boundaries

Did I say that?

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With each passing day of my newly divorced life, I feel a bit more grounded, a bit more sane. I feel that I am getting closer to being the “me”, that I was so long ago, once more. And that’s a good thing, I know, and it takes time (boy, don’t I know!)

I am both relieved and very thankful that I can begin to see the sun behind the clouds now, because some days – some of my darkest days –  I honestly didn’t think it was possible. I felt dismembered and detached, like a distorted version of myself. I couldn’t remember who I was or had been. Ever. The past had been blurred by so much noise and deep pain that it was tough to recollect happier, lighter times.

But they are on the near horizon now, I can feel it.

Even with this new epiphany, I have to admit that I am still not the best version of the “me” that I once was not so very long ago. I’ve acquired some pretty disturbing habits, at least disturbing to me because I know that I was not like this before. Stress and heartache can mold and shape you into someone that you don’t even recognize, if it goes on long enough.

At one point, I will admit, I was probably relying on alcohol more than I should have. Not to a dangerous point of course, I wasn’t drinking everyday – at least not all day – just enough to blur the lines and put on the soft filter when it was all getting to be too much. Too hard. Too draining on my soul.

Did I really bring a margarita to baseball practice in my travel mug??

Now that phase has pretty much passed, thankfully. I don’t feel the need to escape my life the way I had before, and now I have so much more to focus on that is positive and brings me happiness. Stressful at times, but a good kind of stress this time, usually.

I had stopped exercising, stopped caring about how I ate, stopped caring about me. I was circling the drain more than a time or two, depression so deep that I would need a full-sized ladder to climb out of that hole some days, so sure that this would never end and that I would always feel this way.

Not certain about my future, scared, and disappointed in myself and life in general.

Normal? Sure, on some level. But when you’re going through it, normal is just a word that people use to shut you up. They want to look away and pretend that you are still “normal”, that you are still the same, but really you’re not.

One more habit to share, and if I’m honest, I think that I’ve overshared it quite a bit in the last couple of years, is my newly discovered world of profanity.

Yes, my word selection has grown exponentially since this all began, creatively and loudly too, I might add. I have uttered some swear words that in the past were completely off-limits. Words that are “those words”, you know the ones that even people who cuss regularly know that those are “the bad words nobody says”. Yes, I’ve not only uttered them, but I have screamed them, cried them, texted them, written them, sometimes stringing them together in a creatively descriptive way that I never knew existed.

Until I said it.

I was the mom that used “oh my goodness!” and “dang it” in front of my kids before this. I didn’t say my first swear word, out loud, until I was in eighth grade. I had finally had enough of the boy in the seat in front of me harassing me on a daily basis, my patience and my good manners had reached their limit. I eventually said “fuck you”, low and with meaningfully controlled anger, and oddly enough, he stopped.

The power of words.

Yes, I have cussed before, something that my ex showed incredible distaste for whenever I did. Not very “classy” I suppose. I readily admit that I am no angel when it comes to using foul language, but my boundaries disappeared this time around. They just dropped away, like the bumpers on a bowling lane – and suddenly I was serving up nothing but gutter balls!

And I didn’t care.

I stopped policing myself for the existing audience, for the most part. I do have some semblance of integrity and respect when I need to, even if it doesn’t appear so sometimes, so safe to say I held back in more public spaces. But overall, I stopped caring if it upset or offended someone. I didn’t care if people didn’t like it, if my kids heard it, or even if I spoke that way in front of my parents! Using swear words in front of or to my parents in conversation, slowly became normal. This was not normal for my family. The first time I said “fuck” during a conversation with my mom, and the ground didn’t crack open and swallow me – and she didn’t freak out about it – was when I realized that the dam had been released.

It just gave me more fuel, more permission to push the boundaries.

The thing is, I knew that I was doing something far out of character for myself but I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t. I could not express the hurt, the anger, the devastation, the complete loss that I was experiencing without seasoning it with a few (or more) cuss words. I felt as if I had adult onset turrets sometimes, the words flying out of my mouth before I could edit them. I could not find the adjectives that would properly express my feelings, or describe the darkness that was always edging into my everyday life, without using profanity as a sentence enhancer.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was real.

Professionals say that there are five stages of grief. I disagree. I think that there are at least six or seven, if not more, that are just sub-levels of the main list. The one I’ve experienced most is “loss of control for emotional expression”. Or to sum it up in a one word description like the original list (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) let’s call it “profanity”.

It’s a broad description, but a fucking good one.

This happens somewhere either before anger or in-between anger and depression, before or after bargaining, or both, or all of the above. And the beauty of this stage? You get to repeat it as often as you like, because some days you just need to hang on to that ledge and scream your head off in a litany of profanity.

I am not proud of my behavior, I also do not intend to continue repeating this stage much longer, but I do accept it. And isn’t acceptance where we want to end up anyway?

Being the better person is bullshit

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Yeah, you read that right.

Being the “better person” is complete bullshit. It’s for losers. It’s propaganda that only serves those that need you to be the better person, but it doesn’t do a damn thing for you in the end. Oh sure, they’ll tell you that it will bring you joy or peace in the end, good karma and all that crap, just knowing that you were the better person.

But…they were wrong.

Why? Because all the while that you are doing the “right” things, being the “better person”, you are assisting them in their goals to get to the next better place in their life, to attain the next great thing, to enjoy the fruits of someones else’s labor (namely yours), all without the guilt of worrying about how you feel, who it hurts or what you may need or want along the way.

It’s a win-win for someone, but not you “better person”.

Being expected to be the better person is a way to keep you doing everyone else’s dirty work and bidding, taking care of everyone else’s problems and feelings, showing up to support and/or protect them through the tough times, all the while forgetting about yourself. Putting yourself last, because they need it or want it more than you.

And don’t you want to know that you helped? Doesn’t that make you feel better?

You are a walking advertisement for empathy. And the lights shine so brightly that they come from all areas of your life to take advantage of it. Your empathy is like a siren, or a warm bath, or a soothing hug. It’s your gift!

Thinking of how they feel, how it will affect them, worrying that you’re being selfish or thoughtless because you may consider yourself first once in awhile, is all part of the game that keeps you locked into this arrangement. If you try to stop, or draw a line in the sand to save your sanity and soul, you’re just being selfish. Cruel, thoughtless, mean.

It’s saying to the world, I’m not important enough for your attention or consideration, so please, please dump on me and let me make the road smooth for the rest of you. You place everyone else’s feelings before yours, while you quietly wait your turn because eventually it has to be your turn for at least once, right? They want to be there for you, don’t they?

But your turn never comes because nobody can hear you if you don’t ask.

There is no reward in the end, contrary to what people may tell you. A reward for being the better person, turning the other cheek, is supposedly feeling good about yourself. Just knowing that you did the “right thing” even if nobody else did, or was even willing to try. Even if they don’t recognize it or appreciate it. But, if you’re honest, do you always feel better about yourself in the end?

Not always.

There is no heavenly place reserved for you and the other ‘better people’, filled with all of your hopes and dreams fulfilled, that you discover when you die, and definitely not before you die either. Nope. It’s just that continuous empty feeling, that keeps eating away at your heart and soul, while you stuff down your own needs and desires to serve others. But you keep smiling, because that’s what better people do.

And once you start, it never ends.

Why doesn’t it end? Because it’s like a siren in the night, calling out and attracting more people who need you to be a better person, because they are incapable of it themselves. Or maybe not even incapable, but more likely they just don’t want to waste their time and effort trying. They have other things to do and their own feelings to consider, they don’t have time to think about others, you understand don’t you?

It’s so much easier if you just do it. They will continue to go about their merry lives, still doing ignorant, thoughtless things and saying insensitive, careless, hurtful comments while ignoring how it affects you or anyone else either way. But the fact that you are willing to rise to the challenge, and take one (or two, or three or more) for the team saves everyone the disturbing task of really looking at who they are, what they say or do and how it actually affects anyone –  remaining unaccountable for their actions and words. It allows them to ignore how they’re actions and words hurt you, or how unfairly they treat you.

If being the better person was such a great thing why aren’t more people doing it? And if they have to expect you to be that person what does that say about them? Shouldn’t everyone want that accolade? Obviously it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, or there’d be a line of people helping each other each and every day. Just because.

You deserve more than that. You really do. Even if those people don’t think you do.

Go ahead and be a better person. But be the better person for yourself for once. Be that person in your corner, that cheerleader in your moment of doubt, the light at the end of your dark tunnel. Give to yourself the way you would give to others – no, it’s not one of the commandments I know, but it should be because if you can’t be good to yourself or love yourself, how are you supposed to be good to and love someone else in a fulfilling way?

Where will that love come from if you never fill your own vessel?

The next time you choose yourself over someone else, the next time you say ‘no’ to one more request for your time and energy, the day that you finally draw the line in the sand and mark your boundaries, know that you are the better person.

You are the better person for yourself. And you are worth it.

*this post was written before “Clusters”, basically a more gritty version of the feelings attached to clusters.

 

 

 

Clusters

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You always hear that things happen in three’s. It’s usually referencing the deaths of movie stars or famous people, but other things also do I’m sure. It sounds so religious, the trinity symbolism being carried through the ages, but in many ways and often times it’s true. It just works out that way.

I think I’ve personally dispelled the myth of the threes for myself. Mine are more like fives or sixes. Clusters.

And maybe they aren’t really happening to me in clusters, maybe I only notice them after there are a few things in a row strung together, usually only able to connect the dots in the aftermath.

During my last pregnancy I was 39 years old. We already had two boys that were around 18 months apart, but now we had waited almost five years to decide to add to our family. One last baby to have our desired three. Before I turned forty.

My ex is from a family of three, I am from a family of three, it only seemed right to follow the pattern. The trinity and all, God’s plan right? That wasn’t the reason, but it made sense in some way. Three is a solid number.

During that pregnancy I had a cluster of bad luck events that I can only blame on hormones sucking out my braincells. Seriously. I cannot remember being this big of a moron during the other two pregnancies.

I was also a bit younger with the first two.

The cluster included a fender bender in my brand new minivan while trying to park at the school, only weeks later filling up the tank with the wrong gas in the same newly minted minivan (my first experience with a diesel tank…and my last), missing a school ‘thank you’ award ceremony for room parents (which I was that year) that left my oldest son standing on a stage in front of the entire school, with flowers in hand, waiting for me to appear (yeah, I still wince and feel sick to my stomach every time I remember that one) and walking right into a glass door not realizing it was even there, my very pregnant belly bouncing off of the glass to the horror of one of my friends.

Where is a camera when you need one? That would have definitely been YouTube worthy.

You can’t always blame hormones on mishaps or uncomfortable circumstances in your life, sometimes it’s just life happening to you – or karma, or bad juju, or the universe speaking to you, whatever you want to name it. The fact that it happens in a string, or cluster, may only be because you can now look at it as a whole and connect the dots.

Maybe you made one off decision that lead to a multitude of more challenges or surprises than you expected. Too many to deal with properly, in constant succession.

It’s like a wound that is left uncared for, not properly cleaned and bandaged, without first aid. At first it seems that it can heal on it’s own, it’s not that big of a deal, it’s only a scratch and you’re healthy and strong. But then dirt gets into it or you scrape it again. The skin around it can’t heal properly, it weakens and your body’s resistance gets lower the longer you leave it unattended. It gets infected and the infection spreads.

After a couple of these life challenges, your resistance and resilience gets lower and you just can’t fight as hard any longer. You can no longer make sound, rational decisions, or deal with life’s surprises as well as you could before. And that causes you more stress, adding to your already overloaded heart and brain, leaving you desperate to catch your breath and grab onto something or someone, for help or support.

You just need to take a break from it all. You need time to heal and get stronger.

Along this “life happening” journey of divorce, I’ve learned a lot, and dealt with many “clusters”. More than I ever expected, in a multitude of ways, and sometimes more lessons than I ever wanted to learn about the world and the people I thought I knew.

I’ve grown in ways that were born out of making tough decisions, decisions to protect myself and my kids mental health. Sometimes it included distancing myself from the very people that were close to me, that I trusted deeply, to save my own sanity. Family and friends, clubs and social circles, have now been trimmed of excess to reduce the possibility of new energy-draining events that will only weaken my resistance. I’ve gradually begun to create new boundaries, to insist that people respect them, finally drawing a line in the sand and sticking to it.

Standing up for myself more often than usual is only an added bonus.

And I know I was brutal at times, sometimes even hysterical I’m sure, no longer employing my usual habit of censorship to save someone’s feelings it was most likely shocking to some. But to make them listen, to really hear me and finally ‘get it’, I had to use extreme tactics. I had to be blunt and brutally honest, for fear that I wouldn’t be heard or taken seriously once again. I needed to tell them everything that I had been thinking for the last week, month, year…or decade.

Because in the end, in the thick of the cluster, what more did I have to lose?

I needed to purge. To unburden myself and strip away the heaviness I had been carrying for so long, trying to protect their feelings at my own expense. I needed to vent, unload, scream and let it all out.

I needed to breathe. I needed the surprises and challenges to just stop, for awhile. I needed someone else to take some of the weight off of my shoulders, for just a little bit. If only for a day, or an hour, I needed a free pass to not be the normal version of me that they were so used to seeing, to believing, who they wanted me to be to fit into their world view.

My life was messy and hard and relentlessly pushing down on me. I had to build the walls, put in the moat, and protect myself and my kids to weather this storm of clusters, with or without them. I no longer had spare energy or extra brain space to worry about pleasing other people, or saying or doing the “right things” to keep the peace. I was in survival mode and it was my turn to need support, understanding, love.

And for some, it was too much to ask. They weren’t prepared to understand or support. Or love.

Over my lifetime I have been an enabler, an empath as it’s commonly called these days. It started early on in childhood, and with each passing year and each new relationship added to my emotional history, it grew in strength. I slowly buried who I really was, denying myself what I truly wanted out of my life, my relationships and my dreams. I put myself at the end of the line to wait patiently for it to be my turn, because there were always more important issues and bigger problems for the people in my life. More urgent matters, that needed more attention, than anything that could be going on with me.

I was the therapist, the organizer, the sympathizer, the cheerleader, for everyone…but myself.

I’ve lost a couple of family members, and a couple of what I considered close friends, in the last year or so during this storm of challenge and change. I don’t regret it, as horrible as that sounds. I think everyone needs to purge once or twice in a lifetime, possibly more often than that, to really clear your mind and your soul, to reset your moral compass and your personal boundaries.

Change is part of growing, and growing isn’t always easy.

These days I feel lighter, able to breathe and relax a bit more. My days of pleasing others at my own expense, or at the expense of my children, are over. Am I sorry that I’ve lost people along the way? A little, but it’s really more about disappointment than sorrow.

Disappointed that those same people that I’ve tried to give my best self to, tried to be supportive of, couldn’t rise to the smallest challenge of just being there for me in my darkest hour, my darkest year. Unable to show understanding when I needed it the most. Unwilling to protect me in even the simplest ways. But instead of filling my heart with regret and sorrow over that loss, I’ve filled in those gaps with people that truly bring joy, happiness and support into my life.

People who can give of themselves as well as receive, reciprocated support and love.

The next cluster may be just around the corner, because that’s how life works, but it doesn’t scare me as much now that I’ve tightened up my inner circle and feel more secure in who I am and the boundaries I’ve set. I’ve come through the longest cluster of my life, a better and stronger version of myself, surrounded by the people who only want the best for me and will help me fight for it. I’ve rebuilt my support system, revamped my walls and boundaries, with the hope that I am better prepared for the next cluster when it comes my way.