Crash and burn
i'm hoping that this is just the residue of drugs in my system, but I've just had a crappy day. To be honest, it was just the latest in a string of crappy days. My self-confidence is very low, and my fears are riding high. Once again, I'm turning to this damn box to help get through it.
It's hard not to see myself as pathetic right now.
The husband and I have gotten along reasonably well for a separated couple, but tonight, he and I went toe to toe, and he said something that just cut right to the bone. "You weren't happy before you met me, and you won't be after I'm out of your life."
Talk about hitting someone where they live. I'm not a happy, shiny person. I'm often content. I'm sometimes thrilled with my life. I over use this word and this phrase, but I've had and cherished moments of deep joy in my life. Happiness, though, is just something I can't seem to hang onto, and I have to wonder if I am just this miserable person celebrating my aches, pains and wounds. Or did I just let the son of a bitch get to me?
I've felt stuck for so long, knowing that I've been moving from one problem to another for years. I get the problems handled, but as soon as one is under control, another pops up. Now, here I am in a job that just seems to get harder and less profitable every day, wondering why dozens of resumes and phone calls haven't gotten me anywhere towards another job, wrapped up in the ongoing drama of if the husband is truly sick or just a shiftless prick, the responsibilities of motherhood, feeling like I'm falling farther and farther behind on everything, feeling like I'm taking advantage of the few people in my life who remain somewhat positive about me now, knowing that the people who've known me the longest see me as irresponsible. It's really horrid when you know you have to change things but don't know how.
I feel freaking powerless, and I hate that most of all. I don't want to be a person who dwells in misery. I don't think I really am, but his comment just got to me in a bad way. There's poison in my brain. One way or another, I have to get it out or it will kill some important part of me, and I will be that miserable wretch.
This Lent, I've felt guided to look at what needs to die in my life, and personal powerlessness has definitely made the list. This feels like a particularly cruel paradox, to trust and believe in the provision and benevolent love of the all powerful God and not feel any sense of power within myself. It's just too twisted, and my faith as well as my self confidence feels so weak. If Lent is in part to help me eliminate what stands between me and God, its purpose is being served. I don't know though if I can handle another insight like this one, if it comes with this much pain.
unhappiness, separation, powerlessness, Lent
posted by Cynthia at
7:24 PM
5 Comments:
(((((Cyn))))) I can't imagine anyone seeing you as irresponsible.
Damn the husband. Unfortunately, it's a fact that when you live with someone long enough, you learn how to push their buttons. In peaceful times, we don't use that knowledge. But during rocky times, sometimes the gloves come off...
Darn, I wish I could provide more than a virtual shoulder to cry on...
"Life is difficult." So begins the book The Road Less Travelled. I remember maybe 12 years ago discussing that at length with a friend as we came to the realization that we would be so much better off once we grasped that and abandoned the "Life will be better when x, or y, or z, is taken care of and behind us." As lawyers facing an endless stream of clients with problems, we knew we had beter get hold of the fact that it would never be all better!
And yet we all retain that hope, and I think your husband is taking advantage of that fact to dig the knife in and twist it.
Also, as lawyers, we constantly had to remind ourselves of the power of projection. Think about it: of the two of you, who's really the unhappy, past and future, person? You have had a really rough time recently, but it has always seem to me that you possess an indwelling sense of grace. And anyone who has just lost 50 pounds is someone working hard to recreate her world and herself.
And PS: don't they always say that when someone loses a significant amount of weight, others often react with a snarl? People don't like it when your rearrangement of your life forces them to occupy a new space.
I've always seen happiness as a thing that comes to you as a result of what is happening around you. It is brief at best. Fleeting. Can't be captured or held. It is wonderful and thrilling while it is there, and leaves no trace of it's self when it is gone.
Joy on the other hand, is a steady undercurrent that runs through a life committed to Christ. Sometimes it's a hidden underground spring, flowing at a trickle. Other times it is a gushing, flowing waterfall that refreshes everyone around it.
I've been thinking that happiness is something that must be defined in different ways. Individual nature has so much to do with how we perceive and react to any given situation; those who are inclined by nature to be 'happy, shiny people' will always be perceived to be happier than those whose contentment is more low key; more constant even. But we each define our own level of contentment.
You are not powerless; your life is in flux, and although some changes are positive (yay-weight loss!); you are unhappy because you are in psychological and physical pain. Your discontent has reasons, and this too will change.
Shame on your husband for saying such a cruel thing. I would have been stung too.
Barbara is so right, and what she says reflects a bit of Jewish teaching as well (not the life in Christ, of course :-))
But the thing is that you can teach yourself joy, or happiness, and not by dwelling on your past, but by living in the moment. And someone as smart and capable and spiritual as you has all the tools you need.
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