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You're so free; that's what everyone is telling me. |
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Today I took a kick to my brain, my thought-processes and my general view of my life, myself and my place in the grand scheme of things.
It started with doing one of these bad boys:
Only bother reading after the cut if you do not mind a wall of green font, actually am interested in this crazy introvert's ramblings or you really want a peek into what is going on with the woman behind the curtain.
<span id="test32764861">. . .</span><br/><div id="post32764861" style="display:none; margin-right:75px;">
As some of you might have picked up as you read through these entries and/or some of my posts, I have a...general sense of distress about myself and my interactions with others. Through the years I have struggled- sometimes gracefully and sometimes in utter despair- with being an introvert in a very, very extroverted world.
I tried hard to suppress my needs and put on an act to the people around me because I thought putting what I needed first was selfish, greedy and mean. It does not help that I went through a pretty major welcome-mat-phase in my late teens/early twenties, nor does it help that I have always attracted a certain type of person. I should have learned early on to put up boundaries and maintain them no matter what but that is an entire entry in and of itself. Point being that I finally did learn; thankfully before I turn thirty. Those that care will back off; those who do not are perhaps not being malicious but since they will not give as well as take they do not need to be in my life.
I have wasted a fair amount of time not doing what makes me happy in order to try to make others happy. I used to think that it made me happy to see them happy- which it did and does in a kind of way- but it was a hollow kind of happy. A thin kind of happy. I am not, despite having been told that I am, Mother Teresa; I can only give so much before I start to feel angry at myself for letting my weakness be abused (because at this late stage of the game feeling such a need to help others has started to feel more like a weakness; then again, that could just be the jaded part of me talking- it is easy to feel like a part of oneself is a weakness when it makes one feel worse about oneself instead of good) and before I start to feel as if the relationship is one-sided.
And that was and is the crux of the despair, for me.
I want to see others happy. I like seeing others happy. I really dig on being around happy people- and seriously, there are few better things in the world then knowing you were a little bit of a help to someone. Knowing something I did helped someone feel better- truly, I was an addict for that feeling more so then I have ever loved caffeine.
So I made myself, my energy, my time, my emotions, my money, my home, my internet connection, my WHATEVER I had available to all the people around me at all times no matter what was going in with Flare.
And that backfired.
So. Bad. Did. It. Backfire.
Because of course that kind of welcome-mat mentality is not only extremely unhealthy but it does not attract healthy, warm-hearted individuals with the welcome-mat's best intentions in mind.
Now was any of that the people's faults around me? No, it was not their fault. My job is to put the boundaries down and maintain them. Giving out my phone number to everyone and their mother (sometimes literally), not kicking my friends out when they really should have went home hours ago and not having the heart to be firm about how I was starting to feel drained and angry...Those faults are mine.
I will leave it up to others to decide how much personal blame the people I have known and I am now thinking of have; for what it is worth I do not have an ounce of blame in me for any of them. I only started to feel resentful when I was talking myself blue and the actions I was saying I was not happy with continued to happen. Even now I feel more guilt about what I perceive to be my "mean" and "selfish" acts then I do anything else when I think of certain people. I guess that will be my next lesson to undertake- I have mastered putting my needs first, or at least I am getting pretty damn high marks in the course...but now I have to deal with the horrible fallout of the guilt in doing so.
It is not anyone's fault that I am an introvert. Or that I want to be a writer (a lovely, intimate act that by its very nature requires one to give attention to it- and while I am sure there are people that can write a novel and turn a beautiful phrase whilst being someone's psychiatrist, listening to their WoW story or looking at whatever they are doing instead of at the page or screen...well, I am and never have been that kind of writer). Or that I have always found more joy in solitary activities or activities that I can share with a small few. I am a quality over quantity type in all aspects of my life. I like having and prefer to have a small group of people rather then a horde.
But finally some lessons hit home with me, and hard. There was no gentleness to the lessons, no subtlety or smooth transition.
The best way to describe it is to imagine placing an egg carefully on a table, being as gentle as possible with it.
Now imagine swinging with every ounce of energy you can muster a sledgehammer onto that egg.
Yeah, that is pretty much the best way I have to describe what happened. And how come I seemed to "change" to so many people so quickly.
I realized, all of a sudden and with brutal clarity, that I was not getting any younger and all my goals and hopes and dreams I had been nursing since childhood? They were not only not going to happen but it had been years since I had taken any steps towards seeing those dreams come to fruition, but worse then that I was beginning to lose hope that they would happen. Period.
I have heard that the death of a dream is one of the saddest things known to man; death in any form is a tragedy. I can not personally attest to the death of a dream, but what I can swear by is that feeling your dream starting to die and realizing what life will be like without it...and realizing that you are the reason it is fading, that it got sick in the first place-
I have no words to describe that feeling.
So my dream was hemorrhaging in my hands. I had held and nursed this dream since I could remember- literally, I was born knowing what I wanted for myself in this life. Not a luxury some others have, I have since realized, but it is also a luxury to be up in the air with no real idea of where you want to land. There's no real sense of personal failure, no time really wasted, no goals to watch not happen if you have no idea of what you want to be in life. Ignorance in this case is truly a heady bliss.
I was watching my dream fade and why? Because I had surrounded myself (and to some degree I feel I still have people like this around me, because I still have to interact with others that do not realize how bad I feel about this) with people completely unlike me. That is no more their fault then it was/is mine, not in this regard. I am as much an alien to them as they are to me. I do not have as much in common with others as they think or believe; vice versa, of course.
Not only did I wake up to the fact I was letting all the good in me and my hopes for myself and my future suffocate for others but I took a good, hard, long look at the people that I was letting myself go dim for.
Now I feel the need to point out something I think would be prudent for a lot of people to realize about my personality:
I do not understand why people think I will put up from them the very same kind of stuff that I refused to put up with from others in the past; why do people assume I will tolerate from them things I would not tolerate from others?
Is this oversight on purpose? Is it because they genuinely do not see how their actions either mirror other actions I have mentioned or how I am receiving said actions? Is it because they really believe that they are different, special, or so unique to me that I will OF COURSE continue to put up with them because OF COURSE it is anyone but them and their actions driving me up the wall?
...If it is the last then I have a rude wake-up call for a handful of darlings, and I am past a point in my life where I will continue and continue and try again and forgive and look over and shrug off repeated bad behavior. I am getting too old for this crap and waking up to realize just how unhappy I was...it leaves me little patience in my old Momma Wendy role.
I can love from a distance; actually I am much better at loving from a distance then up close because I feel I have sealed off the toxicity (me and my feelings) from someone I care or cared about at one time. In giving me a good enough reason to cut ties I feel people are actually doing us both a favor- they are not in my realm therefore free from the bad I bring to the table and I am free from someone I can not really help, someone I feel I can only let down and the ensuing and corrosive guilt.
So when I say that it would be in people's best interests if they wish to continue dealing with me to stop making it so easy to walk on...I mean this. I mean it so much I can not stress it enough. If it sounds mean I do wish to say I am sorry but it is not meant in any way to be mean. More of a...explanation of my behavior. And a gentle reminder of just the kind of person I am; I really do believe some people are just better off without me and once we get to that point there is no going back for me.
When I am done I am done.
Now what does all this have to do with the little picture up there?
I did that test and then was reading around on other forums and sites about my particular temperament- in particular my introversion- and I found this, started reading the comments...
And nearly cried.
Any of those comments seem familiar? Any of those words, phrases, ideas or (dare I say) threats from exhausted introverts make up a familiar tune?
I had found like-minded people! I literally felt the ground beneath me shift.
Hours later when Strawberry got home from work I was still suffering (in a good way) from the effects of this new tilted reality. To think there were others like me! I mean, I read about it all the time but never have I read so much in one place that could have been MY WORDS. My feelings exactly! None of this "Yeah. I am an introvert, too! Now why you no pay attention to me?!" stuff I get all the time.
Here is a girl who could seriously be me. She. Even. Has. One. Of. My. Initials.*
I have wondered the exact same thing about myself since I was young. How can someone that wants to fix the world, make everyone happy, cure all the sadness really, really despise people as a whole as much as I do?
T's rant is so much like mine- just ask Strawberry- that it gave me chills.
The answer, however, was the kick to my brain and thought-processes I mentioned at the beginning.
...My entire paradigm shifted. I am still reeling from this idea, this point-of-view.
It never occurred to me that if I really hated people I would love the state of the world.
Mind was utterly blown.
I could not even talk about this to Strawberry because I had not processed it enough to; in certain ways I still have not and (I am sure he will be glad to know this) until I do I will be silent about this new outlook I have. It is a completely foreign concept to me, which I realize it should not be because I am always saying the same idea but in different words...
I guess I just needed to read it put just that way at just that moment.
I also need to get past myself. I still have a lot of maturing I need to do; I also need to get my head around the fact that mourning about wasted time and energy does not bring it all back to you.
I am learning. Slowly but surely I am getting there.
I know I will not give up.
I am literally unable to give up on things that I want.
Thank you for reading this far. I feel I was at times harsh even though that was not what I wanted to come across as; I just wish I could reach out to everyone and let them know I am dealing with things the best that I can and know how...and I am sorry if that comes across as mean, selfish, greedy or as if I do not care.
My problem has always been that I care too much.
But yeah, thank you for reading this far. Even though I get all introverty and Rammy about things and I am not the easiest person to communicate with (be it getting in contact with, getting a reply from, or just plain trying to get me to talk...or trying to muddle through what the hell I am really saying as I jibber-jabber on) I do still care. And I appreciate the patience and kindness I have received; it is when it is the hardest for me to show my appreciation that I need it the most.
*I read back over that and realized that would not make sense to people who do not know my real name. xD I go by two names- and if you do not think that adds to my sense of discombobulation and being apart from the world/reality/myself at times you have no idea!- though the formal version of my name is mostly just used at work or when I am in Really Big Trouble...and my informal name (the name I think of more as "me" wink starts with a T. So that really brought the girl's words home to me. </div>
 RadiantFlare · Mon Jan 31, 2011 @ 04:30am · 2 Comments |
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