Last week I sat down to craft a post showcasing my enormous ego favorite posts of the last year and as I was going back and reading over the last 12 months of Bedhead, something became alarmingly clear- I really haven’t done much writing in the last 6 months or so. Now, make no mistake, I posted twice a week every week- I almost never break the schedule- but there were a lot of toys, a lot of lists, a lot of pictures, a lot of link-throughs to other posts and not a whole lot of writing. In that list of 15 pieces only 4 were posted after July- one toy review, two pieces for another site and one piece (The Red Sox Win the World Series & I, Once Again, Remember I Come From Hardy Stock) that was actually for the most part written in April, shortly after the Marathon bombing.
I haven’t been writing.
I kind of knew this. I felt myself resisting it. There was only two times when I felt really compelled to put pen to paper (as it were). One never saw the light of day due to my own fears and the other, well, it should have told me something … but somehow it didn’t. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of months ignoring red flags and a lot of time not listening to myself.
Fidati– Second person singular imperative of “fidarsi”, a reflexive verb #WordGeek
I once explained one of my tattoos to you. But as that was September 2012 and I’m pretty sure my Mom was my only reader back then, I’ll go over it again. When my father passed away in 2011 I was in the midst of getting divorced and became acutely aware of the degree to which I had always turned to my dad for guidance and assurance – perhaps to my detriment. I realized how hard I found it to trust myself. How, without my father to turn to when I was uncertain, I felt a bit lost. I knew at that time that I had to make it a conscious choice to start listening to myself . I needed to remind myself of it all the damn time. So, being the all-or-nothing kind of gal I am I decided the best reminder I could have would be one that was permanently inked into my skin. I did it in Italian for two reasons: 1. I didn’t really need to let the whole world know that I felt it necessary to tattoo the instruction “trust yourself” on myself. 2. My dad was Italian and it seemed fitting. After doing the necessary research to ensure I didn’t accidentally get the Italian word for “dinner specials” inked onto my arm, I went and got my tattoo: Fidati.
I told you all of that because I’ve realized that what kept me from writing for the last couple of months is that I forgot to trust myself. I have been second-guessing my every move. After spending a year telling you folks all about how I was a badass, how I didn’t need the input of others to make decisions , how I was moving forward with gusto and how I refused to apologize for my life, I found myself saying “I’m sorry” constantly, making little forward progress, questioning my every move, opinion and idea and slowly making myself smaller (ideologically- I tend to actually get bigger physically when I’m unhappy, even if I don’t realize what’s going on). All the while blaming my own shortcomings for the dysfunction of the situation I was in. Never once listening to the voice that was telling me that it was time to go.
So, how did I get there? Well, there are some tendencies I know I have:
I have a bad habit of trying to live my life around the feelings of others. It’s a crazy-destructive impulse. It leads to everything I described above. It leads to a huge amount of resentment. It makes me continually make myself smaller so that others can be larger… there’s only so much of that someone can do in a relationship before they give in and disappear (you’ve seen these people, they always seem sad and tired, they can’t seem to do much without their partner) or explode- which is what happens with me and it hurts people, which is what I have been trying to avoid all along.
Another bad habit I have is not directly stating what I need (I tend to wait for people to notice it). I was raised to believe that you never burden people and you never act selfishly. I have been working on it, trying to learn how to communicate my needs but I’ll tell you this- if you ever want to get out of having to care about my needs ever again just tell me (or even imply) that I ask a lot of you, because that will make me feel awful and shut down. I will, from then on, refuse to ask for anything because (oh noes!) you think I’m a horrible, selfish person. I will try to handle everything myself. It will eventually break me. In a situation where I feel like the choice is “shut up or be a bad person” I will choose shutting up for as long as humanly possible. At some point, I will snap. It will happen.
Finally, I hate arguing. Conflict evokes a physical response in me, that’s how stressful I find it. If you want to put me constantly on edge go ahead and challenge every opinion I have and every fact I state- make everything a debate. If you want to make me afraid to do anything in your presence, correct everything I do, tell me how you would do it better. I read this during my divorce and there’s a line in it that just stayed with me “…she sometimes couldn’t even cook eggs without me telling her how she might be able to improve.” I know that feeling, I’ve landed in it multiple times. After a while I will be afraid to make a decision, unreasonably stressed by having to do anything and in general just an angry, irrational, emotional wreck.
Those 3 things come together and, when unaddressed, conspire to make me into a version of myself I dislike strongly. I swore after my divorce that I would never be that version of myself again. I think that was the driving force behind my “no feelings” policy; if I didn’t do relationships I would never care about anyone’s feelings enough for that to be a factor. I could do things my own way and not have to deal with anyone else. No relationships, no worries- that was the rule. When I broke that rule I broke it big and learned that I hadn’t shed those tendencies, I had just been hiding from them. When they caught up with me and I found myself being that horrible version of myself – a person I hate- in a new city, a place where I know almost no one, I froze in terror. I took me a while to figure out what to do. Even when I figured it out, it took me a while to do it and make it stick. It was humbling to see that for all of my self-exploration and growing and whatnot over the last 18 months I was still so woefully unprepared for this.
I’m learning though. I can spot it now which is, I think, good. I’m also trying to remember that not everything is my fault and that I can’t control what other people do- only how I respond to it. I’m learning that taking care of myself is not unreasonable, I get to be happy too and as this awesome piece reminds us “let’s put that behind us” is often code for “Let’s forget about the past. Because the past makes me look like a total asshole, and you won’t let me touch your porn parts.” I’m learning that honoring my instincts can save everyone a lot of pain. I’m learning that I need to trust myself. Fidati.
The funny (funny sad, not funny haha) thing is that if any one of you had come to me at any point in the last 6 months and asked for my input about a similar situation I would have told you all of the stuff in that last paragraph without hesitation. I would have told you that you are amazing and deserve to feel awesome. I would have told you to do everything you needed to take care of yourself and I would have told you to love isn’t supposed make you feel like less. I would have known all of that stuff if we were talking about you.
Perhaps 2014 is the year I start practicing what I preach.
Fidati.
Remember when I shared divorce playlist with you? Well, this situation doesn’t get an entire playlist but there has been one song that I’ve come back to over and over for the last couple of months because, this
Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
Sigh No More- Mumford and Sons
