I can't sleep.
The house is quiet, to the point that I cannot even hear any of the boys (Hubs included) snoring. Outside it's calm. The raging winds of last night are gone.
It's absolutely eerie, the silence is sort of deafening. You can hear nothing. Just your own breathing and thoughts.
That is what has had me awake for over an hour now. My thoughts.
I need to sleep. Tomorrow is the end of this mini-staycation that has refreshed my spirit and renewed my very soul.
And yet, I cannot sleep.
I hope sorting out the thoughts raging in my mind will help me close my eyes and rest for a bit. I've tried meditating, and imagining myself in my favorite places. Nothing is working tonight. Or I guess I should say this morning.
I'm struggling with people. In general.
The lack of respect and caring for others is completely wearing me out. The need to constantly monitor my own thoughts and words for fear of offending or upsetting the apple cart of another person, when there is little to no consideration for my thoughts and feelings is exhausting.
I'm tired of group think. I'm tired of feel the way I want you to feel or you are a bad person. I'm simply worn out.
I'm tired of "do gooders" and back stabbers. And lately it feels like that is the world that I am completely submerged in. Maybe it is the one we are all submerged in. I know what is bothering me tonight. I received a couple of emails and a comment yesterday that really wore me out. I haven't been able to shake them. They need a response, yet I am weary and I don't want to lift that sword and deal with that battle again. I don't have the emotional energy left.
I've been expending far too much emotional energy this year. I've lifted others up, when those that I've needed haven't been there for me. I worry too much about stomping on another's feelings, yet struggle to speak the words when they do that to me. Simply because I am not always strong enough to deflect their reactions without owning them. I end up absorbing the energy that ultimately causes me sleepless nights and pain.
This year has brought too much of that. To the point that locking myself away is starting to sound like a viable option. It's been a very long time since I have felt the urge to run. To hide.
I'm searching for my happy place. I'm looking for somewhere or something that will bring back balance. Because somewhere, somehow I've lost it. Not even just a little bit. A lot.
I've been on a journey. I'm trying to sit quietly and hear the directions being given. Yet there is so much background static, that I am struggling to focus. I can't see the path, it's blocked. And I am not sure what is blocking it.
I'm starting to feel invisible, where I most need to be seen. I am fairly sure I am allowing that to happen. Out of fear, maybe. Frustration, possibly.
I'm strong. Emotionally, mentally, and physically I have fought some hard battles. I feel I have won them all, I'm still here able to type them out. And yet at times I feel that I am my own worst enemy. My heart does not ever want to cause another person hurt or grief. I allow myself to be used and abused by others, often to protect them from feeling the same way they make me feel.
Yet, as I lay there this morning in the silence, my mind wandering all over. I realized that it is by far not a "me" problem. It is a humanity problem. There are so many people in the world today that want everyone to think and feel the way they want them to. So many people are literally shouting what they want and what will make them happy, yet they won't sit in the silence and listen to what other's have a right to want and need. To hear and feel with their hearts.
Too often anymore I am listening to sharp words, the criticism when you don't think and feel the same way. An unwillingness to truly listen, because your way is "right" and they are only doing it in someone's best interest. My question is always, whose best interest?
I fear I am awake at this hour, sorting through these thoughts because I need to take a stand. And I simply don't know if I am ready. I know what's right, I have been listening and learning for quite a long time. It is a pathway that I can see very clearly. But is it a journey that I am emotionally ready to take?
My father crossed over this year. He started the next part of his journey. In my worry about making other's uncomfortable or inconvenienced I shoved a lot of that grief and hurt and loss down into the deepest part of who I am. I haven't let it show, I've dealt with it silently and sometimes alone, because I know that others pain is just as acute as mine, that it is just as real, that each of us has to meet it on our own terms. I know too many that have suffered great losses this year and that healing is not an overnight process.
So much of it feels that it is coming home, like a cauldron deep inside is bubbling up. I've allowed things to happen to me and ridden the wave, just hoping to stay afloat. I haven't practiced self love or self care. Instead feeling that it was selfish and wrong to put myself first.
Afraid to speak up and let my own voice, feelings and emotions be heard.
I think I am standing at the edge of something far more powerful than I ever imagined. I don't feel that it will lead me away from my loved ones, in fact I feel it will draw me closer. I don't feel like it will harm me. Yet I feel that it is going to require far more strength and self-love than I have ever been able to muster.
I have had three different people, that do not know me, in the past 5 months tell me that I am strong, that I come from a long line of strong women and that it's time for me to step into the light and stop hiding who I am. To come to the front of the line and stop standing in the shadows.
Is that what I have been doing? Have I been hiding in the shadows because it doesn't take as much energy? Have I stopped being true to who I am to blend in? To simply be accepted?
I don't know.
Yet I know that a new day is dawning, literally and figuratively. I am finding that I need to be loved, accepted and respected for who I am. That being the person other's want and expect me to be is simply not working for me.
I'm tired of being taken for granted and I'm very tired of being invisible. And in far too many ways that is where I am at in life right now, and I'm not okay with it.
I don't know where this journey is going to take me.
I know there are people I am leaving behind. I know there are things that I am no longer interested in. I know that I am refusing to be a door mat or stepping stone. I completely believe in lifting others up, but I will no longer do it at the expense of myself. It's a journey we take together or not at all.
There will be casualties in this battle for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment