What I know about not being authentic...so far.

Well, I must say, I’ve had the 8 months from Hell.  And this may get a little confessional, so hang on tight.

I started the year with a friendship going down the toilet. The details aren’t important, except for this one: this far down the road, I can see that my contribution to its failure was my unconscious unwillingness to be fully honest or true. I played it safe and did what I thought I “should,” some of me showing…but most of me not. None of it done with malice, but a lie of omission is still a lie, and therefore does the same level of damage. Maybe even more, at the end of the day.

I cannot and should not portray myself as anything other than who I am, either to myself or anyone else. And yet in order to please another person I did exactly that, without even thinking. Without thinking or even being aware of it, I morphed into what I assumed I should be, instead of just relaxing and letting things happen. Please note the word assumed. It’s there for a reason.

Now it would be easy to blame someone else for teaching me that, but this part is my responsibility. I’m not a victim here nor did I victimize anyone else, and I can say that with a straight face because I never meant to harm anyone. Quite the opposite, sadly. But I screwed up anyway because I failed to be honest with anyone, including me.

I will say one thing for it, though: it forced me to completely re-examine how I treat everyone, including myself. And that has lead me to completely re-examine how I go about structuring my life.

Ok, that and the horrible financial aftershocks of several job-related mishaps.

The details here aren’t necessary. What’s necessary is the realization that the common denominator in all this unhappiness is a rather unhappy and unfulfilled me. It’s nothing so external and banal as an unhappy marriage or any other obvious signs of midlife. Sadly, it’s nothing so easy.

It’s the understanding that I have been lying to me about me.

For about ten years now I have been denying me to myself, out of the fear that my essential self couldn’t possibly be up to snuff. Mostly this is about being a Good Mother, but there is more. I’d like to emphasize that this is not me taking the opportunity to cry about how much time I’ve lost and if only I understood I was ok just as I am! Yes, but also: waaa-waa-waa. I’m just saying that at some point after the birth of my first child I seem to have made an unconscious assumption that I need to “grow up” and “act like a Mom.” You see why I started with the tale of my lost friend? Because I did the same thing to the whole world, and now everything’s a fucking maelstrom.

For ten years I’ve indulged in all kinds of self-denial and worse yet, self-indulgence — the kind that doesn’t actually get me anywhere. In fact, it’s dragged us all down the rabbit hole. Or is it rat hole? Doesn’t matter. What matters is I now have ten years’ worth of hole to dig us up out of. And I’m useless, really. I have the job skills of a plastic spoon and far less scheduling flexibility. I have no idea how this is going to work. It’s just that failure isn’t an option.

Because this isn’t about personal bravery and drama and knuckle-chewing, Heaven-gazing heroism.

Ugh.

No.

This is me realizing quietly and calmly that I’ve been walking an inadequate path, a route inside a blank hallway instead of out in the wide, untamed open. I’ve drowned myself in petty things at the cost of, well, nearly everything now. I’ve limited myself unnecessarily and denied myself possibilities because I thought I had to fit in — because I assumed I wasn’t acceptable as I was. No matter my long-standing history with this idea; it makes no difference how I became saddled with it. The point is, it’s here and I struggle with it, and then at times like this I realize it’s come to rule my entire life yet again. I stick myself in a too-small box and lash out with stupid ideas and even stupider decisions.

And then it finally dawns on me to stop pushing into the box in the first place.

Honestly, I have no idea if I even have a light to shine. It’s too easy to get mushy and say, “But we all do!” Well, yeah. And no. I hardly think I will ever be some twinkling fairy in the Forest of Amazing. I’m not even sure I would want to be. Right now I’d settle for a good night’s sleep. And I think in order to do that I need to stop once and for all, and make some real plans based on some real goals — some of them pragmatic and immediate, and some of them will be very long term. All of them coherent steps, finally. I’ve got to get a handle on these fears. Being afraid is how this whole mess started 10 years ago. This is just bullshit.

I have two weeks to go before my kids start school again and I will have some actual working hours to devote to this. Right now things are too crazy with them and their friends using my house like a way station. But once they do get going in school again, I will sit and I will plan.

Watch this space, because I may finally be ready.

Namaste.
xx mm