Every now and again I go through my back posts and re-read them. I thought this blog would be a great way to capture the ah-ha moments that I have and then in turn, be able to go back and reference them... which is exactly what I do when I go back through past posts... and it's funny, every time I read them I glean something else... perhaps because my lens and perspective is constantly shifting, or maybe because different things relate to different life situations at different times. Anyway, for the past couple of days I have been experiencing this weird, sort of intense sadness. For the life of me I cannot figure out why... everything is as hunky dory as it could be in my life, at least on the surface.
Now, don't go running away just yet... this is not some sappy, sad, I am in a deep dark place, post. I am more experiencing an emotion I generally block... because this feeling is not anyone's fave. To me, the best way to describe feeling sad is to picture someone walking around with an invisible rain cloud over their head... You can't see it and most often, neither can they- and it is sunny and hot as hell out so it is difficult for anyone to ascertain. But it is there... I am not talking about depression, I am talking about sudden and un-explained sadness- it doesn't last forever, it is just uncomfortable at the time. I have heard this feeling is often the precursor to some sort of growth... it shifts you out of your comfort zone just enough so that you will get up off your ass, make an awareness and change something. And I believe that.
In the last few months I have been faced with some difficult decisions... decisions I have tried my damnedest to avoid making... the kind of decisions that involve other people's feelings. Believe it or not, I care about most human's feelings... more than I should. More than my own, which is something I have touched on before- it often gets me in trouble with myself. But now, now I am getting to the point where caring for other people's feelings is starting to impede on my own. 'I don't want to hurt her feelings.' or 'he's not a bad person, I don't want to be mean to him'. What I have failed to do in those statements is remove the judgment. In taking care of my own feelings I am not purposefully hurting someone else, although, in my mind it sometimes feels that way...
It sometimes feels as though there is no way to gracefully bow out of an uncomfortable situation. And, while this may be a bit short sighted in awareness, most of the time I am not the one who makes the situation uncomfortable. Sure, I can not take the situation personally but, and here is the hardcore truth... but sometimes it just feels unfair to be stuck in the middle of so many fucking weird situations. No, I do not want to be your third point in this weird triangulation you have going on here- been there, done that, too many times. I know that I am the problem and solution here... I am the common denominator in all of these fucked up situations, so I have no one to blame but myself, but what I struggle with is- how does this happen?
I know this shit is not happening to me, but for me. There are valuable goldmines worth of lessons in these situations, but I sometimes have a hard time separating what is and isn't mine... What responsibility do I hold? Well, I suppose for starters- I hold responsibility for myself, my actions, words and innuendos. At some point I gave the impression that I am willing to be dragged through other people's problems (and I am not talking about listening to a friend who is going through a tough time, what I am referring to here are much more random situations, to people whom I have little to no connection with). At some point people figured out (maybe not consciously) that I would listen, even if listening meant that it would affect me in some way. At some point I gave away my power. The silly part is- at ANY point, I could take that power back. I can own my power whenever I want... I just have to get over the judgment shit I have about that...
This first came to my attention in a profound way a couple of years ago, when a 'friend' shared something with me that was in no way appropriate for her to share with me. At the time, I thought she had shared it because she had no other option, I thought she shared it because she wanted help, now I know there were plenty of options, for both her and me. I agonized over the information for a long, long time. I continually asked myself 'what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?' What I know now it that I owned something that was not mine in that moment. One very brief conversation changed a lot of things. That conversation began the demise of a friendship that was at that point over a decade in the making. And to this day, I am still not good with it or the way I handled myself in it. Since then there have been similar conversations, not in content, but context, where I could either choose to own my power and get out of a situation that was not mine to begin with, or I could choose to try desperately to help the other person while ripping my conscience to bits... and for the most part, I have continued to choose the latter.
But not now. Now, this awareness is far too glaring. It is blinding me... my sadness is not un-explainable... it can be traced to a point where I gave my power away for fear of coming across as rude, crass, mean, or uncaring. It's weird how in certain situations, no matter what you do, people will think what they will about you. And I am coming to the point where I do not care- not that I do not care about what anyone thinks, but that I do not care about what certain people think. I am the one who has to live in my mind. I am the one who has to sleep at night. And I do not owe explanations to those who dragged me into the situation to begin with...nor should I feel guilty for doing what I should have done in the first place-take care of myself.
It may sound as though I am bitter, or blaming. But I am neither. If anything, I am grateful to finally put words to this shit! I have struggled with this stuff for a long time. I can remember scolding myself after that friendship dissolved...'what is the lesson here?' I always had an idea of what my part was, but I could never figure out the lesson in my part. And I feel as though I finally have- I choose to allow myself to participate in such situations. That is why it seems as though I always find myself in the middle of them... When describing my current conundrum to a few friends one said 'run straight away from this, you stand to gain nothing and lose a lot', another was angry at the situation and told me to ignore it, but what made the most sense was the friend who reminded me to own my power.
I'm still not sure why other people, perfect strangers sometimes, feel the need to come to me with their shit... but at least I am beginning to get a bit more sure-footed in my response- I can sympathize, even empathize with the situations, but in the end- that is your stuff buddy- and you are going to have to figure out how to deal with it, just like the rest of us are trying to figure our own stuff out. The biggest gift in this entire situation is that I do have real and genuine friends who love me enough to listen and give me sound advice when I find myself in the midst of yet another 'pickle', and they have the patience to continue loving me while I figure my own stuff out. There is no doubt some of them ask the same question of me as I do myself- Where is my mind? Well, I do not always have the answer for that, but today my mind is right here with me... And I hear you all, I get what you are saying, it's just that, as you all are well aware by now, sometimes it takes a bit for my mind to catch up ;)
