I need time. I need space. I need a continuum, all to myself. Everyone is too loud, too needy, too big, too everything. I feel like I’m shrinking. I need more me. I feel like I haven’t been myself all week. How sad is that: I can only be me once in a while for thirty minutes or so at a time, in between fulfilling everyone else’s needs and wants. I wonder how much of the time other people get to feel like “themselves”? And how much right do I have to demand more space/time? How much of the time should I “get” to feel like me? And is it my fault I don’t feel like me? Am I choosing to be inauthentic or am I forced to be?
Of course, this brings us to the awkward question of “Who the hell am I anyway?”
And the answer is: I have no idea.
I have made myself what others have needed and wanted for so many years, I am not sure who and what I am. Who would I be without constraints? Hard to say. So many things are so ingrained in me now that I don’t think there is any way for me to fully be who I would have been without certain facts of my childhood.
Maybe it’s time to take an exploratory inventory. Because I am nothing if not methodical and organized. Or am I really? (Also, although a meme recently blew my mind by pointing out that alphabetical order is arbitrary and there is no special reason the letters are in the order they are, I must have order imposed on my chaos, so yes, sadly, the list is alphabetical*. (*See entry for A).)
Anyway, here goes:
Am I adventurous? No, but I would like to be. I have always felt the weight of responsibility for EVERYTHING, even things outside my power, so adventure has always been too risky. And selfish. But I want to be. And I want my daughter to be. If she wants to be.
Am I bold? Hell, no. But sometimes the reactions inside my head are. What I want to do in certain situations is very different from what I choose to do. I want to walk right up to the bitchy mothers in the park who have been talking and idly pushing their babies in the swings for 30 MINUTES and tell them that they should share, but instead I am a coward, and I crouch and comfort my daughter while she sobs about getting her turn. And so I fail her again.
Am I calm? I don’t think I will ever know the answer to this one. My reactions are so locked down, I have no idea what my natural state would be. People have often commented on how calm I am, though they have no idea the turmoil roiling inside. And sometimes things slip out. When you hold on so tightly, some emotions spring out through the gaps in your fist. And it can be ugly. Maybe this: my emotions are not calm, but my outward appearance is (That would be a way to freak the hell out of people: start reacting on the outside as I feel on the inside. You all would think I’ve lost my mind!). So if I started letting myself really feel my emotions in real time, I would stop being a calm person. Hm…
Am I decisive? I can be. The few decisions I can make for just me, easily done. I find I actually enjoy it. But decisions that impact other people? The Ninth Circle of Hell. Instant gut-twisting anxiety. Even what to cook for dinner strangles me every day. So many conflicting expectations (Seriously, who can cook healthy food without it looking or tasting healthy? Is that even possible?). One of my biggest daily fears is someone turning to me and saying, “Whatever you want, I’m good with.”
Am I enthusiastic? I want to be. I want to be passionate about things. I want to be driven. But I have crushed my own spirit for so long, I can’t even begin to find enthusiasm, much less show it. You don’t show that you care about something in case someone else doesn’t agree. It doesn’t take long for that to go from “don’t show you care about something” to “don’t care about anything.” If you are not passionate about something, you can’t be hurt when it gets taken away. Right?
Am I flexible? My husband jokes about how inflexible I am. And he’s right. I don’t change plans easily. Last minute changes to my day create instant anxiety and can even lead to full panic. But I have recently come to realize that my anxiety comes from a place of responsibility. I feel (whether justifiable or not) that I am responsible for all the outcomes of the day, so I plan and prepare like crazy every day to make sure that everything happens as it should. When changes are made outside my control, I am still responsible for the outcomes, but no longer have control of the variables. Therefore, panic. If I didn’t feel the burden of responsibility, what would I be like?
Am I good-natured? Hell if I know. It is ingrained in me to be calm and accommodating, even when I’m raging inside, even when people are being unreasonable or even cruel to me. A friend once observed that I look relaxed when I’m angry. I think that the angrier I am, the more tightly I am controlling myself, so the calmer I look. I have no idea if I am naturally a happy, good-natured person.
Am I humorous? Oh dear God, I want to be, so badly. I want people to see me as intelligent, kind, friendly, and most definitely funny. Not pee-your-pants, fall-out-of-your-chair-laughing hilarious, but I want to make people laugh. But usually I either say nothing at all in social settings or try too hard to be funny and create awkward situations.
Am I independent? Unlike most people I know, I thoroughly enjoy eating in a restaurant alone. And I’m not even glued to my phone (though I sometimes bring a book). But is that because I have more freedom and less anxiety when I’m alone? Would I choose to do things alone if I wasn’t so afraid of others’ expectations? Am I really an introvert or do I just need to be alone because being around people creates so much anxiety?
Am I jealous? Yes, absolutely. While I know that what we see is rarely the whole story, I still envy people who seemed to have life, and themselves, figured out. I don’t envy the person who never has to worry about paying bills; I envy the person who has never had to go to therapy.
Am I kind? Would I choose to help others if I didn’t fear that my worth as a human being depended on it? Would I do nice things for people if I wasn’t desperate for them to want to want me around? I would like to think so, but I don’t know.
Am I likeable? Don’t answer this; I don’t think I honestly want to know. Yes, I have friends. I’ve always had friends. Not large groups of them or super close ones, but I have friends. But I also have doubts. I honestly think I have closer relationships with my doubts than with my friends. I certainly spend more time with them.
Am I mature? Yes, I had to grow up very quickly and take on many responsibilities, but I also feel like I’m maybe twelve, pretending I know what I’m doing, copying what the people around me are doing, but having no idea whatsoever how to relate to other adults or how to behave in social situations. I avoid casual conversations at the park for this exact reason. Hearing “How old is your daughter?” is enough to make me want to vomit on their shoes and run away. Like an octopus squirting ink, I’m outta there.
I think I’ll stop here for now. Half of the alphabet now, half later, it has a certain symmetry to it (Though it also makes me feel a little like a paid advertisement on TV). This is helpful in showing me areas of my life that I want to change. It doesn’t answer all the questions back at the start of all this, but it’s a beginning.
What about you, reader? Do you feel you are able to be yourself in daily life? And what does that mean to you? Were you given that space or did you have to fight for it? Or are you one of those people I’m terribly jealous of because you’ve just always been you? In that case, you are so lucky (or blessed, depending on your beliefs).
Anyway, to be continued…