Monday, January 02, 2012

Full Monty

Rather than clutter up facebook with my complaining, I'll do it here, if you don't mind. You don't? Oh, good. If you do, stop reading now and go find something better to do with your time.

I'll just come out and say it. Life sucks right now. I can't see a way up and frankly, I don't want to get up right now. Wallowing feels, if not good, then needed. I see people posting pithy positive crap on fb and I just want to scream. My husband can't stop being a man from Mars and offerring me solutions for all my problems. Do I have to tell you how that feels? I do? OK, it feels like shit. Like not only am I doing everything wrong, I am a bad person for not wanting to help myself. Can't I just have a bad day, week, month, year without the whole world trying to fix me up so they don't have to deal with me and my pain?

I don't know if this is making me feel better or if it will make it worse.

What is the problem you ask? Everything. I miss home. I miss my friends and family. I am not here long enough to make the kinds of friends I need. Don't get me wrong. The people I know here are lovely and I really like them and wish we could be friends. But you gotta understand, it takes me years, years, YEARS to feel close to people. Until then, I am alone in a crowd. I don't know why I am so stunted. I just am and even if I could change it right now and feel close to my new acquaintances, that would just mean that I made friends I will have to leave again. My heart breaks at the thought of having to do that again. I will never do that again.

I am not the kind of person who can have a hundred friends. I can't handle the feeling of being spread so thin. I need deep connection with a few people. The problem here is that there are sooo many new people in my life I can't keep up. I want to dig in and deepen with just a few, but how do I choose? I feel like in order to survive down here I have to be a social butterfly, flitting from party to coffee to social event, when I am more like a hermit with a couple of best friends for life. And even if I do choose, do they choose me too? It is worse than dating, I tell you. It's kind of like if every time you moved, you had to find a new husband.

It might surprize some of you to learn that I assume others don't like me, and wait for proof that they do. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of proof for me to trust. That was hard to say, but it needed saying. I figure I am getting old enough to speak my mind now. My full mind, not just the tidy, positive, inspiring parts. I'm tired of stifling myself for the sake of others and to maintain the image others have of me. I'm not even sure who that Miranda is, but I know she is smarter, stronger, and a whole lot better person than me.

Ok, I gotta get this posted before my computer shuts down on me (some issue with my cooling fan or something, I suspect). Sorry to be such a downer. Meh.

9 comments:

Stephanie said...

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. I wish I could help you figure it out, but I think I have a lot of the same issues as you do, especially with regards to how long it takes for me to get close to someone. Except I'm not going anywhere!

I miss you.

Barefoot Miinister said...

I don't have any answers for you, but you don't need my answers. I just want you to know how much I miss you and what we shared. I miss spending all day and most of the night watching our kids running around the park. I miss sharing that with mommas who felt more like sisters. I miss Sunday mornings, the way you fed our bodies with such love and generosity, that we all were one family sharing our lives and ourselves. I am grateful that you touched my life but I wish that you were still here. I miss you my friend, and I love you.
Paula

~Tara said...

I'm wrapping you up in so many soul (((hugs))) right now, offering you space to cry and an invitation to call if that feels right. But mostly, just reminding you that you have the permission to feel these messier parts of life, to cry and really experience it. Cuz "what we resist, persists" anyway.

Like Paula said, you don't anyone's answers. So I'm just offering love. And a whole lot of trust in Who You Are, even the parts you don't always sense. I sense them. And I'm holding this space and that vision.

I love you and miss you Miranda.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes, life is "The SHIT!" and sometimes it's just plain "shit". (hopefully it's ok to post that word on here.)
I can totally relate to EVERYTHING you had to say. How much longer do you have down under anyway? I'll count down the time with you.

Unknown said...

Brave post, Miranda. It's hard to say how you're feeling when you're not feeling well. If you keep it to yourself, you feel alone because no one knows how you're really feeling. If you talk about it, you feel alone when people try to fix it so they don't have to experience the sad feelings. In my case, feelings like yours, and a similar reaction from my husband has led to separation. I felt down, alone, and unable to talk about it for a long time. Hugs from Schenectady. The girls and I will miss you guys at the Kalahari this year.

Sandra Dodd said...

-=- The problem here is that there are sooo many new people in my life I can't keep up. I want to dig in and deepen with just a few, but how do I choose?-=-

You open up with a few dozen and see who chooses you. And for the sake of your children and your husband, and for yourself, you wallow a little and then climb out and smile.

You'll never be this young again, you'll never have this day back, and so building good memories will be better for you now and in the future than reciting frustrations.

You *did* ask. :-)
http://sandradodd.com/negativity
Will you still be there in the fall of 2013?

Karen James said...

I knew when I met you, that I would like you, but I'm a bit of a slow moving hermit too. I look forward to getting to know you better when you return. In the mean time, it might help to remember that life isn't going on without you somewhere else. It's all right there with you. I've moved a fair bit too over the years, and it helps me to think of all of the people I have ever been close to as being with me where ever I am. Because they are, and their being there is a good part of what makes me who I am.

Megan said...

I like listening to people complain...

Mike M said...

I can relate to feeling out of place. In our case, moving around NY for several years following C's job (with 2 young kids) and having to find new social systems for myself and the kids while the spouse had work to get lost in, and not knowing when it would end or where (or if) we would settle may similar to what you're experiencing. We've been back where we started for a year now (my hometown) and we're starting to feel settled again. My journey was enriching and I grew and know myself better now for it - and in the moment it sucked many days. I knew it was just a process, and that it would end/change/get better, and that helped a bit - and it still sucked. ---- Kudo's on the self-awareness of why it hurts, that's so much better than being in the pain and blind to why. ---- Finally, as one of those Mars characters, we can have a hard time hearing the 'I just need you to hear me, not fix or rescue me' when our wives are hurting. Has he read this blog post?