Lost

I got into the car, turned it on, fastened my seat belt and headed down the driveway en route to the supermarket.  Made the right hand turn out of the driveway  onto the road leading into town. At this moment I promptly burst into tears. 

I named my car Dudley 2.0 and so far it seems he is collecting just as many tears as his predecessor.  I am not sure why the tears, Just home from a  healing retreat for adoptees, donor conceived and NPE’s ( people who did a DNA test for fun and found out a parent was not their parent. ) I fit in because I am a late discovery adoptee and then 16 yrs later found out via a DNA test that bio dad wasn't bio dad. The retreat was in Phoenix. It was wonderful. I just made more life long friends. So why am I crying?  

I got hit with jet lag, then I got sick. Spent the last 3 days in bed, fever, tracheal congestion and a throbbing headache. Covid negative.Is this why I am crying? I kinda hate that we have to test pre and post travel. I hate that every picture is taken while wearing a mask. I wore my mask while traveling. I wear my mask when I do anything outside my house. I sanitize my hands as if it were my new religion. 

Still the lack of sleep prior to my teaching a class on Zentangle at the retreat on Sunday might be what did me in. Set me up for the invasion of germs. Maybe the germs were going to invade no matter what I did.  I am a better traveler than this so maybe it's just the disappointment of not jumping back into life, immediately after returning home. Stress at wondering what the reviews of my teaching will be like. Will I even be asked to teach another class? I am so quick to think along the lines of failure first. I guess that leaves room for good reviews.

If you believe in psychics I was told my sickness was a cleansing. I thought it was the covid I had back last October that she was talking about, not that I was going to be sick after I arrived home.  Guess that psychic knows her stuff. So what am I cleansing?  My negativity. My pores. The list could go on. 

Today is the first day I was up and about so of course grocery shopping is just the thing to do. Let's not ease back into life. So maybe the tears were just let down. Should have given myself more recovery time. 

Also if you believe in psychics this book that I am writing is not my legacy. When I heard those words I wanted to cry. What is my legacy then?  My 41 yr  nursing career. Meaning  what I am doing now is a total waste of time? Apparently I am only supposed to write it if it is helpful to me. I would think healing would be helpful to me and I do feel that to finish my healing I need to write this book.  Why can't I be the one being helpful to others? Why must I always be average and mediocre? Why can’t I be a bit of a star? 

Let’s face it, I like about 5 minutes of attention then it's too much and I don't know how to deal with it. So that is probably  why I live in the shadows.  The shadows of never being good enough. The shadows of there are a price to pay if I flaunt my talents or speak highly of myself. Somewhere someone burned  that into my head. I have a friend that told me the other day  using hand gestures here's flaunting,  she pointed to her head. ,  here's modest, she pointed to her waist  and here's where you are and her hand dropped to her knees.  

I never let myself off the leash to say hey world I am here. Notice me. Seems there is always a price of some sort to be paid for being noticed.  I am the one who ruminates cause when I open my mouth. Something stupid often falls out and I kick myself for days. Why did you say that?  I am nice to others and mean to myself.  I want to change that behavior and wish my trauma voice spoke French so I would notice it sooner and not fall victim to its ridicule or even believe what it tells me. Thoughts are not always true, yet I fall hook line and sinker. Somewhere along the line I'm thinking I got critiqued more than I got praised and that's maybe how I've shifted things in my mind. The shadow is better than the fame and glory. Yet truth be known I want that too. Like I said before just a little of it I don't want a lot I don't want it to be greedy or to hog. I just want a teeny tiny bit of notice. Notice me I do exist.

Maybe the tears are a result of thinking if the psychic is right and this is a cleansing. What's being cleansed? My bad habits. I put myself down before others have a chance. It's easier to hear my negative words about myself than to hear  negative words about me from others. 

I do go with the flow and one of my superpowers is minimizing how badly I minimize things. Cancer, oh no big deal, it was one of the slow growing ones. Think nothing of it, was the self talk, I used to get thru surgery and the complications after.  Seven major life losses in a 5 year period oh what a piece of cake that was. Living on 2-4 hrs of sleep during that time because of a major panic anxiety disorder. Hey, I treated that like nothing, not sure anyone even noticed that I accepted a prestigious nursing award during a full blown panic attack. I present well, I always have and suspect always will. Just another super power.

l never miss a beat. 

The toll it took on me I can now say was enormous. Not sure I will truly recover coupled with the PTSD from the events that lead up to  my divorce one of the life changes during that time. 

And let me just share this here. I hate every minute of being divorced, that was never going to happen to me but yet it did so I simply move forward, no big deal right?  Well except for the PTSD. Always makes May to July uncomfortable whether I acknowledge it or not. The body says  Yo, I remember and I am going to force you to remember too.  Maybe I should read the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A. Vander Kolk, MD.  it's on my kindle but I just can't seem to get myself to read and face those particular demons. I have healed so much yet there's so much more to heal.

I am not even sure now what my point of this essay was other than I needed something written up for my writing teacher for our next one on one call. Seems I have set up a page of rambling. The vulnerable things that perhaps really needed to see the light of paper.  I also just got a text from a friend who’s innocent question of an ending meditation that asked the question Who am I.  Was a bit of a trigger for me. 

I can't answer that particular  question. I sure hope my friend can answer that question for herself.  I have had my identity shattered twice. The first time I found out my parents were not my parents was when I was 49 yrs old. The second time was finding out that bio dad wasn't bio dad when I was 63 yrs old.  I don't have an answer for who I am.  I am still picking up the shards of my identity on a daily basis.  I am lost. Maybe that's why the tears. 

There is an art form where you break a container and then you put it together using gold and you make a beautiful piece of artwork. Maybe I need to do that and have it sitting around as a reminder for me. The Phoenix rising or the beauty that comes out of devastation when things start to regrow.

I just know I'm a people pleaser. I praise others while I withhold praise for myself. I strive for perfection in a world where humans can't be perfect. I will happily give it to you while I go without. I seem to have blinders on when it comes to my own success. Because of that I always seem to want what's out of reach. I think I am my own abuser.

I do know I am lucky for the family that I have met and for the family I grew up with. I know I landed where I was supposed to land. Each experiences a learning moment whether  harsh or kind. That's the balance of it all. It's exhausting.  With that said I think I'm lonely.  As strange as this is going to sound, I am lonely for the life that might have been mine if a decision made before my birth had been different.   If I could have stayed in the family I was born into.

Times were tough and I am not going to entertain here the what ifs or second guess. I am just going to let that all go. Some days it's harder than others. The what if's is a massive rabbit hole that doesn't resolve anything, I think I'm grieving the loss of the biological family that I'll never know. The history I will never have even when new history can be made it's not the same. It's tainted in some small barely visible way. That only other DNA surprises people can understand.

I think my tears are because I'm literally tired. Not as tired as at the airport when I found my car in the parking garage. Turned it on  to drive home and wished I had remembered jet lag and arranged a ride but no can't inconvenience anyone. Tears flowed then. Then I found my second wind and got myself home.  I think my tears are complicated grief. I think each retreat I peel away another layer of the onion that is me. Find some new trauma and let some of the old trauma go.  Maybe someday and a few more retreats I might actually find me. Wonder what my first words to myself will be. 

Probably something like “Hi, Where have you been hiding?”

Special thanks to Wendy Kathleen Janet K for her sharing her story.