Everything I’m trying not to feel or deal with is being kicked up. I keep trying to push it back down or away and it keeps popping to the surface, unwanted and unbidden.
Here’s what’s swirling today:
Do I seem like I don’t need people to ask how I am? Like, do I appear to be completely self-sufficient that I don’t need anyone to just say “how are you?” once in a while?
Because I sure as shit don’t get that on the regular. Everyone is busy with their lives and I understand that, I really do. And I’m not trying to be all Miss Pity Me here although it’s probably going to come off that way.
I have a friend whom I love, truly. But she’s VERY wrapped up in what’s going on with her so every morning I come down to 80 messages on Facebook about this business thing or that thing and it feels like she’s always seeking my approval. I know it’s that she doesn’t have a lot of entrepreneurial pals and she needs interaction so I’m the interact-ee most often but just ONCE I’d like her to ask how I am. Just once.
Family members, too. I genuinely want to know how they are and what’s going on. And they respond but no one – NO ONE – asks how I am. I know they care and would be there in a heartbeat if I needed them and that means a lot to me but jeez, can you take 3 minutes out of your whirlwind schedule to say “Hi, how’s it going?”
See and here’s the thing – I feel greedy for even wanting this.
I’m pretty sure it’s me who has positioned myself as the one who checks on others and to whom others come for advice when they need it or a boost or whatever. And it’s me who apparently has appeared not to need anything.
The only two people who I go to are people I pay – my two coaches. Those are the two women who check in with me, who ask about me, who support me when shit gets hard.
Not my friends, not my family. My coaches.
This just tells me that I need to start asking for what I need from the people in my life.
(Although how do you say “Uh, can you ask how I am once in a while?” without sounding like a whiny five-year-old? Not sure. And that’s what I feel like. A whiny, sad, lonely five-year-old.)
I am over anticipating everyone else’s needs and fulfilling them to the best of my abilities and having no one do that for me. I’m not busting on Duty because he takes care of me in a way no one else has but this issue exists to a degree in that relationship, too.
So, yeah. I haz a sad. And an angry. And lots of other feelings as well.
There ya go.
I haven’t read your follow-up yet, but I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday. It finally occurred to me that it’s possible you’re really upset about something else.
Jody,
That might play into the mix but I generally live in a state of disgruntlement (not a word) so who knows?
The need for true intimacy, for some of us, is hugely important. My wee guess is that this is more about the nature of your marriage, although I’m nervous about writing that here since I certainly don’t wish to disparage Duty! Perhaps don’t publish this? True love, whether between friends or husbands, is all about what you describe as missing from your life. You give a lot, and, somehow, it’s not being reciprocated. This is both sad and damaging. I certainly don’t know how to rectify it, but I am ever hopeful that answers are there if you can but trust the messages and suggestions you receive.
OK, here’s my completely non-woo-driven observation (she said, acknowledging that Snarky channels energy very differently).
I think that you wanted this life so badly, planned for it so long, probably imagined it so many times, that it’s unusually distressing when it’s not turning out as you expected. Of course, things seldom do. But then, we seldom anticipate things as long, as carefully, and as enthusiastically as you did this career change, either.
And it’s left you out of sorts. All sharp elbows and rough edges. If I may cross streams, you called me out in a FB post about SNL 40, saying if the old fart rockers (Pauls Simon and Mac) hadn’t sung and Sarah Palin hadn’t done her “fancy pageant” routine the show would have been considerably shorter. Huh? No it wouldn’t. I’ve seen the whole thing, and without those two songs and Palin’s short bit with Jerry Seinfeld, it would have been 10 minutes shorter. So I don’t believe you were really as upset about the show as you let on, you were just upset … about YET ANOTHER THING that disappointed you.
You don’t like winter. You feel shut in. You’re lonely. You’re dog paddling through unfamiliar new waters. All of this is bound to leave you uncomfortable. All of this is real. And all of this is very unique to you, and so therefore it may be going undetected by those around you who don’t read your blog.
So, like Julie (above), I think you should call people. You should reach out. I bet the people close to you will come through for you, just as you’ve come through for them. You just have to ask. (And trust me, I know how hard asking can be.)
If I’m out of line here, I apologize. My heart’s in the right place, even if my words my be wrong.
Gal, I always take your words to heart as they are as carefully considered as mine are (after all, we loves us some words, right?).
You’re right on all of those counts. And I guess I want people to just know I’d like them to reach out vs. my feeling like I’m begging for attention. I sometimes wish I didn’t know what people need and jump in to offer it because I want that back and pretty much never get it. And being such the weirdo that I am, if I had it, I probably would be annoyed by it too, so stuck in “Can’t Win” theatre.
This, too, shall pass. Warmer weather is on the way and I’ll eventually pull my shit together and move forward. Just having a moment here, as they say.
I always receive your words with love.
Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers by Elizabeth Edwards really helped teach me how to ask for help. Her depiction of her grief over her boy’s death was so raw and so personal that at times I had to put it down. It felt scorching. Normally reading about pain like she endured would make me feel like a whiny brat. But her book didn’t because that’s not what was in her estimable heart.
Instead she said very wise things about the balance of power in relationships, and how friendships are more equitable, more real and far stronger when we do ask for help.
I know you have wee ones in your life right now, and I know you had cancer hit very close to home, so maybe this book isn’t the right choice for you. But for me, Mrs. Edwards delivered the right words at the right time and she changed my life.
Yes, you do come off exactly like that. Maybe it is an energetic boundary kind of thing?? It’s not that I expect you to pick up the phone and call me and say hey I just felt like chatting but you COULD totally do that any darn lunch time or evening or weekend and it would be fun! Maybe the ones who don’t offer bug you because they are closest to you but the rest of us are good at being supportive and listening also. I am going to put my number right here 561-214-0576 and I hope you will call it.
Julie, thank you, as always for your words of truth and love. Phone # duly noted and put in my cell phone. I appreciate it more than you know and will use it. :)