I make mistakes, but...

I go through seasons. We all do. They may look different from other people's seasons but yes; we all have our seasons. My current season is stressful, a little lonely, uncertain, scared, and unknowing of how to navigate the feelings that are within this season. How do I shift my own emotions from, well, emotional to active production that carries me into my next season? Everyone always has the answer to someone else's problem but never their own.

Well, many people seem to believe they can see other people's issue more clearly than their own but for some, they don't necessarily see someone else's obstacle with clarity but see what they wish THEY could do if they were in the other person's situation. That may not be as helpful when disseminating advice to someone in need. You have to pull yourself out and consider the person with the challenge. Help them navigate the issue in a way that is palatable for them.

I can go down a long list of hurts, disappointments, broken-hearted situations but what will be revealed is how self-absorbed this season is making me. This isn't really such a negative but when you focus so much on your own issues, you suffocate under their weight. Sometimes we must focus on something else that lifts a weight off of our situation. Good things like helping someone else in need is always good. Being present while the good things in life happen around you helps to put things into proper perspective. Finding opportunities to be happy and excited are excellent ways to lift the stress from your situations. Your situations may not dissipate but you need to look at them with fresh eyes.

I feel deeply and honestly, I know that gets on people's nerves but I can't and won't change that because it took me damn near 40 years to get to this place of self-awareness and self-compassion. What is being revealed to me, however, is that not everyone has made it to where I am emotionally and they may not be able to relate to how I deal with things. I, too, still have a long way to go on my journey as well. 

Some find my silence, alone, to be too much to handle and here's the thing, I simply have to be silent sometimes. There is so much chaos inside sometimes that my own voice just adds to the noise. In my mind, I can compartmentalize the issues, place them in their own corners and deal with them one by one. I can't do that contributing to the chaos. This is a part of my mindfulness evolution. Many people don't talk about the things they avoid. I am silent so I can gain perspective on my feelings and be able to articulate my thoughts and feelings more effectively.

I'm not sure why my silence is so uncomfortable. I was told that my silence can be deafening especially when people are used to me having my thoughts together. I have come to the conclusion that people will have to be uncomfortable with my silence from time to time. I can't be all things to everyone and if everyone wants me to be someone different to make them comfortable then I become fragmented and lose myself. We all deserve to be true to ourselves and that includes within our introspective moments.

Fear of speaking is not the same as taking time to assess one's thoughts. For me, it's not a fear of being honest, gaining clarity, putting everything on the table or even having challenging conversations. I actually like challenging conversations because I learn a lot about myself and others. Sometimes we just need time. A true friend will learn that about you and honor your choice to take the time you need to figure things out. They will also love you enough to take that time with you.

Admittedly, sometimes silence can signify the end of one's efforts to continue running in circles. Other times it's a necessary pause. For anyone that cares for me, they will understand my need to pause or simply stop. Anyone who only considers their comfort level will only consider THEIR comfort level and cannot allow others to process their feelings in a timely and necessary way. I recently had someone tell me, while I was in my moments of struggling with my feelings and MAJOR traumatic shifts happening in my life, that he was momentarily uncomfortable after like 15 minutes and he just had to withdraw from the friendship. He tells me this after months of me being there for him in tough situations and making sure he was okay by being present and actively listening to him. Well, as hurtful as that was to me to be rejected, in a moment when I needed him the most, I just simply said "okay".

We shouldn't have to apologize to people for needing time to center.

Any given day, I have a hundred competing priorities in my head so if you like or love me, at all in any way, you will allow me to pause. Let me rephrase that. You will allow yourself to be patient with my pause because I'm pausing whether people are comfortable with it or not. I have to take care of myself the only way I know how to. I make mistakes all the time but caring for myself is never one of them. Trust me, I wish the same for you and will always honor your decisions to take care of yourself. 

How do you love?

I make mistakes often. It's a part of my human make up. As I have grown older I've become more compassionate with my own short comings,  idiosyncrasies,  and behaviors.

So, how do you love or show that you love someone? Does it look anything like the love you expect, want or desire for yourself?

I have a bad habit of stopping everything in my world, just long enough to devote my attention fully to a friend in need of my attention,  my time and my love. That's how I love; with my full attention. It feels like it's expected of me but too much for me to ask for in return. As an Empath, I have always been able to read the emotions and heart conditions of those whose energy  space I enter. It's a heaviness, sometimes, that cannot be explained.

The real frustration for me is when my energy is failing and when I need that unconditional attention, compassion and love. I've always been "strong" and for some people,  being strong also equates to lack of or minimal display of emotion. I am an emotional creature. We all are, if you're human. I'm often curious as to how others love and show it. I have such a strong belief and view of what love is or should be for me that I'm not sure I factored in that my way may seem too much for some people even though I feel my way of thinking and feeling allows for the compassion needed to find a certain amount of peace in my circumstances. I may be wrong.

I have found that unyielding people find me taxing and difficult. I say "unyielding" because when an outcome has to be what you want without complications and discomfort,  that is unyielding and it isn't realistic. We cannot grow as individuals stuck in our bubbles of expectancy.

I'm not bossy or needy, the way people like to define needy. I do have needs though and maybe MY neediness is not accepted because of who I am, how I look, and how people subconsciously reject me and call me silly for pointing out obvious behaviors.  Obvious to me anyway. We, humans, in general,  become so self absorbed when we are going through our STUFF and honestly,  there is nothing wrong with that.

As a woman, over years, I've heard about this mystical love a woman should or could receive from a man and I have to say, I dont believe that fantasy of an all enveloping love exists for me.  A man who stops to make sure I feel loved, even in the moments when I can't audibly communicate my heaviness. I have been regarded as a problem by those who don't want me to love them. I already know how the world views me. Use me as they will but god forbid that I should dare love them. Their love is always reserved for someone better than I. This is the strength of my reality. No pitty party. No reach for sympathy. This IS my life and there is no one who can say this isn't  true, especially the people who actively make this my reality.

But the real problem is me.

I keep expecting a different outcome with the level of love I offer and isn't that considered insanity?

If I was a...ugh...a bitch, complained, demanding and full of drama, maybe I'd get something. That's what is desired. Men say "no drama" then...drama. idk

I digress. I just don't want to be loved if the "love" is going to kill me anyway. Once faith in myself, love and others is gone, why stick around to be minimized and emotionally  deconstructed?

How's that for dramatic?

The Hardest Conversation

There are mornings when you jump out of bed, to-do list on your mind, and you get right into your day feeling ready to accomplish some of your goals that will get you closer to the place you are striving to be.

Some mornings you wake up, sit up, and sit there for two hours trying to figure out how you can bypass all the bullshit you know is coming.  This morning, I just sat up and cried.

I sat up, cried, looked around me, gauged my internal and external comfort level and determined that everything was out of balance. I picked up my water bottle, added fruit punch Crystal Light, shook the bottle, sat it down on my nightstand and sat still just looking around as what felt like streams poured down each cheek. No heavy sobbing. I did that last night. This morning, involuntarily, tears streamed down my face like a waterfall. No reaction on my face. I'm just...I don't know. Here. The day had not officially begun but I was ready for it to be over. I have made mistakes in my life and I have made terrible choices. A choice is so much different than a mistake especially when you can willingly avoid the choice but choose to proceed anyway.

I believe in love. I do. I believe in love, though this life hasn't been kind enough to me to return a substantial measure of love back to me, I still believe in love for some people. Honesty is important to me. I'm not sure how people can be so dishonest with people they say they love and/or care for but it is a burden to me when I feel honesty as a struggle. Not that I don't want to be honest but I'm struggling knowing what loss could accompany a hard truth.


If I were a bad person, I'd probably have no problem with people hating me but I'm not a bad person. I'm not sneaky. I'm not inconsiderate. I'm not selfish. I'm not disloyal, disrespectful or arrogant in any way but despite all that, I'm still in a place where people may hate me. I never want to hurt anyone and before I do that, I will tell the person I love to walk away so they won't be hurt.

How do you tell someone you are growing to love very much that they should walk away and that they will be better without you when you know you won't be better without them? Maybe it won't matter to them and they will actually be relieved to be rid of this burden. Maybe that's all this life has made me; a burden. Unrequited love is even more difficult when you have to keep letting go while your heart struggles to hold on.

Released

What is it about love
that makes you hide and reveal
the most important things in your world

it makes you lose your senses and nerve
to be transparent
love cripples the agile and brings a pause
to the thoughts of the brilliant

I can't imagine not being able to love
but most days I can't afford to

it's forced, love, but I have to keep harm from those I feel too deeply for
those I can't look away from but hesitate to stare in their eyes and confess a hurt that no longer ends at my feet

pain, fear, doubt and unintended consequences of loving one
ends my ability to love another fully

I hate being broken
fragments of me spread as far apart as the east is from the west
never to find their way back to a whole
I am segmented
he doesn't know the torture
that lies just beyond my laughter
the turmoil that accompanies every sentence and phrase
uttered in his ear while we work to connect
only so that I will have to let go

my soul whispers "Don't let go."

so I lie still in bed
awake
fan on medium
peach colored roses on my nightstand
and only one side of my bed occupied
my face to the sky blocked by brick and drywall
I wonder if the stars can see me through the materials
used to protect me from the unknown

He did not protect me from the unknown that, now known,
will be the end of love for me
I miss what was never able to be
because I can no longer love the one I love
It stings to let him know
It hurts to let him go
Forgiving myself, an unattainable facet of my life
conjoined with the anger he would feel to know that my love wasn't enough to protect us from the world
a world that never included the two of us, together, in the same space in time
I retract my affection for our own good
for his own good

(c) 2019 T. L. Aldridge