Life is a constantly changing bit of scenery. Keeping up with the changes is hard. Sometimes you feel like your four steps forward are the start of a hundred yard dash, sometimes the start of a 100k marathon. And then sometimes that four steps forward ends up sending you countless steps back.
We like to think that one forward step begets the next forward step and that there will always be forward steps. And I think that is where we end up in a bit of a pickle when things get rough. And I'll tell you what,,, being able to see the slide coming doesn't guarantee that you can stop the slide, avoid the slide or even shorten it. I see a slide coming. At least it looks like a slide. The scenery is changing for sure.
My inner landscape is not looking right. There is a lot of dissatisfaction, frustration and futility. Most of it is feeling. Some of it stems from pressure that I put on myself for things to be different. Some of it is because I keep comparing have to have not; the past me v, future me version of the have and have nots.
I compromised my principles, my sense of self in an act of appeasement so many years ago and the ramifications are still being felt. When you know who you are and you act outside of that parameter to make others happy you end up damning yourself to a life you will not be able to recognize in 20 years. I knew that 25 years ago. I knew it when I was just 14. But I caved into some outside pressures because I wanted to belong. I wanted people who were close to me to quit calling me weird and eccentric like it was a bad thing. I didn't want to be set apart as a freak. I wanted to be set apart as someone special.
Let's face it. I was a freak. Nineteen and running my own business. Nineteen and comfortably secure in what I wanted, what I was doing and with the insulation that I needed to be able to exist. But I still couldn't be part of my family. I still had a hard time feeling like I belonged to my people. Now here we are 2 years later and those who were like me, ahead of our time, classmates, most learning curves, are all doing miraculously wonderful things with their passions. They have the security that years of self reliance gave them because they remained true to what they were. And I am mired in this instability and insecurity trying to get my feet back under me and failing.
You see, I can go it alone for a long time. I can forgo the comfort of praise be it faint, damning or glowing for a time. But not forever. Living without a support system filled with mentally healthy people just doesn't allow a person to thrive. When a person is surrounded by people who tear each other down their immunity to the affects of the negativity erodes and leaves them vulnerable.
I have been vulnerable for a few months. There is a growing sense of panic, frustration, futility and for the first time in my life.... indifference. I've lost something. I don't know when or how and I am not sure I realize yet what the full extent of the loss is.
Relationally, I just don't care if I ever have a boyfriend, LTR or even a fuck buddy. I knew when I was 14 I would be single. And any time that I have chosen to abandon that for any reason there have been more complications and more walls put up. I seek an uncomplicated life. In general, Menopause has given me a great gift of not caring about the people to whom I normally destroy myself to save. I do not give them the power of my thought. I don't even acknowledge their existence any more. I don't care if people think I am weird any more. I am apologetically me, There are a good many mental health professionals who have waited for this day so that they can rejoice. But it is starting to become more than making firm boundaries and sticking with it.
Very little moves me.
I am becoming static.
I am distant from my passions.
The last time it happened it was because I was giving all of my free time to a boyfriend who didn't know what he was asking. Or did and didn't care. This time it is happening for another reason. And I am not certain I know what it is. I only know that the next plan is coming. C or D, I forget where I left off, is around the corner.
I am not prepared.
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