ask of themselves.

Straight A grades, meaningful work, fulfilling relationships, healthy lifestyle, recreation and luxury.

It’s no wonder people are so neurotic these days. It takes an army general of an amygdala to:

  • handle surgery recovery
  • meet my new standards of caloric intake since I exercise less as a result of a new job
  • perform at that new job satisfactorily
  • give my partner time, attention, and support
  • take time to care for myself and to try to exercise when I can
  • take care of chores around the house so that my anxiety doesn’t skyrocket
  • build a new social network in a new town but not spend too much money because my budget has to stay tight
  • keep my cats fed and litter boxes clean so they don’t pee on the floor
  • not freak out because someone got shot within a three block radius of my home yesterday
  • plot how in the world I’m going to actually help the chaos of suffering from both a lack of love and efficiency I see in the world every day
  • try to feel present and grateful and not hating myself for not doing more about it
  • feel stressed about that cognitive dissonance and knowing that stress is bad for me

So this morning, when I logged into Anthem’s website and saw that my nine-thousand dollar surgery claim had been denied, and then had to marshall the will and patience to call a customer service rep, figure out what went wrong, have the claim resubmitted, and then deal with other bureaucratic nonsense that is going to cost me $300 when I’m emotionally drained and financially strapped, and hope that the claim gets approved this time….

I need to cope.

My brain thinks that cigarettes are the best way to cope. But that surgery I just had was removing pre-cancer from my body, so that doesn’t seem smart. Second best? Chocolate/calories. I’m trying to manage my body. Nope.

Third choice — talk to people, connect to people…. share the burden.

This third choice should be my first choice, but it isn’t for a hundred reasons.

It’s not that I don’t have good friends or a supportive family, I do.

It’s that I’ve internalized a judgmental stance on reaching out for help.

As a former volunteer on a sexual assault crisis hotline, it’s fine for me to field calls and offer support for other people who are suffering, but not to ask for it myself.

As a friend, I treasure the moments when my friends share their struggles and allow me to see them at their worst. But not me, I have it all together.

I think that we each as individuals do this to ourselves. We impose an isolation because we’re raised in a country that says “YOU can do it! YOU can have it all! Everything in your life is a reflection of WHO YOU ARE!”

But it’s not. All of our lives, decisions, policies and systems are woven together. It’s my turn to have it rough, and sooner or later, it’ll be my time to shine again. Someone else always has it rougher, someone else is always shining brighter. This is life. This is participating in the tapestry of existence and community.

What’s truly futile is the way that we all think we can game the system, or assert an identity that is more powerful than the tapestry we are a thread in. It doesn’t work like that.

So what do I do? I realize that I am a thread, and I snuggle myself tightly into the threads around me. I tell my friends, call my mom, write this piece, and then let it go.

Be the blanket. That’s my insight for today. Just be the blanket you want to hide in, pull the threads tight and close, and warm everyone else with connection.

Everyone struggles. I am not alone.