May 17, 2012
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I think I'm coming back ...
I woke this early morning and lay snug in my bed thinking about things until I had to get up. It was productive thinking that I wish I had written down immediately! I had started thinking about Amanda's questioning about the trigger of my current low mood - she had wondered if it was about the questions I had posed of myself last year around my conscious rejection of the 'idea' of a romantic relationship in my life. Whether I had a sense of something missing now.
The answer to this question first of all - mulled over at length, is that I have decided to not care. Perhaps it is 'damage' that makes me uninterested in a relationship again, but whether the lack of motivation to question myself over this is also damage could be overthinking - in fact, HAS to be overthinking. My official stance on the matter is that unless I meet someone who forces me to rethink, it is an non issue - there are too many other things in my life that I have right NOW that give me happiness to give something like that any priority. I might regret it one day (and many people think that I will) but I might regret lots of things... in every choice you make there is the potential for regret. I have thought it through, I might be damaged, I might be wrong, but I DO think it is a mindful choice.
So - after reaching this conclusion, I thought to myself, well, what IS missing? Something has to be missing. Of course something is missing - and of course I seem to look for it, or long for it, or feel the lack of it. What IS IT?
My instinct was to say "a mother" - and I think that would have been the right answer for a long time throughout my life. I have a mother, of course, one whom I love very much - and we now have a good relationship - but partly this good relationship has been achieved by the necessity of me (and maybe us) effectively wiping clean the slate of about a decade of volatility. There is a box in the back of my brain with unanswered hurts and questions, but I have accepted that these are not likely to be addressed. That is ok - they aren't exactly overwhelming anymore.
But is isn't that anymore. I look at what I have looked to say, Amanda for, over the more recent years. Trying to put that into words I first found "someone to go to" - but that wasn't right. I have had HER to go to, I have had other people to 'go to'. I rephrased it - "someone to phone up in tears". Perfect. I want someone to phone up in tears.
Then I realised. I do have those people in my life. I have people, other than Amanda, who would take a call from me, in tears, and do their best to make things better, or just BE THERE.
The problem is ME. I don't phone them in tears. My rare tears are usually censored by even myself. I am more likely to do something destructive and out of proportion, than to expose certain types of vulnerability. There have been very good reasons for this in the past but my Latest Self Help Challenge is to truly grasp that this defense mechanism NO LONGER SERVES ME.
This piece of writing, and the piece of writing last night, both allllllllllmost flowed. A couple of pauses as I searched for words, but I don't think that I have had to hit backspace once! Whoot! My brain really feels like it is starting to work and it has been sooooo long. I am also slightly perked up by the fact that therapy is doing its subtle work inside my mind again - but faster than I thought! I didn't think that there was a way for me to feel 'better' in a few sessions, but I am trusting again. I really am so lucky to have someone to work with who knows which questions need to be planted in my brain.
So, it is with some small degree of energy that I face my Friday - the thoughts that things WILL be OK again, and that my life isn't without happiness, both actually do hold comfort.
So, I'm coming back.
Comments (2)
Sal, you're great. "The problem is ME. I don't phone them in tears." And yes, exactly.
You pose a lot of questions or possible theories about things that are so familiar to me. I find, when I'm reading, I'm fairly holding my breath to see what your ultimate answer might be (is it love? no, not love. is it a mother figure? no, not that either...) so I can see if it might be the answer I want, too.
In this case, you've touched on something I think about a lot--my inability to really make myself vulnerable--although I feel like I'm getting better. A lot of it has to do with watching my father--who NEVER let anyone in all the way--now negotiating his health and mobility issues and realizing he has to let in a whole lot of people all at once. It's excruciating to see how he fights against it--and how we are made helpless by his refusals. I am determined to learn that lesson in advance of the universe forcing it upon me.
xxx.g.
Dear Sal. I've been wanting to comment for so long, but mostly feeling too useless to do so. I'm so happy you've been writing more - it's always so, so nice to see you here.
And, I must echo g - you're great. This is something I think about a lot, too - I am not the phone-people-in-tears sort, but sometimes I wish I were. It's frustrating when I realize that the alone-ness that I often feel has less to do with actually being alone and more to do with the fact that I don't let other people see the way that I feel.
I am very glad to know that you're feeling okay, though - both concussion-wise and otherwise.
h.