Caterwauling

I promised myself this new blog wouldn’t become a personal ranting ground. A professional one, sure, insofar as talking about being un self-employed and NOT about any employers per se.

But …

I’ve been feeling lost without blogging about what’s happening in my heart. And for all the hard knocks the ole ticker has taken, it’s got a story to tell that isn’t being told.

So today, I change that. All growing processes interconnect. And it needs to be preserved in living history when I have a moment of reckoning!

What has been going unsaid is that I’ve been kind of schizo and depressed about my situation right now. But no matter how bleak things get, something happens to give me hope. Like I mused to myself today, “Whenever a door closes, a window opens that you want to jump out of.” 🙂

But, alas, something always stops me from jumping. It’s like the universe hears me and sends me something to hold onto — to jump toward, if you will.

In summary, something truly wonderful that has been happening lately is that I’ve been attracting better and better people into my realm. I always say that my friends are few, but their real estate in my heart is expansive. I am revelling in everyone and truly learning who I am through their eyes. And, accordingly, I hope I am able to give something back or, at least, pay it forward to others who need me as much as I’ve needed those before them.

In any event, I did a lot of soul-searching today. Not a new activity, of course, but this one was done with someone who cared. Yes, I made a friend. And maybe we were always friends, but today, it became clear that we keep crossing paths for a reason.

And I don’t know if he’s reading this (I actually hope not — he’s had more than sufficient exposure to my neuroses for one evening!), but he did something that so few have cared enough to do — he broke me open. I mean, really, took my bullshit and fed it straight back to me. Asked questions and listened to the answers, then asked the questions again until I was brave enough to give the real answers.

It’s kind of timely — I was blogging recently how I have a moat around me, and I need to start convincing people that there aren’t sharks in the waters. 😉 I realized — and admitted — that I am a genius at pushing people away and/or holding them at arm’s length. The thing is, I always wanted for us to be better friends, but circumstances dictated that I put my guard up. And unfortunately, that guard is still up. I don’t want to be wary. I just felt like it was in my best interest to limit interactions and information. But all signs point toward needing to be less wary than receptive.

But maybe, just maybe, I was wrong. No, I wasn’t wrong. I am entitled to use caution. I mean, I have so many ex-friends and such who are brilliant at extracting every piece of data on me, only to try to use it to hurt me down the road. Was it their intent from the outset to hurt me, or was that just like a benefit to them? No matter, but it did leave me raw and untrusting. And that’s a damn shame that I gave people and entities the power to take away what has always been rightfully mine — my strength — but really, I doubt anyone can blame me. But I’ve got to treat it as the temporary insanity that it is and believe in the people who know me better than that and believe in meunfalteringly.

And for some reason, he seems to think the world of me. Is he nuts? LOL. I got the message loud and clear that I was worth the time and effort to invest in — this in and of itself makes him worth my own emotional investment as well. And that he knows there’s so much more beneath the polished surface that I offer. And there is — I just have a really hard time, given the recent (seemingly neverending) series of ass-kicking life events, believing in myself and my worth.

It’s life-alteringly amazing to run into people who have so much faith in you that you can borrow some of that faith and use it to regrow what has all but died inside of you. Strength needs to come from within, naturally, but sometimes it’s OK to run out of steam when you’ve managed to ignite others so much so that they can lend you some of that fuel until you can make it to the gas station to replenish your own supply. And once I’ve got the tank off “empty,” I can resume helping to give others a jump when they’re the ones in need — it’s just great to know that I can get a jump when I really need one, too.

* These titles refer to the Ani DiFranco box set of the same name. 🙂

On iTunes: Vertical Horizon, “Inside You”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 16th, 2004 at 10:22 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.