Most of what I feel is intensely circumstantial.
Sometimes my sister and I suffer from what we call the "guilty feeling", which is a feeling of weight and unexplainable sadness, causing a day to feel heavy, cumbersome, or even weepy. The guilty feeling is unpredictable and usually cannot be traced back to any event or mishap, and certainly has no reason. But it is short lived. It's not chronic, perpetual, or ultimately controlling. Actually. It's so wildly circumstantial, Liv and I shouldn't ever deal with it at all. Because we know what fixes it.
Music fixes it. Blueberries fix it. Hugs fix it. Dancing usually fixes it.
It's just a little rise in the roller coaster of some of our days and we know better than to let it change anything substantial. I dare say she and I have even learned not to make any decisions or any critical "moves" during these few hours... but we talk to each other. Because nothing is more comforting than someone who doesn't need an explanation.
I don't live with constant anxiety. I think I used to, to some degree. Social anxiety is for the birds. Learned behavior has been my saving grace and the things, which used to stop me up, slow me down, or cause freaking heart palpitations, may only cause a minor sweat these days. And that's only when something is at stake. A job interview. An exam. A speech. A crowd of people no longer sends me over the edge -- and perhaps that's because I've learned a thing or two about people.
But one person is very capable of inducing anxiety in me. Not a particular person. Just when they come at me, one at a time.
My dating life is either non-existent or in shambles. And, like my friend Bonnie and I used to discuss, I am a horrible "starter". She, on the other hand, was a great "starter" but had a serious issue with longevity. I can't convince someone I'm worth the risk. She got bored.
She's married now. What gives.
But every once in a while someone will come into my picture. Into the peripheral.
And for the last five or six years, they've stayed there. Right there on the edge.
I'm not really an edge kind of person.
Stay off of my freaking edges.
Either you are here, or you're not. In or out. Whichever you choose is fine, but pick one.
Still there on the edge, the peripheral of my vision and our daily lives, linger just too many assholes.
Recently I started blocking phone numbers. The proverbial pushing. I don't even want to have to decide if I should respond to you or not. I don't even want the option. This has helped. They get the picture I think.
In the past year there's been one or two who have NOT started out as assholes. And we all get kind of excited and we all wonder "what about this one" and he works his way off the edge and then he does something stupid, and I am too busy, and I'm really annoying, and then he's gone for whatever reason and we're back to square one.
Inevitably, when in the space between hello and whatever comes next, I worry. Swollen chest, rampant illogical thoughts of unworthiness and questions and despair. It all seems kind of hopeless and unless you've been right where I am, I don't know that you'd understand. I wouldn't want you to. But there are a few of you know who know all about the lonely nights I'm talking about. When you just stare at the damn phone. Or in my case, turn on the ringer and put it across the room so I will stop looking at it and play with my child and hope it makes some noise. Soon. And when it finally does, it's my mom.
And you look at yourself differently in the mirror, trying to figure out "is this the problem?".
Then, in what you think is pure logic, remind yourself no one wants to date a woman with a baby. And that's asking too much and even though the pseudo-encouraging masses disagree, you know it's going to be unlikely to find someone who chooses this chaos. This particular chaos.
And you say things your otherwise wise, mature self wouldn't say.
And you forget you're wonderful.
You've seen corners of the world no one around you has ever laid eyes on. You have stories so great no one even really believes them. You have made something out of nothing and up until this point, nothing has kept you down. You have recovered. Numerous times from numerous things. And daily you face fears no one else may understand, but at the end of the day it's the fear who backed away. You are a fighter and a builder with the greatest capacity for love.
We dwell on what is broken. What is broken gets all of the attention in seasons like this, seasons of repair. Of rebuilding. We feel pretty responsible for the acknowledgment of our flaws, just so someone else doesn't get around to pointing them out first. We know what we do not bring to the table and we think we know everything which didn't work out before can be directly traced to our deficiency.
And so yesterday... the lies got so loud I couldn't hear anything else. Tears just poured. Because if it didn't work out again it must be because I'm broken, because my situation is too hard, because there's not enough good in me to overcome the bad. Because I will always spend Christmas alone and I won't ever have more children.....
Loud lies. Bad lies. Real freaking awful bad lies.
And I reached out to a friend. A friend who has felt some of the same things. A friend I met nine years ago, when we were teenagers, when love came in a wrecked our lives the first time around. And she asked me something, then told me to ask God to speak to me in a familiar way. I explained I had. I've been waiting to see Him for some time now... anxiously, just waiting. But honestly I needed Him to man up and come looking for me too...
And there it was.
The familiar.
The visual.
So I sat on my couch and cried and realized what the lies were. Who the lies were coming from. And called them lies and they died down, like water receding or a flame going out. Slowly until they were all the gone. A pot of water taken off the heat.
And all I was left with was the image of a shepherd. The gentle Jesus who I needed very much at the time. Not the warrior Jesus or the crucified Jesus. Just the gentle Jesus, with the rod and the staff. Comforting and warding off the big, scary things with teeth who were trying to eat me alive.
And He left the 99 to come and find me, and we called them lies together.
I still looked at the phone this morning with a twinge in my chest, a feeling of "if only I'd been more". And stared a little tyke basketball goal in my living room with the same feeling. And took a deep breath and gave those thoughts away.
Because the truth is, I can be more. And I can do better.
I will try harder and fix as many of these pesky personality traits and address as many of these fatal flaws as I possibly can.
And the one who chooses not to leave will be the one who's earned the privilege of the best me.
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