Year of the Fire Rooster
This year has been Rough with a capital R.
I was reading the Chinese Zodiac for this year and noted that the year was supposed to be a year of dawn & awakening, triumph & success and characterized by hard work and patience. The year was supposed to hold an inner warmth, a gift of insight, quietness and calm. I can’t say my year has been much of any of these things.
I have had too much going on without enough time to sort it all out for other people’s due dates and demands. For most of the year, I felt that I was always three steps behind, 10 minutes behind, too far behind everything. I’ve felt like I was in slow motion, drowning, struggling to reach out to anyone.
I am tired but I feel like writing. I wanted to tell you that I miss you – you, one with whom I may have never spoken. Sometimes I feel alone, as if nobody can actually hear anything I’m saying. Logically, I know that is not true. Emotionally? Not so much. Maybe that’s the struggle we all go through but nobody talks about.
I’m talking about it. I’ll talk about it. I always volunteer for stuff nobody wants to do anyway, so why not this?
Life has not been what I’d wanted it to be for this year, what I’d hoped it could be. There have been so many, too many, successive & cascading losses in this past year that I haven’t had time to catch up. I don’t know exactly where life is going, but I am working on keeping it going in the right direction.
I just laughed because I know that certain people will read this, people who would try to hurt me or use my words against me. Listen, dear, you cannot hurt me with words I write in truth and light. You can criticize me all you want to, call me names and make insinuations, but at the end of the day: I’m writing because I am not afraid of showing you who I really am. And who am I? The person you have come to read about. Plain and simple, without the issues you are assigning to me via your prejudices.
I am a human being and a human becoming, and this is who I am.
I have things to do, but I wanted to bring in something I wrote just before I started this post. I brought it over to the blog because I still had something to talk about. I’ve said my piece, so here you go:
I’m awake early in the morning working on projects, and a feel a sense of accomplishment due to all of the things I am getting done. I started thinking about how freaking COOL some of these things are… and I can’t believe I’m actually doing things I’ve wanted or needed to do for years but was too afraid to do because I was so used to living small that it was nearly unthinkable to me to just BE, just do all of the scary shit that seemed too big.
For whatever reason, this reminds me of a number of people who have told me they believe I am “not confident enough”. I’m not sure what those people believe confident means, but I feel quite confident in sharing myself and my talents with the world.
I think I can understand their perspective if they are using the definition of confidence, “the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.” That makes some sense because there have been few people for me to trust in general, so I tend to lay it all out on the table when I start a new friendship. This is intentional: it saves me from wasting trust and care on people who will dislike me a few months later when I don’t go along with some bullshit I don’t believe in.
I’m getting better about discerning which people are not worth the time, not because I want to be mean, but because I don’t want to be hurt. There’s been too much of that, and I’m too tired to fear that. I’m too tired to get invested in people without proof they are trustworthy, caring, kind, and a good friend.
I don’t like saying people aren’t worth the time, but I have learned that it’s just true sometimes. Some people just aren’t worth the pain. This does not mean they aren’t valuable persons in their own right, it doesn’t mean I don’t love them fiercely or wish them well, it just means that the hurt:happy ratio is sadly skewed toward hurt on my end and I realize that is unhealthy for me.
I was just about to erase this and go post it on my blog so that nobody would really read it, but when I got to my blog, I saw 3 posts from people thanking me for writing honestly.
So, I’ll just keep writing honestly. Maybe you’ll understand what I’m talking about, or maybe you’ve already made your judgment and are reading this with narrowed eyes and a sense of superiority, adding this to your list of reasons to dislike me. Either way, you’re reading it and I’m writing it, so:
I care about people. Deeply.
If I am not capable of talking to you or taking you at your word, if I seem to have withdrawn or disappeared from your life, it is not because I lack confidence in myself or my abilities or that I don’t care anymore. It’s because I have to protect myself sometimes. I don’t have anyone to protect me and never have; this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
So, when I protect myself from the world and/or you, please do not flip your hair and get huffy about it. It’s nothing personal – you just happen to be a human in the sphere of another human who cannot deal with some particular emotion or situation at that moment.
I change often – I am always learning and growing and figuring things out. It takes time, and it happens only in my time and on my terms. It is not about you and never has been.
I’ve made that mistake for so long, thinking or believing that everything is about other people and not realizing that, for me, it has to be about ME. I have to be who I am… *for me*. This doesn’t mean I won’t feel differently tomorrow or next week; it doesn’t mean I’ll never feel close to you again. It just means that I can’t handle it right now. I don’t feel ashamed of admitting that.
I write these long posts every so often because it’s something I need to do. I am fully aware that it makes people uncomfortable. Happily, those people are free to shove me under the rug via “hide” or “unfriend” and I don’t have to know or care about it because I am doing what I need to do *for me* and that action tells me all I need to know.
One would think I would feel sad or frightened about writing this. On the contrary, I am listening to my band’s album – in awe that WE DID IT, MAN – and feeling… free. I feel free.
May you also feel free, unencumbered, and as if you are being who you need to be. It’s what I wish for you and everyone else, even if I may not speak these words to you directly today.
<3
Take care, friend.