Lila: check in

Aughghghgh! It’s been a hard few days. I am struggling, trying to tread water, feeling like any second now I’ll get a cramp in my calf and my head will just slip under. And there is so much here, not just in what is happening, but what it triggers, provokes, awakens.

I have this cold and it will not get better, mend itself, but lingers, and just when I think I’ve turned a corner I wake the next morning and its even worse. So much snot, congestion, coughing, ear aches, body aches, sinus pressure. And what I need to do is just rest, sleep, let myself be sick so I can then heal. But I have not known how to do that right now. George and I leave for the east coast this afternoon, fly out to stay with my parents for a week. We do this every summer and it has always been fun for him, and often fun for me. But this year is different. This year I am in school, on deadlines, trying to do so much (too much?). And then to get sick the week before, when I’m trying to finish my paper and get all the packing and arrangements made to leave, it’s just kicked my ass. It makes me doubt whether or not I can really do this – be in school and still be a mother and lover and friend. Because I feel like I am failing at all of it. The ugly part has been the feeling that I am doing the best I can and its not enough. And what I know as true beneath that statement is that somewhere in all of this I have not been honest and true with myself. And so “I’m doing the best I can” but doing what I do not even want to be doing.

I have had others get angry with me, be disappointed with me, behave as if I have left them down or inconvenienced them. And maybe I have done all those things. It is likely I have. And yet I don't think its because I told them no as much as I said yes when I the yes was not true.

The whole thing has been a mind fuck. I was unable to help a friend as much as she wanted me to help her. I offered what I could, but it still was somehow not enough and it ended it her crying and feeling overwhelmed. And I don’t know, am I a bad person for telling her that I had to leave now, that I loved her and had given what I could but now I really need to go because I do have to finish my paper before I leave? Elliot is upset, because I have not been available, because he wants to be with me and for me to be happy and relaxed. But I’m not. I want to be in relationship with him, to bring myself in relationship. But right now that means bringing myself as I am, which is sick, sniffling, tried, so incredibly tired, swamped and confused. This is what I have right now, where I am right now. And it feels like this is not enough. He says he doesn’t need anything from me, but then when I don’t seem to give him what he wants, he gets angry or withdrawn or moody. And my sister. I have bags of shit in her car, that I need to get from her car. It’s not her responsibility to take care of my things, load or unload. And I have been trying to get them, to take care of that. But I don’t know how. I don’t know how to when yesterday George was freaking out because I told him we had to pack and he didn’t want to pack, he wanted me to play with him. And Elliot was laying in bed, wanting me to just rest. And my friend, whose mom just died, was on the phone, crying. Not to mention, my paper is still not finished, not by a long shot. And so I need to go take care of it but I don’t know how to get all this done, when all I want is to curl up in bed and sleep for twelve hours. And then when my sister talks to me, she sounds angry. She doesn’t say she is. Maybe she’s not. But her voice is short, weary, sounds so frustrated. And all of it put together, I feel like I am failing everyone, like I am not enough, like when I can’t give people what they want they do not like me anymore.

And that last line right there, where does this come from? I have always identified myself as one who is rebellious, who follows her own path, who will do whatever she has to in order to take care of herself. I’m not one of “those” women, the kind who want people to like them, and will sacrifice her own voice to appease others. Except, apparently, I am. I sold myself out this week, abandoned myself, tried to do more than I could possibly do so as to keep others happy. But it was not about them. It was about me, and me wanting to protect myself from rejection. And then when I failed at all of it, I turned on myself and judged myself harshly. And I feel so sad right now.

Thinking of those lines from the poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

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 beat the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefor 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 at the edge of the lake,
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes."

So I am leaving this afternoon. Leaving much behind and taking much with me. My paper still needs to be finished by Friday and this means I will be spending my nights, once George is asleep, working. And I am also taking with me these words, this new knowing. I have not loved by appeasing. I have not served by pretending I have more than I have to give. I want to stand at the edge of the lake and shout yes. And for me, right now, this begins with no. With knowing what the no is, when the no must be said, the no being that which allows me to say a full and pure yes.