I have been in a state of perpetual crisis since I was about 9 years old. Some of the crises were things we would all agree are crisis-like (untimely death of a parent, for example), others were specific to an adolescent (and then prolonged emotional adolescence) point of view. Some came to, at, and through me without an invitation and others I completely brought upon myself.
The result: I get bored easily. When there’s nothing wrong I don’t know what to do with myself. I am uncomfortable with feeling comfortable. I don’t know how to do it.
My 2013 vision board. Basically just says “keep being awesome. keep letting awesome happen to you.” |
Just this past weekend I was sitting in my beloved’s lap on the floor and sobbing. Nothing had happened. Nothing was looming on the horizon. I was simply full to bursting with emotion because there’s nothing wrong with my life and I don’t know how to cope with that.
I tried to fill the open space by listing all of the things that are wrong with me:
- I wait too long at 4-way stops, it confuses people, and then I get mad at them for being confused
- I don’t clean, but I want things to appear neat
- I hog the bed
- I have stinky feet
- I eat things that have been dropped on the floor
- I have a stretch mark at the bottom of my droopy, post-pregnancy belly that is at least an inch in width (width!)
- There was more… it’s not that important…
- once when I was baking something I needed baking soda and didn’t have any in the cabinet so I took a teaspoon from the box in the fridge instead (you know, the one that sits in there absorbing odors for a while).
I don’t know how to just be happy and content. I only know how to struggle and cope. I know how to keep my head down and plow through. I don’t know how to take it all in when there doesn’t seem to be much of anything going on to take in. I don’t have much experience letting it be. I’ve built a reputation on fixing and planning and coordinating life into a perfect outcome.
For 21 years I’ve been toiling away and hoping to get to someplace or some time when I would have what I wanted to be happy… Well, I made it. Now what?
In the past I would have made up something to be upset about. I still see myself doing this, but when I see it as it happens it takes the wind out of its sails. I hear a lot of folks self-sabotage at this stage. I don’t think I do that. I think I just whine. A lot. And when I’m tired of whining I work from home so I can eat lunch three different times or I obsess about things like whether I should sell my iPad 2 on eBay and buy myself an iPad mini instead (I definitely should…)
Last night I had a dream that I was making a list of all of the things that were right about my life. It lasted all 7 hours.
I’m starting to feel guilty about complaining about this. Now that’s a feeling I know what to do with!