Hurt

I will let you down... I will make you hurt.

I had a free-association writing assignment last week for therapy, in which I needed to write stream-of-conscious around something we’re working on, and see what comes up.  There's been something I relive over and over again, on a continuous loop, and we're trying to break the loop.

  

I’m not sure I really nailed the assignment.  S-O-C was never a favorite writing exercise of mine.  It’s too messy.

But the thing that kept coming up is that I kept hearing “Hurt” in my head as I wrote.  Nine Inch Nails did the original, and Johnny Cash covered it.  Both versions are fantastic, and if you’re not familiar with the song, give it a listen.  

There are particular lines in that song that have been on repeat in my head for decades.  The first time I heard the song, it stopped me in my tracks and brought up discomfort I wasn’t quite okay sitting with yet:  

You can have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt...

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way

I let a friend down once, or more accurately, a lot of onces over a length of time.  And I lost a friend.  I can’t get them back or apologize for being such a cowardly and ignorant shit-bird garbage-person when they needed me most. There is no making amends for this.

This changed the way I am friends with people.  I am always on guard.  I'm always looking and listening for some indication that something's Wrong.  I cannot let myself miss a warning sign or a red flag, so when I’m around people, friends, I’m always at least a Threat Level Orange on their behalf.  If something’s really wrong and they’re thinking thoughts, I’ve got to catch it.  Try not to let them down.

The closer the friend, the higher the alert I'm on around them.

It reads as clingy, I think.  Neurotic.  I check more often than I should, probably, if someone's okay.  I really try to let people know how much they matter to me.  I am so afraid of letting my friends down, making them hurt, that I get to be Too Much Friend, I think, and there were a lot of years I put myself in kind of a dome and just kept everyone at a bit more of a distance.  If I'm not a close friend, my way of thinking went, and goes a little, I won't smother you with friendsiness, and also, maybe I won't let you down. 

It isn’t really a good way to live.  I don’t think it’s fair for anyone.  Intellectually, I know that I won't be able to change what happened in the past by smothering innocent people in the present with my neurotic friendship.  And probably if I were on the flipside of being friends with me, I'd take like six huge steps back.  

This is where it's coming from, though. I'm really working on this.  It's hard work, and there are days I just burst into tears from overwhelm, from embarrassment.  Something will trigger me, and I can't shake the feeling that I missed a sign, and something terrible happened to someone I love.  And I will wish I could be just maybe a little more normal, a lot more aloof, back under that kind of dome that kept everyone at a bit more of a distance.

Because I feel like if you're my friend, if you depend on me for anything, I will let you down.  I will make you hurt. 

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime?

It is a privilege knowing you, whether it be for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  

Back in college, one of the very first emails I got was from a high school friend who was attending a different university than I was.  It was a forward, in a time when forwarded email messages were like the memes we share on Facebook today.  Something would resonate, and we'd hit "Forward."

Man, those days seem like fodder for weeks of posts.  The nostalgia is hitting hard lately, knowing that it has been two decades since I GRADUATED from college.  Wow!

But back to this forwarded message.  It was about friendship, and how people come into our lives: A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime.

People who are brought to us for a Reason don't stay long.  They are brought to us to serve a purpose.  You share a common thread that lasts a little while, and then it ends.  One or the other of us is going through something intense, maybe, and the other is there to help or teach us.  Or you're meant to work on a project or a job together, and when that project or job ends, you both move on, and become people you each used to know.  

The people who are in our lives for a Season are around a little longer.  Like high school or college friends.  The friends you have when you're all newly married and living in a certain place.  The friends you make at the park when your kids are little, or the parents of your kids' friends.  Fellow PTA moms and dads.  You're in the same season of life.  There's lots of common ground, and it's convenient to get together, because you're always showing up at the same places.  And then people get divorced or move away.  The kids grow up.  You graduate from school.  The season changes, and you grow apart.

And then there are the people who are your Lifetime friends.  Lifetime friends can come into your life at any time.  They might start out as Reasons or Seasons and they stick.  They're your Tribe.  They become like family.  You can go days, months, or years without talking and next time you see each other, it is as though no time has passed, and you pick your conversation right up where you left off.  Or, you make the effort to see your Lifetime friends regularly.  They're the ones you call when everything's gone wrong.  They know you at your best and your worst and can tell you so.  These people are ride-or-die, and you treasure each other.

I took this email to heart as much as a seventeen year-old can, who believed that every friend from high school was going to be a Lifetime friend.  I think the message was an oversimplification of how it really works, but I think the bones are good.  People leave your life, but they can come back in unexpected ways, at unexpected times.  

On myself, I've been working hard on making peace with being left behind in some people's lives because I was just there for a reason.  I've been trying to come to terms that we live many different seasons simultaneously, yet they begin and end at different times, sometimes unexpectedly.  And I've really been trying to reflect on and appreciate my Lifetime Friends-who they are, how we got to be Lifetime Friends; and I've been trying to control the burning in my lungs that I feel when I think of losing any of them.  

Also, I think I've really been taking stock of whether or not I'm worthy to be a Lifetime Friend.  Does anybody ever get that lung-burning panic at the thought of losing me from their life the way I do when I think of growing apart from my Lifetime Friends?  I even have a hard time moving on from most people for whom I've been a Reason or a Season, to be honest.  I have a big heart and I love hard and I get a little heartbroken when people float out of my life.  I always wonder if I've done something wrong.  

I wonder sometimes what I bring to the Table of Friendship.  Because sometimes it seems like people have an easy time letting me go.  Maybe that's just me, hurting my own feelings.  It probably is.  But in case I was ever a shit-bag human being and a friendship ended because of it, I try to reconstruct and post-mortem the hell out of that friendship.  

I think this is coming from a feeling of standing at the point where a whole bunch of tectonic plates of seasons converge in my life.  Fortyish seems to be a place in everybody's life where seasons and the ground shift.  Things fall away and new drops in.  It's change.  And change makes me a little jittery.  

When things change, there's always a moment of reckoning.

So here I am, Friends.  We don't know what Tomorrow brings.  But know this:

Whether for you I am a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime, it is an honor and a privilege to be in your life and walk this little stretch of the Journey with you, and I will hold you in my heart forever.

This Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

Just because you're being lifted up doesn't mean I have to feel put down!

I used to have this friend who would get all cagey when someone else was having an exceptionally good day.  She absolutely hated to see someone having a better day than she was having.  

She firmly believed that if someone was having a good day, it meant she had to have a bad one.  If someone near her got a compliment, it meant she was being put down.

For her, life is a zero-sum game.  If one person wins, someone else, HAS to lose.  

I bet you don't have to imagine how uncomfortable things could be when it was just the two of us, sitting at a table having lunch. 

I think that being in a zero-sum mindset comes from a place of scarcity, and people who think that Life Itself is a zero-sum game have experienced a lot of things that validate that mindset for them.  Maybe for them, someone really has to lose, in order for them to win.  

But it doesn't have to be that way.   

The thing is, while there are plenty of zero-sum games in this life, Life Itself is not one of them.  There's enough Good to go around for everyone.  We aren't even all playing the same minigames Life has to offer.  So why can't we all win?  

Eventually, with this friend I used to have, the tension got to be exhausting.  We had a very high school-esque falling out and I haven't talked to her in years.  They say you become like the people you surround yourself with, and in this case, all her good qualities were outweighed by the jealousy.  Not just of me, but of everyone having a better day than she was having, or of anyone who got compliments, because she read a compliment for someone else as a dig at her.  Anyone who was having a better experience being them than she was having, being her. She wouldn't accept that we could both have good days, and I wasn't willing to mope around so she'd be happy.  Life is too short.

Don't compare your life or your experience to others if it makes you all strung-out, Friends.  Comparison is the thief of joy.  If you let it consume you, so is competition, when you're competing against someone's whole life and circumstances.  

Anyway, I hope we all have a good day today.  It's Monday.  A fresh start to the week.  At least every day isn't still feeling like Saturday.  That IS a win for all of us.

Collect Words Like They're Money

Words are like currency, for Charlotte the spider and April the writer.

Although the book and all subsequent movies about Charlotte's Web make me cry, there's one thing about all of it that has always inspired me.  Maybe a couple things.  

First, Charlotte was a devoted friend to Wilbur.  And at the end of my life, I hope that at least for someone, I am remembered as being as devoted a friend to them as Charlotte was to Wilbur.

And then, there's the way that Charlotte would send Templeton out looking for words.  She collected those words like they were dollar bills.  That's what I've always done.  

I laugh when friends tell me "You know too many words!"  I agree, although I don't think it's "too many."  

The same way having a wealth of dollars gives you more options than when you don't have a wealth of dollars, having a wealth of words to know and share gives you more options than when you have a limited vocabulary.  

Do I sometimes forget myself and throw down a five-dollar word to someone who doesn't have a word-wallet as fat as mine?  All the time.  All the time!  And then hopefully they're comfortable enough with me to say "what's that word mean?" and then they'll have a five-dollar word for their word-wallet, too!  Or, if they're not that comfortable around me, I always hope that if I do toss out a word they don't know, that they'll ask Siri later on.  Either way, they get to learn a new five-dollar word and I get to keep my knowledge of it.

That's the really cool thing about words as currency.  I can share my big words and still have them, and the person I share the big words with gets to have them.  So instead of spending a word and having it leave my word-wallet and go into someone else's, we're doubling the word money!

So the way I built up my outsized vocabulary over the years- and we're talking decades at this point, is that every time I'd learn a new word, I'd collect it like it was money.  I still do this.  Sometimes I make flashcards of new words, so there's a literal physical thing I can refer to.  I also use the word a lot.  Practice makes a new word part of you.  It's practical experience.  

Sometimes, I do get made fun of for having a big vocabulary.  I get weird looks, using big words.  It's okay.  I used to be self-conscious about this, too.  It hurt to be called a nerd and a bookworm.  I didn't want to be the nerdy girl or the bookworm girl.  I wanted to be the pretty girl, the cool girl, the girl people wanted to be around.  And then somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn't going to be everybody's flavor, no matter what I did, and knowing and using big words (as well as big ideas, big statements, big love) that's who I am.  And the people who are okay with all that are my tribe and we'll find each other.  

And I will use my big words and write my love for them in spiderwebs, and droplets of morning dew, and I will write it in the very stars themselves.

Reframing "Perfect"

The sunrise isn't quite as interesting in a perfect morning sky.

The other morning, I noticed that the sky was on fire with the colors of the sunrise, and I ran outside to get a snap.  This happened a lot earlier this spring.  The sky was good and dramatic.  And then, at least from my vantage point at 5AM, recently the sky has been more toned-down.  There's still the gradient from blue to turquoise to pink to orange to gold, but it isn't quite as arresting to look at.

Those clouds make all the difference in a sunrise.

Well, usually, we talk about the cloudless sky being a perfect blue sky.  There's even a saying in aviation, a kind of well-wishing sign-off, "Blue Skies and Tailwinds."  Perfect Blue is kind of the goal, the thing we hope for.

But Perfect isn't all that interesting.  Let's back up to the sunrise.  In this picture, you can see the underlying gold in the sky, and you can see the powdery blue peeking through the gray.  But look at those clouds and their unfiltered salmon rosiness.  The perfect blue sky doesn't light up with unfiltered salmon-colored rosiness.  

We see clouds as imperfections, but Nature uses clouds as a screen to broadcast the light and all that is most beautiful.  

The imperfections and flaws in a cloudy sky at sunrise or sunset are what makes each one unique and indescribably beautiful.  

It makes a kid wonder if it's possible that the things we see as flaws in ourselves are really just screens for Nature to shine a light on and turn into something uniquely us, and indescribably beautiful.

A Different Kind of Purgatory

Peonies in Purgatory

So it's been a few weeks since my part of Pennsylvania went Green, and I've got to say, it feels like going to an amusement park that you used to visit when you were a kid, and you remember it as being really, really fun, but now there's a little grass starting to poke up through the pavement, and the paint is chipping on the fanciful mid-century fiberglass decorations, and the mascots' costumes are grubby and threadbare, and half the rides are broken down.  And the gift-shop has the feel more of a museum than a place where you choose and pay for souvenirs.

It's familiar, and yet, you kind of wish you hadn't even come at all, because it ain't the same, and you're left feeling some type of way about it.

That's how Green feels, or as I can't stop myself from thinking of it: Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  A different kind of Purgatory.  A Purgatory that's maybe a little bit harder on the soul than Pandemic Purgatory was.

Here we are, almost two-thirds of the way through June now, and it just doesn't feel like summertime.  The temperatures have caught up, finally.  There's a win.  The weather has been quite decent.  But there isn't a whole lot to do.  The aforementioned amusement parks, when they open, will be quite a different experience.  We're still doing the mask thing, and I'm not going to lie.  A trip to Sams Club a couple warm weekends ago proved oppressive with a mask on.  I hoof it around a store, and it was a little bit warm in the store, as well as outside, and I did feel for people who have been saying all along that they can't breathe in masks.  It takes getting used to, and I could do it easily working in the air conditioning at the dentist's office, sitting chairside handing instruments to the doctor.  Pushing a loaded cart around a warehouse store whilst wearing a mask does add a new dimension of misery to the whole process.  

And speaking of masks, there's this whole politic that has oozed in surrounding masks.  You get your people who give you the meanest stink-eye if they're wearing a mask and you're not.  Then you have your people who refuse to wear masks anywhere, under any conditions who look at you like you're a stupid sheeple for wearing a mask.  There's still another set of people who technically wear a mask, but it's just pulled up over their mouth, leaving their nose exposed and THIS DOESN'T DO ANY GOOD AT ALL!!!

We've been to our first sit-down restaurant experience since we went Green.  I was both thankful for being able to sit down in a restaurant and eat, but I was also just put off by the whole thing where you couldn't sit on the benches outside to wait for your table.  They're running at half-capacity, distancing diners.  The servers wear masks.  Disposable menus.  Everybody was going out of their way to make it feel less weird.  Other diners (those who are Of A Certain Age and are the same ones who'll give you stinkeye for not wearing a mask) were giving the servers and hosts and anyone who'd listen hassle about all of it- not being able to sit on the benches outside to wait to be escorted into the restaurant, and then that the menu's limited right now.  And then it took too long for their food to reach them. 

Meanwhile, the restaurant staff had an air about them that they hate all of this too, and that it's total bullshit, but they're just doing what they have to do to be allowed to be open, and isn't it a victory to even be open right now, even if it isn't quite as convenient or fun?  And restaurant brothers and sisters, I can't speak for all of healthcare, but your dental compatriots feel your frustration, too.  

This is Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  We want to be out and about, we want everybody else to protect us, but we want to bitch-bitch-bitch about it if those measures affect us in any way, shape, or form.  

And while Summer hasn't been cancelled, per se, all the things we might look forward to about summer have been.  County fairs, rallies, festivals, fireworks (although every dog everywhere gave a big awoooo! in celebration of that one!), conventions, shows...  Amusement parks are going to be all weird this year.  Malls might open, but it looks like all the stores inside them could have fallen victim to COVID.  

When we've been out and about, trying to piece our lives back together after All of This, I feel shabby for being so ungrateful.  But it doesn't feel at all like summertime.  There is no air of celebration in the air. I can't even scrape together enough heart to look forward to Fall with a bit of anticipation.  We got my daughter's Third Grade Backpack from Justice (the dot-com - I had a coupon!) as we usually do this time of year.  To be prepared.  But I don't feel that little spark of elation at the thought of a Brand New School Year.  I had that last year, and it bit us.  School shut down early.  I just keep wondering when the second shoe falls.  Just when we get good and settled into a schoolyear routine, and get all happy about being back, and feeling like we really have our stuff together?  Like around Halloween, say?  Another two-or-three or more-week shutdown?

This is Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  

And I have to ask myself: What did we learn, any of us, from the Springtime Shutdown?  Was there anything?  I have all kinds of thoughts on that one.  And I don't think I'd oughtta give them voice right now.  It's too soon.  But I will say that if you're thinking about reading or re-reading 1984 right now, either do, because you will recognize a lot in there right now, and it will add another layer of urgency and menace to an already menacing book.  Or don't, because you'll recognize a lot in there right now, and it will add just too much menace to a menacing story in menacing times.  Might not be able to get to sleep at night.  

I hate not being grateful for Green.  Back in March, at the beginning of the shut-down, I would have given my eyeteeth for Green right then.  Far more fell victim to COVID and the shut-down and the fallout than health.  I hate being so pessimistic about it, but The Great Pause does not appear to have been the Great Reset the more optimistic of us hoped it would be at the time.  I think it's brought out the worst in us so far, if you're asking what I think.  And I don't know what to do about that.  

Hunker down and wait it out from behind a mask, I guess.

Oh, The Lies I Tell Myself!

Sometimes, I don't really "got this!"

Friends, I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I tell myself lies.  Sometimes the lies I tell myself are fairly benign, and they help me get through something.  For instance, I'll tell myself "I've got this!" in a stressful or intense situation.  Spoiler alert: I don't always really "got this."  But that's my way of faking it 'til I make it.  

Or, I'll be upset about something.  It'll be really pickin' at my heart, and I'll tell myself that it really isn't that big of a deal.  Eventually, I start believing that, and I move on and walk away.

But I've told myself some other lies that maybe aren't so good, and I'm starting to see this practice is no longer serving me, if it ever did in the first place.  

If you're in the mood for some entertainment, get yourself some Junior Mints and a coffee beverage appropriate for whatever time of day you're reading this post, and settle in for the Top Ten Lies I Tell Myself!

Top Ten Lies I Tell Myself (But Shouldn't)

1.  I hate people.

 

Actually, no.  I don't hate people, as it turns out.  I really, really love to be around people.  I'm not necessarily into huge noisy chaotic crowds for fun-n-excitement, but I do like to be around people.  The trick is to know when to remove myself from all the people and take some time to myself to have some quiet and recharging.

2.  People hate me.

 

I used to tell myself that people hate me, which probably fed into why I told myself that I hate people  SOME people have hated me in the past, and I took it to heart.  I figured if those people hated me, all the people must hate me, and so if I hate them right back first, I win, because I rejected them before they had a chance to reject me, so there!  But yeah, turns out, People don't hate me.  Just a select few poor souls who probably also hate terrible things like sunshine and laughter.

3.  I'm not a hugger.

Well, okay, so I didn't used to be a hugger, but I've softened since Zoe came along.  The world is full of huggers, the huggers aren't going away, and you know what, a little hug every now and then is rad.  Some people make it weird and creepy, which gives me an opportunity to make things Even Weirder and Creepier, and usually that takes care of that problem!  

4.  I'm a pain in the ass.

 

There might actually be a little truth to this one, if I'm being totally honest, after all, Friends.  I can be persistent and stubborn.  I tend toward being clingy and needy and insecure.  A little (or a lot) neurotic.  Aggressively positive when I think a situation warrants it.  I ask a lot of question.  Pain in the ass qualities.  But it isn't always a bad thing to be a pain in the ass, I guess.  

5.  I shouldn't take up so much space.

 

Sometimes I feel like I take up too much space in other people's lives.  I tell myself that people resent every moment I ask them to spend with me. And I'm sure that there are some people who would agree with me, but I keep getting invited places and people keep accepting my invites, so maybe those for whom I take up too much space just aren't meant to be in my tribe.

6.  I need to tone myself down.

I have a big personality.  If you tell me to "Be April," you'll get 1000 watts or more.  Outsized sense of humor.  I'm quite opinionated and straightforward.  Aggressively optimistic.  I know a lot of things and love to share the knowledge.  I'm a flirt.  I know this and I own this.  99% of people I come across think nothing of this.  But I can tell when I've worn thin with someone, or when someone would prefer the 6-watt version of me.  Quiet, reserved, a little mousy, just Less. Easier to disappear into the background.  I have to be the 6-watt version of myself in order to get along with some people.  SOME people.  And quite honestly, if I have to dull myself down from a one-kilowatt beacon down to a 6-watt nightlight bulb, screw those SOME people.  Screw them running.  In the 6-watt dark where they need to be in order for their little bubbles in the world to be safe for them.

7.  I'm annoying AF.

I know annoyance when I see it, and it doesn't take me seeing much of it to knock me off my footing.  I don't like to annoy people.  So it's just like the need to tone myself down.  There are SOME people who I annoy.  I can tell.  Not ALL people find me annoying.  So I'm not everybody's flavor.  One person's "annoying" is another person's "delightfully bubbly," I guess.   

8.  I missed my chance and it's all downhill from here.

I often feel like I flew high, lit low.  I had dreams, aspirations, ambitions, and drive when I was younger.  Yet, here I am.  And as a 40+ woman, I feel like maybe I should be throwing in the towel, putting on the muumuu, sinking into a rocking chair, and fading into the wallpaper.  It's all downhill from here, isn't it?  Only if I want it to be.  For fox sake, I can still turn cartwheels.  And I don't throw out my back or break my hips when I do it.  I've taken up a new career path.   I don't think I look half bad for my age, and I haven't even talked to my dermatologist about Botox or Juvederm or a facelift yet.  How about I tell you when it's all downhill, because I acknowledge I have highs and lows, but my star is still trending upwards.  

9.  Others' time is more valuable or important than my time.

 

 

This is one of the most maddening, frustrating lies I've told myself for YEARS.  Letting my time be disrespected because I don't see myself as worthy of enforcing any time-boundaries I ought to have.  Because remember, I've told myself that I'm annoying AF, I'm too much, I'm a pain in the ass, and that I don't have anything to offer in return, so I need to be super-grateful and super-obsequious when anyone is willing to share any of their time with me.  They're being charitable!  The least I could do is bend over backwards to accommodate that!

 

10.  I am expendable.  

I told myself for years that if I were to disappear tomorrow, nobody would miss me.  I don't offer the world anything that anyone else can't offer.  I don't see myself as very remarkable or special.  Seriously. Anybody could do what I do. This has been my internal monologue for so long that it feels odder to me to notice the people I've become aware of who WOULD notice if I were to disappear tomorrow and realize that they see something cool that I bring to the mix.  I've only realized in the last few weeks that maybe I'm not as expendable as I have always told myself I am.  It is a very strange feeling, but I think I could get used to it!

 

So yeah, I have told myself a lot of lies over the years.  These are just the top ten I could think of today.  Sometimes, I tell myself lies like "I've got this!" so that I really WILL "Got this!"  A fake it 'til I make it kind of deal-e-oh.  That isn't so bad.  That helps me be stronger and better.  

Believing these Top Ten Lies I've Told Myself, though- letting this type of lie get into your head can really do a number on a person.  It can make you feel worthless, angry, ugly, rotten.  It's time to break out of this poor mindset, and I'm working on it!