Fake It

Sometimes I just can't find a decent song on the radio.  I flip from station to station, going through hundreds of stations (FM and XM) only to end up back where I started, with yet another song playing that I don't want to listen to.  Other days, the radio seems to play songs with me in mind.  Today was one of those days.  Not only was the music good, but I actually paid attention to some of the lyrics -- which seemed to be expressing a lot of the thoughts I've been having lately.  Not necessarily today, but often enough in the past while that I could certainly relate.  I suppose it's nice to know that even if other people aren't going through exactly the same things as I am, they have their own issues that have put them in a similar emotional place.  I am so glad that there are others out there who not only know what I'm going through, but who are able to articulate their feelings -- and put some kick-ass music behind them.

Fake It by Seether*

Who's to know if your soul will fade at all
The one you sold to fool the world
You lost your self-esteem along the way

And just fake it if you're out of direction
Fake it if you don't belong here
Fake it if you feel like affection

So Far So Good by Thornley*

So far so good 'cause no one knows I'm faking
I wish I could show you the toll it's taking
Sometimes I live as if there's no tomorrow
So far so good

I better find a way to cross my fingers
half the luck'll get me twice as far
I'm sick and tired of coming up for air
it shouldn't be this hard


*Lyrics courtesy of azlyrics.com

A Collection of Quotations

These have come to me in the past 2 days in various ways: the first was gleaned from the State of the Union address, the second came from a blog post and the third was a Facebook post.  I think Someone is trying to tell me something...

"You can't charge up those stairs into darkness and danger unless you know there's somebody behind you watching your back."
- President Obama

"We all owe it to ourselves to embrace our worthiness instead of settling for sorrow. We all deserve to feel a whirlwind of elation at new possibilities and simple joys. We all matter and we are all worthy of happiness.

 We simply need to remember that…  all the happiness you’ll ever find…  lies in you."
- Shelley Lundquist

Trust, even if your future seems uncertain. 

Trust, even if you have no idea how your situation could ever improve. 

Trust, even if you feel alone and abandoned. 

Trust, even if your heart is shattered. 

Trust, because your strength comes from trusting that everything always gets better with time, that miracles do occur, and that prayers are answered in illogical ways. 

Trust, because we need you to continue living and shining your light, and a lot of people love and depend upon you. 

Trust, because God loves you for who you are right now and has a wonderful plan in works for you that you can't yet see or feel . . . but you soon will. Don't quit 5 minutes before the miracle!

Trust. 

- Doreen Virtue

 

Fears

I had a bit of an epiphany today.  Or maybe it was just a moment of clarity.  Whatever it was, the realization was this: I live in a constant state of fear.  I can't think of one aspect of my life that doesn't currently terrify me.  Home, work, otherwise -- there's no reassurance and no safety.

I am scared of my husband, both getting close to him and distancing myself from him.  I am scared of what effect my current emotional state is having on my children and I am afraid that no matter which decisions I make, they will negatively affect the children.  I am scared to invest in my career, lest I lose it all.  I am afraid to dream and to make plans, because I am scared they will be taken from me and I will be left with nothing.  I am afraid that I will have to move soon (again) and start all over (again).  I am afraid that I won't ever have a real income, that I will never be able to support myself (and my children) and that I will always be dependent upon someone else.  I'm afraid that I will always be invisible and lonely.  I am afraid I will never have anyone to love me and be with me the way that I've always hoped.

I am trapped behind these castle walls, alone and frightened and unable to escape.  My fortress is surrounded by fire and I know that there is no white knight on his way to save me.

Invisibility

I've got one thing up on Harry Potter: I don't need an Invisibility Cloak.  I'm sufficiently invisible on my own.

The question remains, however, whether people treat me like I'm invisible because I feel that way or if I feel that way because that's how I'm treated...

Existentialism

It's unusual for me to become philosophical, but today I have been pondering nothing less than existentialism.  Wikipedia explains that "in existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."  Wikipedia goes on to say that "the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely^, in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how I came to this topic.  For the last while, I have been the poster child for "the existential attitude", without knowing there was a name for it.  Furthermore, my life is full of the above-mentioned "existential obstacles and distractions".  I'm not saying that my life is any worse than anyone else's, only that I seem to be having more trouble than most in getting past those obstacles.

It's so very difficult to find meaning in a life that is so full of despair.

I spent a large part of my waking hours today wondering what the point of it all is.  It seems that I spend most of my days filling time; wasting away the hours until another day is past.  And then I do it all again the next day.  Today I just couldn't figure out why I do it.  I have no idea what the point of my existence is.  It seems that while waiting for things to happen - ironically, so that I can move on - I have completely lost my purpose.  My world has become meaningless.  And hopeless.

Wikipedia defines despair as "a loss of hope^.  Despair in existentialism is more specifically related to the reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. If a person is invested in being a particular thing, such as a bus driver or an upstanding citizen, and then finds his being-thing compromised, they would normally be found in state of despair—a hopeless state."  Oh look, I'm the poster child for despair, too.  It feels like my entire life has broken down; that almost all my being-things have been compromised.  Everything my life was - and everything I was - has been turned upside down.  I have nothing left to fall back on, nothing to go back to, and very little to hold me where I am.

The challenge it seems, is to move beyond the despair and find hope and meaning.  Apparently, I am solely responsible for finding meaning and creating my own passionate and sincere life.  It's just that, most of the time, I really have no idea how to that.  I wonder if Kierkegaard left any instructions...

Free to Be Me

I have another blog, which is for poetry and creative writing.  There are a couple of weekly challenges that I play along with to keep me writing at least little bits on a regular basis.  On Fridays, it's G-man's Flash Fiction Friday 55 (write a short fiction story in 55 words) and on Wednesdays it's Jenn's Sensational Haiku Wednesday (she gives us a theme, we write a haiku).  Yesterday was Wednesday and in the course of visiting a few other writers' blogs, I came across Tara Tyler's haiku:

Family haven

Safe from harsh worldly judgments

Free to be yourself

This week we weren't given a theme for our haikus, so Tara's son gave her one: family.  She wrote 3 haikus but this one stuck with me.  It stuck because, even if I had written this, it would have been partly fantasy.  This is the way families are supposed to be but I never would have been able to honestly put "family haven" and "free to be yourself" together in the same context.

I can't say with any certainty whether or not I was free to be myself as a child, because I don't remember.  Once my teen years hit, I know for certain that I certainly was not very free to be myself.  My parents took issue with my clothes, my music and my friends and my sister never failed to make 'jokes' about my "blender music" or my "mutant" friends.  While I didn't go into hiding all-together, I learned quickly to keep a low profile and subdue most of who I was in order to get along better at home.

From my parents' home, I moved to Germany and lived with another family as an au-pair for a few years.  This family was quite open and accepting, but because I was in a different country and all my surroundings were not what I was accustomed to, I was never able to really be myself there either.  Making any friends was hard enough as it was, so I gave up on actually hoping to make friends that had similar interests. 

Fast forward another few years to when I have a family of my own.  I met my husband while I was living abroad and wasn't really myself.  My husband has seen glimpses of the real me, but he never embraced those parts of me so they were once again pushed aside.  My marriage has never fostered open communication and I have been criticized so often that by now, the thought of being myself at home fills me with fear and trepidation.  I think my children would be that safe haven and accept me for who I am, but by now I'm not sure I know anymore how to be myself.

Because, as I have learned, the real me is not publicly acceptable.  My interests, my music and my ways are not mainstream and are not things most people can relate to.  For those who have relatable interests then I think being yourself is not that much of an issue -- you can be yourself and find others who will accept you and not judge you.  I have been judged by my family and the world at large and I have learned that I am not acceptable.  Not all of me.  Not all at once.  Not yet.

Maybe one day I'll find a way to be myself.  Maybe some day I'll find people who accept me for who I am.  In the meantime, I hope that at the very least, I can provide that family haven for my children, so that they can be safe from worldly judgement and be free to be themselves.

I'm Fine, Thank You

Every day I go about my life pretending everything is fine.

I do the things that need to be done and try to do the other things as well.  I take the kids to school and to their activities.  I buy groceries and do laundry and tend to the house.  I try to build a business and I consider getting a(nother) job.  I go to classes, I volunteer and I attempt to be social.  I am expected to make plans and carry on a normal life. 

But some days I find it incredibly difficult to do any of those things.  I wonder why every day is such a struggle and why it's so hard for me to do anything but lie in bed.  And cry.

Then I realize it's because doing anything at all goes against every natural instinct I have.  It should be difficult to do things.  The fact that I get anything done at all is laudable.  The fact that I do get out of bed every day is nothing short of miraculous.

Because

NOTHING

is fine.

Poetry

I have always loved poetry, and while every poem I read leaves an imprint upon me in some way, no two poems have affected me more than these. Lately, I've found myself reading them more often -- they boost my spirits and remind me why I am struggling through my days. They show me what is at stake and why I need to keep going. They inspire me and motivate me when nothing else does, so I thought I should share them.

I was introduced to the first poem by an instructor at the school I attended last year during a workshop on meditation. I came across the second poem in "O" magazine, which I bought on a whim and it turned out to be the poetry issue.

Enjoy.


The Invitation - by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

The Journey - by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Nature vs Nurture

There's a lot to be said for either side of the 'Nature vs Nurture' argument but I believe that we are all a little bit of both: we are all products of our inherant natural traits and abilities as well as those things that we have learned (directly or otherwise) from our environments and experiences. 

Recently, I got a good look at how I was "nurtured" growing up.  My children and I spent 10 days visiting my family over Christmas and New Year's and spent a week with my parents, which ended up being quite a challenge.  This, in itself, surprised me.  It wasn't too long ago that we could happily stay with my parents for weeks at a time.  Alas, I believe age is catching up with them, especially my mother, making it more difficult for her to deal with anything that strays from the ordinary.  Now, it seems any sort of change or perceived difference in her world causes her a great deal of stress and anxiety -- and she freaks out.  My father has learned over time that the best thing to do in said situations is to ignore her and wait for her mood to pass.  Obviously, this has been going on to some degree my entire life, but it's only now that it's happening more frequently and I am able to look at it from a different perspective that I have begun to realize the implications this has had on me.

After two and a half years in therapy, I'm getting pretty good at taking a step back and looking at situations around me and figuring out how they affect(ed) me. 

What I observed during this last visit with my parents is this:

• my mother tends to completely over-react to certain situations.  She freaks out over nothing (imho) and then makes sure that her stress and anxiety is felt by everyone in every nook and cranny in the house.
• my father ignores it completely.  He's learned over the years that trying to calm her down or saying anything to her generally makes the situation worse.  So he hunkers down and waits for the storm to pass.

What I learned from this visit is that I have taken these observations and made huge, sweeping, generalized rules for my own behaviour, based on my parents' behaviour:

• my mother demonstrated that emotions are negative and unproductive.  I rarely saw what I perceived to be good grounds for getting emotional and in the end, all she ended up achieving was annoying everyone around her.
• my father, in turn, demonstrated that emotional outbursts are best left alone.  If my mother ever hoped to gain attention or even garner a reaction from him, it never came in a way that I witnessed.

It's no wonder that I have such a strained relationship with my emotions.  I mostly only saw the one (frustration/anxiety/stress) and there was no purpose and no result.  I never learned how emotions are meant to be expressed nor that they should be expressed.  I've got a long journey ahead of me as I now struggle to learn these things but I hope, now that I can at least recognize a few of the reasons behind my own behaviour, that I can make some positive improvements.