My Own Fodder

Inspiration for writing comes with a cost.  I become my own fodder.  And the story of my life unfolds.  On one hand, I'm a messed up, emotionally immature person just like everyone else.  A flawed human being trying to find my way.  On the other hand, I have my models that I emulate.  My heroes that I aspire to follow.  The ones that serve others with open-hearted gracefulness.  The creative, successful, happy ones with love that sorta oozes out of them.  I glean from each one, picking and choosing the qualities that serve me best.  I copy them.  I pretend.  I fake it until I make it.  And over the years,  I've found that I have made it in some ways, that I've arrived--if not setting any records, I've at least crossed the finish line in a respectable time.  I've discovered that in some things, I'm my own best model, that some of what I've learned has become second nature, that I've gained a fair amount of emotional maturity and wisdom myself.  And with this, I know how little I know.  And I know how I'll never really "get there".  This is a life long journey. 

Here's the fodder for this writing. Recently I experienced a trigger that set off some post traumatic stress (PTS).  I panicked.  I blew things out of proportion.  I listened to the stories my wounded ego was telling me.  I felt the emotions that had been released in my body.  I didn't really believe the stories but I still laid around with my feelings hurt, feeling depressed and sorry for myself.  To top it all off, I was embarrassed.  I'll be 56 years old in one week and experiencing these uncomfortable emotional gyrations annoyed me.  I felt silly--that at my age I should be over having these these ridiculous reactions.  I should be more mature.  More enlightened.  And I knew it would all pass soon and I would be relieved of my ego running amok, but soon wasn't soon enough. 

The original trigger was Lover Who Is My Lover not wanting to spend time with me because he was too tired.  I understood his tiredness was legitimate, and regardless, he certainly didn't owe it to me, to choose to spend time with me in that moment.  But my feelings were still hurt.  After all, I was exhausted myself and I still wanted to spend time with him.  But underlying my disappointment that he wasn't giving me what I wanted, was another tender spot, which his denial to meet my needs of the moment uncovered. 

There was a large gathering of woman that I had not been invited to.  Many of my women friends were there and I was not.  This particular gathering has been going on for many years and I have never attended.  Over the years, I had been invited several times but it just never worked for me to go.  Eventually the invites stopped coming and I'm not sure whether my lack of participation offended the hostess or more likely, I'm simply not in her mind much as she is a person I seldom run into.  It's probably a bit of both.  Whatever the case may be, it's never been something I've thought too much about, it wasn't a big deal to me...until recently, when I got the inkling that I wanted to be a part of this gathering. The obvious problem is, I haven't been invited.

One thing that is so ridiculous is that I'm so not left out.  I have an abundance of friends and I'm invited to more gatherings and parties than I can reasonably attend.  I really have the good fortune to get to pick and choose between many options.  My life is abundant with friends, gatherings, and being a part of.  I'm included and loved.  It's not like I'm sitting at home alone, bored.  Ha.  I was the other night!

I mentioned PTS and sometimes it kicks in.  There have been times in my life when more often than not, I was sitting alone at home, bored.  As a young girl this happened to me a lot.  I was alone and felt friendless much of the time.  I was often left out.  I had a fairly sad childhood and I was emotionally neglected.  I had an over abundance of unmet childhood needs.  So this trigger happened and I was overly upset.  I knew I was experiencing PTS and that my reaction outweighed the circumstance but there is was and no reasoning with the emotions I was feeling.  I felt abandoned and that was that.

So I sat with it.  I slept with it.  And I woke up with a lingering, depressed sense of it.  And then Lover Who Is My Lover called and we talked for a few minutes and I noticed it was gone.  I didn't tell him what I had been experiencing because it felt silly, my truth of the moment that wasn't true at all.  Besides, it's awkward to talk about those things on the phone sometimes.

But later in the day I thought that I should share this with him, allow myself to be vulnerable and tell  him about my silliness and the role he played as my trigger.  Part of me found it necessary to expose myself because I'm hesitant to do so.  I have a little PTS around telling him my emotions and causing him stress with my drama.  We have a little past here...but I don't want to buy into my fear of telling him the truth.  I want him to know me as I am, even though it sometimes scares me to reveal myself.  So I wrote him and told him my wounded ego story.  And he hasn't responded back yet.  And so now I notice that fear of self exposure, about being an imperfect person with flaws and PTS.  Well, welcome to the human race.  Welcome to me, Lover Who Is My Lover.