Butterfly on the Wall

I'm not a reader, either.

I used to be a voracious reader.  Voracious.  I was the kid who always had a book - actually two or three, so that I could pick up whatever I was in the mood for - to fill the empty spaces of life. 

It helped with school, though not so much with social situations.  I got teased for using "big words," though I didn't do it to be pretentious.  It's just that I picked them up from reading so much, and one tends to incorporate what they have learned into their life.  Once, at a friend's slumber party, I told one of the girls that her new hairdo looked "sophisticated" - a compliment as far as I was concerned - and she locked herself in the bathroom crying, because she didn't know what it meant and thought that I had insulted her.  I much preferred the comfort and unreal drama of a book (or the company of animals), to interactions with unpredictable, and sometimes not very nice, humans.

I always chose fiction, particularly historical romance like Victoria Holt and historical romance time travel like Diana Gabaldon and historical vampire romance with time-travel like flashbacks like Anne Rice.  And ghosts.  Historical, um, romantic . . . ghosts........ok, that's sounding weird and I can't think of an author, but I'm sure there is one and I read it.  In other words, pure escapism.

Then, sometime around when the hardcore depression hit about 10 years ago, I unconsciously switched to nonfiction.  Because I think that the predominant reason for my crash was the clash between wanting to interact with the world, and my (perceived) inability to do so, I suppose I needed something real.  Travel, memoir, biography, personal essay -- anything that showed people doing and accomplishing things, living their lives the best they could, overcoming obstacles and finding peace and/or fulfillment.

And now?  Now I still carry books around in the topics that interest me, that mirror who I want to become.  They are like security blankets: something comforting and familiar that I think I can't do without, but that in reality was always a bit of a crutch.

That's not to say that I think books are superfluous.  Believe me, I'm not knocking reading.  I love and value books and what they have taught me. 

But there are multiple sides to everything.  Yes, I learned a lot, and there is always a need for relaxation and escapism.  But I often used them to hide, because real life (and especially people) seemed too inhospitable to me.  And I turned to them as a way to live because I believed that I did not know how to do that myself, that living somehow belonged to other people while I was meant to stay in a little cocoon, watching the world while remaining entirely separate from it.  

And it is from this part that I am apparently trying to break free.

And so I find that I can no longer read, at least not now.  Much like realizing that I am not a writer, it has been a slow and sometimes painful goodbye as I find it is extremely difficult to let go of something which has been such an integral part of me and a means of defining myself for over 30 years, especially when I don't yet understand why it is being cast off. 

As I continually bring home stacks of books from the library that I never read, I keep thinking "what is wrong with me?"  (Because unfortunately that is my default position.  And I'm working on that, too.)

It feels like I am losing myself because I cannot yet see, and perhaps don't trust, what is to take its place.  And that is very scary.

But as McCaffery said in this post, sometimes you have to let something go (fall apart) to make room for something else, even if you don't always know what that something else will be.

And seriously.  Most of the time, even if you think you know? 

You really don't know.

I don't feel bad, exactly . . .

Or "grotty" as I have learned they say over in The Land I Want To Visit So Much It Hurts, aka the UK. 

No, not that.

It's just that I feel like I'm dying.

And I got two moles removed last week that I'm waiting to hear if they are cancer and the very day that I got back from the dermatologist CUTTING me, I look in the mirror and see a brand new dark brown pinprick mole of death right below my eye that I have never seen before and why couldn't I have noticed that BEFORE driving an hour and a half to see the doctor? 

And I'm also applying for a job that looks like a pretty good opportunity - i.e. it pays money and has benefits and although we are supposedly a socialist state now thanks to the health bill I'm not feelin' it yet - and really, it's something that I could do and its not fundraising.  

And I kind of want it.

But J-O-B spells D-E-A-T-H to me for some reason embedded deep within my subconscious and I'm grappling with that, trying to shake it loose because I don't want it.  I know it's an irrational fear and I've no use for those.  And normally I wouldn't worry too much about the moles but my brain is picking up any death signal from anywhere even causing me to look under the bed for serial killers because it is out of control at the moment.

And ok, I thought I wanted to be a kept woman, but maybe not so much since my ability to pick sugar daddies is clearly defective.  My Love is male, and definitely sweet, but he is not rockin' the money thing hard enough to get us where we want to go. 

And really, I don't want to live in the fear that I can't take care of myself, which is where that is based. 

So. Job. 

And applications.  And cover letters.  And ick.

But a strange thing is happening.  As I'm filling this one out, and reviewing my old stuff, for the first time I'm actually starting to toot my own horn a bit.  To realize that maybe I did actually do some good things after all and I wasn't a completely incompetent loser and the good recommendations and awards were maybe, oh, I don't know, REAL, and not a delusion.  (Really, I have actual paper and one is wood and cheap brass, and they spelled my name right, so I know they exist.)

And I'm beginning to sense that maybe I can start to be present in my life, and take pride in my work and not belittle myself, and not take things so personally and not let teeny tiny mistakes ruin my whole life?

Maybe?

For now, let me breathe and go to a happy place.

 
Santa Maria, Cuba, 2008

I am still processing so here is another picture I like.

Everytime I try to write out something coherent about what is going on in my head, it just comes out an icky rambling mess, and I don't want to share.  I'm not liking my tone.  I.e., I feel like this blog started in one place and helped me process some stuff, and now when I come here it keeps me stuck in those old attitudes and I want to move on.  It's that thing about physical location change helping me with emotional change. 

Also the computer?  It hypnotizes me.

And balance I'm not so good at. 

Grammar, either.

We'll see.  For now, picture.

One misty morning here at our little rented farmette, when I actually got off my ass to go outside and take pictures because I hadn't yet started a blog.

Excuse me while I get over myself.

Potato George

Last year we grew four rows of potatoes.  A little ambitious perhaps, considering there are only two of us.  But we wanted to grow white, red and gold varieties, and that started to add up.  Actually this sums up our whole garden philosophy which is how it got completely out of hand and made me not want one this year, but when spring comes around I just can't help myself, especially when things pop up without any work like this chard, a gift from a failed planting last fall:

and the raspberries:

and the strawberries that we thought drowned while the garden was underwater this winter:

Also, we are slackers with weed control and, well, I have a lot of work to do.  Those grass-covered humps that look like ancient burial mounds?  They are were garden beds.  Sigh.

Anyway, potatoes.

We planted all those potatoes and they all matured at the same time so my Love dug them up in early June and put them in the shed and instead of giving them away we forgot about them.  Until September.  After the 90-degree heat and humidity and long, light-filled days of summer which, unbeknownst to me has a radioactive spider transformative effect on potatoes, turning them into little green goblins of death!  I'm mixing up my superheroes and villians here but you get the point.  Green potatoes are not so good.  This is why it is imperative to keep them cool and dark.  From The Curious Cook, who explains it so much better than I could:

"Beware of green potatoes, and peel every trace of green away: that's been standard advice for decades, and for good reason. When potatoes are exposed to light, these underground tubers interpret it as a sign that they're no longer completely buried in the soil. So they produce chlorophyll pigments to help them make use of the light's energy, and they produce bitter toxins to discourage animals from eating them. The toxins, alkaloids called solanine and chaconine, are about as powerful as their better-known cousin strychnine. They apparently interfere with the structure of all our cell membranes and also with the processing of a nerve transmitter (they inhibit acetylcholinesterase), which can cause hallucinations and convulsions. Because the color change in a potato parallels its accumulation of alkaloids, greenness is used as an indicator of toxicity and therefore irreversible spoilage. It's estimated that around 15% of the US potato crop is discarded on account of greening."

Strychnine, people!  I don't care if it is just a cousin.   Strychnine!!!!!

I refused to eat them, but my Love pshawed and began to swagger out to the shed, thinking to bring in some green potatoes to eat on his own but I forbade him, in almost those words.  Seriously, it got a little heated.  Because I would not have him dying a hallucinogen-filled, toxic potato death.  He thought I was overreacting.  (Moi?) 

However, I WON.  No green potatoes were ingested and my Love is still with me, thank goodness.

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The potato lines run deep in my family and on the Shore in general.  Around the turn of the century, and up until roughly the early 1940's the potato was king here.  Almost everyone was growing them as potatoes love our sandy, slightly acidic soil (strawberries do, too) and it was a prosperous time.  Then, as now, there were white potatoes and sweet potatoes and a variety of sweet which is supposedly unique to us called the Hayman.  Raw, it is yellowish-white, but when cooked it turns a dull green and oozes a sticky black syrup.  Sounds icky, but trust me, they are excellent with roast venison or sausage. 

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My mom vaguely remembers a relative on her father's side nicknamed Potato George who, to put it gently, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  Actually she said he was known to be a little crazy.  I think he's also the one who had been hit by lightning and well, that might explain that.  Or maybe he ate too many toxic green potatoes and thus the nickname?  I don't know.  I'm just speculating here.

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Also, my grandmother, who had lived here all her life, did not have a particularly strong Eastern Shore accent--not like a waterman or anything--but every once in a while she threw me off.  Like whenever we had Sunday dinner she would announce that we were having "arsh potatoes."   Since we rarely had potatoes prepared any way other way, I always thought that she was saying "mashed" potatoes.  I was nearly 20 years old before I realized she was actually saying Irish potatoes, meaning "white," as opposed to "sweet" or "Hayman."

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Somewhere along the line I snagged my grandfather's World War I letters.  My teenage, dramatic history-loving self was thrilled, imagining all the exciting and deliciously horrific details I would find therein, written in his own hand!  He died when I was only 7 and was quite taciturn, though I didn't know if this was characteristic, or just because he was so ancient and you know, maybe his vocal chords had deteriorated or something.  I had my brother scan the letters to preserve their wisdom for future generations and so I could read them over and over without touching them because human hand oil is death to old paper.  And I just knew I'd want to study them because 1) they were old and anything old was interesting and 2) I imagined the letters would be a window into the mind of this man I never really knew.

And I suppose they were, in a way.  Because I found that he was just as uncommunicative as a twenty-something soldier on the hellish French front as he was as an eighty-something retired farmer living out his final years on the tranquil Eastern Shore approximately 8 miles from where he was born.  The letters, all 50 or so of them, can be summed up thusly: "Yes, mother, I am getting enough to eat and please tell my little brother to look after my potato crop."  And to the little brother: "How is my potato crop?" 

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Yep, we love us some potatoes.

And guess what?  Our little green goblins of death have had a change of heart.  They have redeemed themselves into little green shoots of life.  Because we were too lazy to dump them back in the fall and now they have grown eyes and are ready to plant! 

Even though I said I wasn't going to garden this year.  Or ok, maybe just some lettuce and tomatoes.  Alright, since they're there, maybe some potatoes, too. 

You see where this is going.

Pulling myself up out of the angst-filled pit

This could be an angst-filled pit.  But it's actually a Mayan grave that I am desecrating.  My eyes are closed because I'm in an ecstatic state of wallowing bliss.  Mmmmmmm, aaaansgt.

I had a big, long angsty post half-written, but in the interest of declaring this blog an angst-free zone because I'm so sick of myself a wee bit stuck on that, I'll give the distilled version:

The tax fairies were good to us this year.  Probably to make up for all that unemployment.  And for once, their beneficence didn't have to be funneled directly into a pre-existing hole. 

So.

My Love and I, we both have dreams.  His involves a standard, socially acceptable path of formal schooling with a pretty good guarantee of a career on the other end.  Mine involves self-love and self-development in a form that looks suspiciously like a frivolous vacation and has no promises of paid employment.  But, in its way, it is every bit as important and necessary to my future well-being as his.

Is his dream more important than mine?  

Because apparently I believe that it is.  Ever since we put it in the savings account, my little reptilian brain has been silently handing over my half of the green fairy juice to him to pursue his dream, while I wallow in an angst filled pit. I keep saying that it's "our money," while stepping aside as if I don't count.

Why am I automatically giving my Self away? 

And it is me.  Because I have hounded him to death discussed this with my Love many times.  He knows how much this means to me.  And every time I say, "This is what I think I'm going to do," he says, "Ok.  We'll make it work."

And here's where I get into trouble.  Because his reaction doesn't look exactly like I want it to.  My expectation is that he will say: "Bebe!!!!!!  That is so great!!!!!  What will you do, exactly?  Tell me every single detail, even if it means that we talk long into the night and I am too tired to function at my job tomorrow!!!!  You know, the job that I work that is supporting your ass right now.  And then I can't pay attention in my night class, the one I'm taking to reach my own dreams.  But my comfort does not matter, for I am only focused on you!!!!  Oh please, my angel, tell me!!!!!!!" 

Or something along those lines.

But my Love rarely speaks with an exclamation point.  Let alone a string of them.  That's just the way he is.  He cares, he is interested, but he is not effusive.  So because I do not get my expected reaction, the one that would (supposedly) assuage my guilt/fears, I trip on back to my slop pit of angst-mud and roll around, telling myself how very selfish and irresponsible I'm being for wanting something very, very important to me.  No, no, I'm much more comfortable here, really.

This is my tired old script, and my Love the unwitting lead, like Truman Burbank in The Truman Show.  My expectations set me up to replay it on an endless loop, which I suppose, is the goal.  Because then I don't address my ingrained feelings of selfishness and my fears that he will leave if I do something very important for myself.

I'm through with it.  Seriously.  Angst-free zone.  Starting now.  One change a week, two days early.  Because I'm so good at sticking to that.

(Yes, that was distilled.  You're welcome.)

FAIL.

I had fried eggs this morning.

No excuse for it.  I woke up at 4 a.m., after getting up to go to the bathroom and then falling over my dog in the dark.  Both of these things are very bad omens.  If I get up at 4:00, then I am upset about something.  If I fall over the dog it is the cherry on top of the upset sundae. 

Then I lay in bed for an hour, painfully awake, all blocked up in my psyche and turning myself in knots, so I got up and I caved.

"This will make me feel better," I said to myself and maybe to Invisible Viggo Mortensen too, though I think he probably was still asleep at 4 a.m.  

"Oh go ahead.  Who cares, really?" I whispered, so as not to wake Invisible Viggo.  "Gooey, runny egg yolks are a panacea after all.*   Just eat them.  Then everything will make sense."

Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha.  No.

My Love on the Mayan ruins in Honduras in a "I'm King of the Mayans, bring me slaves to sacrifice" pose.  But I'm reclaiming it today as "Why, oh why, oh why? Why, oh why? Oh, the humanity!  Make it stop!  Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!" 

Things swirling in my head at the moment:

• My writing voice and how I declared with such vehemence that "I am not a writer!" but then sometimes think, well, maybe I am.  Just not when I feel pressured.  Which is pretty much all the time.  So, I'm not a writer.  But I am.
• Priorities in my life, for myself.  And how I keep going in circles.  Are you getting sick of this yet?  Because I so am.
• The pursuit of "Lifestyle Design" and perfection.
• Being genetically socially inept, goat-girl that I am.
• My discomfort in the face of uncertainty and making decisions.
• There is the neutral zone and there are new beginnings.  There is thinking things through and not thinking enough.  Borders? 
• What, exactly, constitutes a "rash decision?"  Is it rash if you've been whining thinking about it for months, but have only just come to a conclusion?  Or is it rash because you have no other justification for it than "I want to.  I don't know why, I just do.  And I'm hoping it will lead to something that I can't predict right now." 
• I keep waiting for conviction, but perhaps one needs to cultivate, or maybe even go out and find conviction?  Or just recognize it when its already there?

The eggs aren't working.  I need commiseration.  Anyone else got something you can't seem to get resolution on?  How are you working on it? 

*What?  You didn't know?

Changes (or not)

I am feeling a bit discombobulated today.  A little sad.  A tad drained.  A bit like I want to rip my uterus out of my abdomen with my bare hands and a butter knife because I'm that desperate to get rid of the pain. 

The hurt goes all down my legs, through my joints and into my feet.  When I woke up my Love this morning, I asked him to rub my feet for a minute and they buzzed around for a while.  Literally buzzed, like electricity.  Now I wish I could get him to do my legs, but he's at work so, no.

But it makes me think.  I vaguely remember reading something that Dr. Christiane Northrup wrote in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the book and this was long ago) that the degree of menstrual pain could be relative to what emotional distress a woman had or had not processed.

Now here we go with a bit of woo again.  While I do think that bodies are a kind of machine and are bound to have some faulty wires and parts, and things naturally will break and go wrong and that's just the cards that we were/are dealt, I also think that our mindset has an influence and sometimes emotional issues manifest physically in the body.  Growing up and into my 20's I used to have headaches almost daily.  While depressed I had not a one, and I rarely have one now.

So it's interesting that I have so much pain in my legs and feet.  Instruments of motion, feet symbolic of grounding and personal strength.  Honestly it feels like energy is pooling there with nowhere to go.  And here I sit, feeling emotionally paralyzed when it only takes a few small changes.  A few steps.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I want to move, literally and emotionally.  My body and my house and all the rest.  I feel that I'm on the cusp of something and I will not turn my back on it again.

Monument Valley.  Not Arizona, but close enough.  And look!  It even matches my blog color scheme.  Destiny.

Speaking of butter knives I'm also thinking about my emotional addiction to bread. It's one of those habits that I realize has total control of me.  Being a slave to your compulsions feels very dis-empowering and therefore icky.

When we spent two glorious weeks with my Love's family in Cuba in 2008 I hardly ate bread or any other flour-based food.  Two small pieces with homemade butter in the morning, but that's it.  The rest was loads of tropical fruit and avocados, tons of beans and rice, syrupy Cuban coffee and way more pork than I could handle so I often passed on that, especially if it was fried.  Some guava pies and fried sweet plantains, but that was it for desserts.  Many Cuban desserts are cold and custard based, which I don't much care for so no temptation there.  Good chocolate and ice cream are hard to come by.  And really, the sheer variety of fresh tropical fruits, many of which I'd never tasted before, made any other sweet craving obsolete. 

Fuzzy picture of my Love doing the pig carving honors in Cuba

Whether it was the change in diet, the novelty of travel, or that my appetite shrunk out of excitement and the August heat I don't know, but in one week I began to feel lighter and cleaner somehow, and by the time I came home I had dropped back down to my mentally unstable, pre-move anxiety weight.  (When I'm anxious, I actually eat better and less.)  All my big-girl clothes are this size because that's the last time I had a job that required them.  Now I'm back up to where I can technically still wear them, (and I do because I'm not buying new when I don't know what sort of job I'm going to have) but it's not attractive and actually is rather uncomfortable.

But this is not just about weight, because I'm talking a fluctuation of only about 10 pounds here.  Plus I eat pretty healthy at home, too, having slowly changed my diet over the years to weed out what made me feel yucky while slowly incorporating more of what made me feel better.

But I know I would feel even more better if I were to tweak these last things which are the hardest:

• cut down on the flour (dare I say, eliminate?  Gasp, shudder.)
• cut out the fried eggs in the morning
• eat lots more fruit
• cut out the sugar in my tea -- as much as I drink this adds up to way more than you'd think
• decrease my wine intake and food portions -- I eat past full.

This is not about achieving a certain number on the scale, or looking skinny, or getting into a smaller clothing size (though I'd like my pants to fit.)  It's about what everything else in my life is about right now: self-discipline, self-control and self-determination.  Being captain of my own ship and all that. 

I know--deeply know--that if I tweaked these last few things in my diet AND developed a steady routine of bodywork that my worldview and therefore life would change drastically.  And now, with no job to suck up my time and attention, is the perfect time to do it. 

The best way I know to kick myself in the ass is to pick up and leave.  (Thus the Arizona post.)  I have a really hard time altering time-worn patterns and my comforting routines while still in the same environment.  I love the newness, the exploration, figuring things out, seeing different things, establishing new rhythms.  Physically changing location shakes me awake, helps me see things differently.  It's why I love to travel.

And it does work for me.  Each time I've moved over the last 10 years, I have effectively sloughed off old behaviors and ways of thinking.  I don't just fall back into doing everything the way I did before. 

Maybe its just the sensation of my life force draining away today, but I'm feeling stuck, stuck, stuck and tomorrow is my birthday and I want to feel the dawn of a new era.

Over the red desert rocks of Arizona.

Ok, still Utah and not Arizona, but whatever.

Miles to go before I sleep

Image: Mine, Pinar del Rio, Cuba, 2008

I have been chasing various forms of escapism, avoiding out of ignorance the core issue which would make escapism unnecessary - passivity vs. strength. 

Inner strength has never been part of the story I told myself.  And because I didn't think I had any, I didn't think that it was truly possible to grow.  How can you work a muscle that isn't there?  

Which is why I resorted to escapism.  It seemed like my only option was to find a job that would allow me to hide (like the Job I Loved) or, even better, be a stay at home housewife which would let me out of it altogether.

But as I've found out from my time of unemployment, I'm not truly content with that option either.  It still allows a fear to lurk deep down and eat at me (what if my Love is no longer there for some reason?) and that makes me feel weak.

I do not want to live in fear.

I have been struggling and flailing with the job stuff because of the simple fact that right now there is no answer.  No job is going to be right until I begin to tip the scales from passivity to inner strength.  Because until then, every consideration is colored by me secretly wondering if this line of work will keep me safe.  Answer: No, it won't.  With that as the top criteria, my results are inevitably skewed.

Passivity makes others' lives less complicated, which was my goal as a child.  I didn't want to do anything to further upset two already very upset people, especially since I now realize I thought that their unhappiness was my fault.  And (if I might invoke the woo) couple that with the fact that I am a Pisces, a tribe to which passivity comes naturally.

Of course, eventually I resented and resisted passivity, while still unconsciously feeling that that is what I needed to do to keep myself safe.  Enough to turn anyone in internal knots.  Somewhere around ninth grade I began to feel very angry, which is why my mother and I rarely had a civil conversation until I was out of the house and why I still have trouble being around my dad.  That's why I'm still not content in my unemployed state and probably why I hate work so much.

As an adult in the job world (which is where I have the most trouble), passivity allows you to be taken advantage of (like an incident yesterday, which I may recount in another post).  More significantly, it can lead to an inability to make decisions.  Not a problem on an assembly line or in some form of production work (like Job I Loved!) but problematic in any jobs that involve thinking (like all the other jobs that I've had.)

Passivity aside, I think that the options I've already considered -- domestic goddess, self-employed artisan of some sort, freelancing -- are still probably the best fit for my personality.  I just have to accept that the path to whatever I eventually choose is going to be longer than I had hoped and I must be patient.  Accept that I have to go through these things and I know it will be better in the end.

What I really need.

See, there's the problem that I have been taught not to trust my decisions.  My old story was "I am afraid to make decisions."  But that's only a half truth.  The other half, I'm realizing after a mini-meltdown yesterday, is "I don't trust myself to make good decisions."  So as I realize in this post, I'm always working  damage control rather than conducting preventative maintenance.

And if I don't trust my decisions and demonstrate confidence in my convictions (or even admit to having strong convictions in the first place), then how likely is it that others are going to show unwavering confidence in me either? 

I cow tow and rarely stand up for myself, stuck in an unconscious child/parent pattern that "they," (i.e. anyone other than me, but especially bosses) know better. Because I don't trust myself.

I posted the New Life Plan yesterday, but honestly wasn't entirely feeling it, though I couldn't pinpoint why.  Now I think its because I left out some crucial things that are less..."practical."  Less geared towards money, which I always default to.  I think I got the messaging pretty clear while growing up that nothing matters or is "practical" (oh how I despise that word!!!!!!!) unless it has monetary value.  Which I suppose is not very surprising with parents who were born during the Depression and grew up not exactly poor, but not with very much either.

The first step to having the confidence of my convictions then, might be for me to 1) tell myself that what I need to grow is more important that anything else and 2) honestly ask myself what I need, then ask for it and carry through with getting it.  Stop telling myself I can't.  Because "can't" means "don't deserve."  It means that others' wants and needs--real or imagined--are more important than mine.  And here I need to be selfish for a little while.

In mid-April, after my mom's knee surgery, I'm leaving. 

I need time and space to heal and grow strong.  That UK trip thing from the Plan, but......

.......I need to go to the desert.  Arizona.  It was calling me 10 years ago when I got divorced and I ignored it.  No more.

I need body movement.  So I need to find a good teacher of pilates or yoga or something.

I need to not be intimidated by money.  I know it can be a practical (spit!) worry, but not the way I wield it.  I use it as an inhibitor.  No more.

In summary then.  I need to go to Arizona, find a pilates/yoga mentor/teacher and learn to feel my strength.

Mind you, I have no idea how I'm going to make this happen, as I am not independently wealthy.  But I know that this is what I need and I am now officially asking for it.  As Barbara Winter explains in this post, goal first, funding second.

So thank you in advance,

Stacia

Letting life happen

The last couple of days, I have let myself get into situations that I swore I wouldn't ever let happen again.  I have fallen into the familiar and odious pattern of letting life happen and then desperately hoping life will bail me out.  And where am I in all this?  Feeling like a little buoy bouncing along on the water's surface, floating along on the tide.

I'm really beginning to see how I have never felt in control of my self and my life.  I've either tried to please people, or reacted against people-pleasing, or done what I thought I was supposed to do, or just let things happen because it seemed easier and I didn't want to say no out of unconscious fear of making the wrong decision. 

Though I often end up doing what is necessary to take care of myself in the long run, these decisions usually come from a place of weakness and last resort.  I yearn for them to come from a place of strength but I am deathly afraid of taking active control of my life, and won't until pushed.  Because what "they" want (real or, more often, imagined) is always given more importance than what I want. 

Because my belief system says that responsibility = blame, judgment and negative repercussions. 

And in a way, I'm finding that "what I want" is a trite, overused phrase.  That maybe I'm too accustomed to using it superficially.  Maybe, as V's comment got me to thinking, I'm looking in the wrong direction.

I've been looking to find what I am most passionate about because, Yes! Then! Then it will come together and I will not dread work like death.  But really, looking more deeply, what I really want right now is not a dream career, but a feeling of competence.  I had been looking for what I want to do or be (thinking that would sort it all out) rather than how I want to do or be. And part of the how is figuring out which environments make me feel less competent and which make me feel more comfortable, then avoiding the former and finding a way into the latter. 

Up until I landed the Job I Loved, I have always put myself in jobs that made me feel like an idiot.  It didn't occur to me that maybe they were a bad fit and that I could try for something different.  I just kept thinking, "Well, other people do it, therefore there must be something wrong with me.  If I could just fix me, then everything would be ok." (Actually, this is partially true, as I do have skewed ideas of competence vs. perfection.) 

There is one bright spot though.

Normally after the kind of day I had yesterday, I would stop on the way home to buy a bottle of red wine--my version of a 5-year-old trying on mommy's high heels.  A cosmetic attempt to appear adult on the outside when I am so not feeling it on the inside.  A perpetuation of letting life happen.

But yesterday?  No wine.  I just didn't want it.  Instead, I felt I wanted to process rather than medicate and avoid.  Could it be that, at 36 and 11 months, I am actually beginning to grow up?