Sunday, May 26, 2013

Life Is About Change

    Two weeks. A rocky two weeks. Has it only been that long? It feels like a slow motion eternity. Today I feel more balanced, less derailed, than I have these last 14 days. I have kept myself busy, frenetically busy, moving, always moving, it is all I know to do during dark days. Perpetual motion has pulled me out of deeper murk than this. Yes, there were deep feelings of failure, rejection, pain, and anguish. I blamed myself, flayed myself with all my imagined shortcomings. Why could I not fix this? Why was I not enough to make it work? In truth, it is not me. I know this now. I know this, and cannot cast blame or aspersions. It really was an inevitable conclusion at this particular point. Respect, kindness, love. I have not lost these. I deserve these, and truly attained what I deserve. I realize that I am okay with it, this time around. There was no betrayal, and truly no rejection. It's not me, it isn't. I wish there was a fix, a remedy, a cure, that could have healed and repaired. But for some things there is no easy fix, and nothing I could have done, try as I might. I can't fix everything, I can't cure all the ills in the world. All I can do is love, live, share, care, protect, help when I can. I have learned, slowly and stubbornly, that the one person I am capable of curing is myself. To love, care, and protect myself makes me able to be there when others need me. It has been a rocky two weeks, but every misadventure, mischance, misfortune, mishap, meltdown, collapse, crash, is a chance to learn, grow, change, flower, flourish, and evolve. Life is about change, moving forward, learning from the past, but not letting it shackle your future.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Adrift

Adrift. Disjointed. Unfocused. Disordered. Bedraggled. Confused. Let go and drifting. Drifting away. Farther. Farther. Trying to regain balance, a tether, a grasp of reality. My tenuous grip is failing, slipping. I know I will slide into a new reality, eventually. But for now I am fumbling for a foothold that is denied me. So I drift away. I narrow my focus. See, understand, grasp what is still mine to control. There is little that I feel is within my power, my command, my control at the moment. What little there is I clutch to my chest, hold tight for fear of losing all direction. While Brain sits numbly, with a hundred yard stare, Body is still on my side and strong, even as Heart has lay down on the floor, curled into fetal position, shellshocked, tremulously awaiting the next round of fire. PTSD. Body lay in defilade, waiting, watching, sheltering Heart. Body is a fortress. Without the strong walls and fortifications of Body, Brain and Heart would have lost the war long ago. What is in my control is Body. So Body will be fed, trained, pushed, while Brain and Heart are allowed a leave of absence. Medical leave. The chance to drift, knowing Body will be their lifeline back to the new reality. Yes, we are adrift, but we will find our way back.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Just A Girl

  I am just a girl. Really. Bone and skin. Hair and muscle. Heart. Brain. Body. Just a girl. I am not a super hero. I do not have super powers. I am not invincible. I am fragile. Delicate. Frail. There seems to be a misguided vibe out there that has made me out to be an unstoppable force, all powerful, unbreakable. I feel broken. And powerless. I am, after all, just a girl. An unraveled, tattered, grubby, bruised, aching, sad girl. Yes, I keep moving forward, making plans, head up, eyes forward, mask in place. I want, just once in a while, to feel safe and protected. I know, in time, I will put the pieces back together, rebuild the armor that has served me well in the past, retreat to my fortress of solitude. Once the retreat is final, I may not venture forth so boldly again, it is a dangerous world out there. A dangerous world, and I am just a girl.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Empath

    I have long known I was an empath, subjected to the emotions swirling about me, unable to filter the cacophony. Last week, ghosts and demons were haunting and taunting me, keeping me on the ragged edge. I was at a loss as to why they should chose such a time to rear their ugly heads. Even in the swimming pool, one of my sanctuaries, they came and rode my shoulder, hissing in my ear, raising self doubt, and feelings of abject failure. One good thing about crying at the pool? No one will see the tears. All week long I was assailed, tormented, harassed. Brought to tears more than once, and for no reason I could fathom. Then, with the coming of the weekend came the cosmic upheaval, kick in the teeth, emotional beat-down that has been a complete game changer. I am still reeling. It does make me push myself physically, that is one, maybe the only, upside. One ill effect, the return of my "nervous stomach," I have lost 3 pounds since saturday. With 20/20 hindsight I do understand last week's visitations. They were not my ghosts and demons, I was just channeling the energy flow for another. This is the real downside of empathy, getting to ride on the coattails of someone else's travails. As I struggled through last week, feeling failure, misery, loneliness, despite all that I have achieved recently, I could not wrap Brain around my sudden stumbling. I could not make sense of what was going on in my mind, heart, and spirit. I blamed it on stress and fatigue, as I usually do. That is my go-to excuse to the world when I am teetering on the brink, but this time I was telling it to myself. But I did not really believe it. Now, as I have every reason to have feelings of abject failure, rejection, self-doubt I can see last week for what it was: my empathic nature being fed by what was swirling unseen and unexpected all around me. Oh that I could be less sensitive, less emotional, less susceptible, less gullible, less trusting, less fragile. But it is how I am structured, I cannot change it. Once again, Trial by Fire. Time to prove my mettle. Once again I have to pick myself up, wash off the blood and road grime, spit dirt out of my mouth, wrap my tattered self-worth and frayed emotions around my spirit like a moth-eaten pall. I will regain my footing, find the path, and stumble forward, as usual. I am not beaten, I never will be. But g'damn it, I am tired of empathy. Empathy is one super-power I wish I could shed myself of.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Acceptance? Or Surrender?

    It has been a brutal week, I won't lie. The stress of a new job has been wearing me down. I realized that my beloved wolfhound has likely developed bone cancer, and very well may not live through the summer. I am suddenly, and unexpectedly single again. And to top it all off, my motorcycle is still nonfunctional. It is a lot of hits to withstand, even for one who has gotten used to being knocked back a few steps every time I seem to be making some headway. Oddly, at the moment, I have found a peaceful acceptance of it all. It is life, my life, as it is, was and always will be. Mine is not the easy path, ever. I wonder if I would even know how to function if life suddenly became easy. I don't know if my current sense of acceptance is real and honest, of merely the eye of the storm. Very likely I will know in the predawn chill, for that is when I normally awaken for a few moments, and am vulnerable to demons and self doubt. Such easy acceptance of the brutality that life has thrown at me has me almost worried. Concerned that I have come to expect such calamities  and so am immured to them. Maybe it is battle fatigue, the hundred yard stare. A feeling of surrender to the inevitable. The eternal optimist, defeated. A false sense of calm. I don't know, won't know for a few days, I think. I need time to assimilate and understand everything that has transpired in the last five days or so. I know that with understanding comes acceptance, with acceptance comes forgiveness, and with forgiveness comes peace. But is it acceptance, or surrender?

Wrong Side Of The Tracks

    This has been on my mind a bit lately, and brought sharply home recently. Bi-polar, punk rock, earth mother, biker chick does not mix well with the white collar world. I had thought it was only my demons talking, they have been rather vocal of late, but it seems to be a truth that cannot be denied. Maybe it was my demons whispering in my ear, a warning, prescient, yet cruel. Maybe we cannot escape how we were brought up, who we became through a life of hard knocks. There is no such thing as the goose girl who can become a princess. A goose girl is a goose girl. Maybe it is best. The goose girl would always be more comfortable in the company of geese, than within the walls of a palace. This knowledge does not dull the cutting edges of the cruelty of reality, I still bleed when cut so deep. This knowledge does not make me want to accept the fact that maybe my lot in life is to be poor and lonely, admired for being hard working and driven, because at the end of the day I still sleep alone.

The Punishment For Hard Work

    I think that life is conspiring to train me for some arduous ordeal. Just when I think I have fought my way through the worst of it, and that I am finally, finally reaching a point where life will be easier, calmer, the battle won, peace and love to the victor, I am hit with the the equivalent of an IED. I find it truly amazing, horrifically amazing, that every time I see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is snatched away. I know I am strong, and will get through this, as I have managed to get through all past travails. But god damn it, I am so fucking tired of having to "get through it" time and time again. Game over! I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to play when the rules are constantly shifting. But this is no game, this is my reality, my life, and it is not fun. Not fun at all.
    Every time I get knocked down, blasted, wounded, I try to think of a new approach, a new battle plan, a different strategy. Because obviously, what I am doing is wrong, or I wouldn't keep getting beaten down so badly. I try to lead a good life, I am giving, forgiving, loving, caring. I work hard, damned hard, to make my life be the life of my dreams. I give of myself, to family, friends, and strangers. I am poor, but pay my bills, not expecting a handout. I care for the weak and injured. So honestly, what the hell is wrong with the gods of this world that I must be toyed with, taunted, shown glorious possibilities only to have them snatched away the moment I think I can finally relax just a bit? Seriously, what the hell?
    I work so hard, to the point of exhaustion, trying to make a better life for myself. I joined the fire department so I can give back to the world, fulfill a destiny I have long known was mine. Does this earn me any bonus points? No. I fight to make a good life for myself, work to exhaustion, try to improve my conditions, and this leaves so little time. I feel I am living on a treadmill with the speed set just a little too high, so I can barely keep from falling, but if I run hard enough I can just manage to keep pace. I fought long and hard to get a new job with the potential for more money, enough to pay the bills with just a little left over, but the days are long. I work long and hard for my life, and am proud that I do, but it seems this is a failing in the game with changing rules. I put in long hours in firefighter academy, studying, training, fighting to be the best I can possibly be, and graduated at the top of my class. I set goals, high standards for myself, am always reaching for the stars, striving to improve, maybe this is also a failing in this game with changing rules.
    I was once told that I have "a hero's heart," and maybe this is my fatal flaw. I give of myself, squeeze out time from an already hectic life to train, learn, improve myself. This does not lead to a comfortable, easy life. It does not lead to a life of leisure. Instead what it has led me to, besides a satisfying sense of self, is a return to a solitary life. Once again, I find myself alone. Maybe a hero is destined to a lonely life? But I am no hero, I am just me, weary, weepy, alone and lonely.
    Whoever said, "Hard work is its own reward," was very likely either an idiot, or a hermit. The reward for hard work is more hard work, rejection, exhaustion, and strife. I must be a glutton for punishment though, because now I will work harder for the life I know I deserve, because I sure don't deserve a kick in the teeth.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Blue Collar Ramblings

    Blue collar Girl in a white collar world. As usual, finding myself adrift in a world I do not truly understand. A world of otherness, where my own strange aloneness seems all the more pronounced. I have stepped into this other world as one steps through the turnstile of a carnival. All around me the sights, sounds, and smells are bigger, brighter, unreal to me. It is not my world and I am easily overwhelmed by the cacophony. I try to observe, enjoy the sights, take them with a grain of salt. I try to take pleasure in the shiny. But as always, I cannot help but see past the facade. The veil lifts and I see the noisy inner workings. And once seen, cannot be unseen. At times I feel the Country Mouse, overwhelmed. At times I feel more like the hedgewitch come down off the mountain, content within my own simplicity, and aghast at the conspicuous consumption. I wonder, am I alone in this world of otherness out of bitterness, envy, covetousness? A blue collar girl, raised with simple tastes because there were not the means for extravagance? I am content with my simple tastes, the simple joys of life. I have worked hard for what I have, and it is mine by right. Hard fought and well earned. I have not had a privileged life, not for a moment. I see it around me, and am amazed how it is taken for granted. Am I bitter? Resentful? Does envy tint my interpretation of the psychology of acquisition? Maybe. But I think that as one with simple tastes, a simple life, and a contentment deep within my soul, it is not hard for me to see the constant chase of the next shiny thing as a vain hope to fill a void. Our world has become so much the world of conspicuous consumption, the need for bigger and brighter, faster and newer. Maybe the search for the next great thing needs to happen within. Blue collar girl in a white collar world? Or the only voice of reason in a world driven by vacuous desires. I am rambling, barely coherent, feeling devastated and down, skirting the abyss, fighting for a tenuous grip, stressed and overloaded, but despite it all I know I am content with my life. How many people can say that? And I do not need a new shiny, I just need some sleep.