The emotional bandwidth in my brain has exceeded what it can hold, so here comes the overflow. I just looked, and it has been almost a year since my last blog, so no wonder I have brain seepage.
Life has been, for the lack of a better word, "even". There has been little new drama and/or emotional trauma, which is why I think everything is starting to spill out. Because of the evenness of it all, true emotions and feelings have had room to sprout and begin rooting and growing. One phrase pops up a lot anymore though....."Who am I?" It's quite the thing to be six decades in and not have an answer for this.
In the last year, things have begun to change in me. Sometimes we make deliberate change, and sometimes change just quietly creeps in without an invitation. The latter is what I am experiencing. I find myself wanting and doing things that I never before would have thought of or wanted, but now, they feel right and even natural. I also find myself questioning what I want out of life, and in some cases, allowing or setting boundaries to achieve it.
It seems that for most of my life, I have felt as if I were put into a mold created by the thoughts, needs, and expectations of everyone but myself. I relied heavily on what others thought of and about me and based my existence on that. I have rarely trusted my own instincts and desires, feeling that I would always get it wrong. Of late, though, that seems to be changing along with how I go about things.
One thing that has changed in me is my relationship with God. I feel things so deeply there and always have, but I began to question if my faith was real or just an expectation I grew up with, and that I had made myself hold onto. I have even questioned how I pray as opposed to how "I need" to pray. I have realized that my faith is real, but my prayers were often selfish and misplaced, and when the answer was no, I felt dejected. I now find myself NOT praying for specifics (unless there is a dire need or someone has asked a prayer for something specific), but I pray mostly for God's will and that I am given the strength and understanding to accept whatever that may be. I feel that I have gotten my "requests" wrong so many times in the past, so perhaps going forward, I just need to let Him guide me instead of me trying to force a situation and guide myself. I also feel that I need to delve a lot further into my relationship with God, but it seems far bigger than I am at this moment, so baby steps with prayer at the forefront.
I have also been talking to a therapist. A while back, I realized that there were a lot of complex feelings inside me that I just couldn't pinpoint. I think a lot of this started after my brother died, and I had this profound feeling of absolute loss, which was puzzling in light of the relationship we had. I felt as if I were in a tunnel of darkness that I couldn't navigate, and I wasn't sure why. Seeing my therapist has helped a lot, but it has also opened up things from my past that were never fully understood or dealt with. Bringing them to the surface leaves me feeling worn and sometimes in a dark place, but I am entirely sure that, without dealing with them, I can't positively move forward. It is really quite the process.
This year, I have also opened up to reacquainting myself with past friends and relationships, which seems to be something positive and something that I actually look forward to now. It is also something I would never have wanted or allowed previously. I have also made a real effort to show up in the lives of those in my circle of friends that I often just took for granted previously. I have learned that truthfully, I am not much of a people person, and I could probably spend the rest of my life being a hermit, but there are those, current and past people, who have become even more important to me, and they do make me want to show up and be present. It really is the darndest thing.
Mostly, I am seeing myself differently. I am also trying hard to listen to myself. I am weeding out that which gives me negativity or stress that I just don't need. I am also paying attention to the pain I feel emotionally, and there seems to be more than I ever dreamed possible. I am looking for causes and fixes, and currently, the fixes seem to be a little elusive. My actions, though, occasionally work independently of my mind, and I find myself doing things trying to heal myself that I wasn't even aware were healing. It is a weird concept, and yet it has actually helped.
I also find myself, after all these years, seeing myself in a different light. I have always told myself that I didn't care what others thought of me, but I saw a movie not long ago where one of the characters said,
"I don't care what anyone thinks," and the reply to that was, "You care what everyone thinks." It hit me in a deep place and uncovered some of the lies I tell myself and possibly others in order to exist in my own skin. Those words put me on a journey, wondering just how many other lies and hypocrasy's I hide behind. Trust me, there seems to be a lot.
One of the most daunting things I have dealt with is how I seem to have seen and judged myself over the years, based on the realization that I do in fact, care what everyone thinks. I have learned that I have not liked myself much as I somehow felt "less than" around the rest of the world (family and friends included), and like a fraud, seemingly faking my way through life, feeling as if I didn't have a manual, directions, or a clue about anything. It made the reflection staring back at me, unpleasant at best and deeply ugly at the core. Now, I have started trying to see myself through a realistic lens based on nothing but my own honest perception with no outside noise. This has not been easy, but it is getting easier as I am beginning to see and understand who I really am, or at the very least who I am turning into. It will be a forever work in progress, and I have had to come to terms with the fact that people will have opinions, both good and bad, but neither can affect who I am or want to be.
Deep emotional journeys are never easy, and quite frankly, this was not something that I wanted or was packed and ready for at this stage of my life. Maybe, though, it was put before me because of all those prayers, handing it to God and surrendering my will for His. Maybe this is the path He is guiding me on, and it is dirty, gritty, and at times, soul-jarring. I find that I am revealing myself through the past and finding myself in the present. I have quit questioning whether I should or not, but just saying, I am. It is terrifying and freeing and terrifying again, all in the same breath.
I still don't know who I am, but I am feeling more excited about learning. The dark days are not as dark, and the reflection I see is getting more real and less a judgment through others' eyes. The whole situation is a lot, but then again, some days not nearly enough. If it all sounds complex and messy, trust me, it is.
So for now, I live in the moment. I try hard not to hold on to much, and I allow myself to experience whatever is put before me. I listen and see more with my heart and less with my actual senses, and I try hard not to worry about tomorrow. We'll see how this all goes, and maybe someday I will have the answer of just who I am!
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