Interrupted patterns

 Ok, so the idea here is I am going to write as much down as I can.

I've had so many thoughts and feelings over the past few weeks and very little time to digest or process.

Let's start with Mat Auryn's Tweet today: 

"If you could live anywhere, where would it be?"

OOF. let's talk about feels for a sec.

I entered adulthood at 18, and almost immediately became a parent.  They said I could become anything so I became a co-dependent, needy, people pleaser!

And that reminds me of Ben, telling me how fucked up I was back in 2017.  Like, bro.  I know exactly what you mean and what you are talking about.  I've had to LIVE in this here brain of mine for the past 41 years.  I get it.  I have issues and I've worked hard to address them.

The only person that knows exactly how fucked up I am is me.  I know all these feelings I have and I even usually know why, now.  It wasn't always this way, but it is now.

But I digress.  Why did Mat's Tweet, an innocent, normal, happy little tweet, cause me emotional turmoil?

When you are 18, have a kid, and have most if not all of your adult resources removed at once, it's trauma.  When you are beaten, broken, and made to feel as though you are lesser, it's also trauma.

I believed, and somewhere within me still believe, that wealth, and happiness, and beauty was never meant for me.  I have this steadfast belief that because my life went way sideways from the expected outcome at 18, I do not deserve to dream or be happy.  I must always fix broken things.  I must always stay where I was planted as though I have no ability to move my arms or legs.  Yet, those arms and legs fix things.  They still work, there's nothing wrong with them.

But then the weight of the guilt, the fact I have all these mouths I am responsible for.  Children that I can't see, children who need their space and don't like how I attempted to raise them, children who have a Mom who loves them but cannot see she herself is being abused.  A Mom who isn't brave enough to do the right thing and kick her partner to the curb, and an angry, formerly abused stepmom who would literally drive through hell for them.  Because I remember hell, and I remember being a teen, and I also remember how they can literally be one and the same.

I know that by all accounts I shouldn't be here anymore.  I should be floating weightless amongst the stars or whatever we do when we die.  

But I am, somehow by some miracle still here.  I'm not dead yet, and that means there is work to do.

Ok, so how do I take my tragedy and make it happy?

How to I help build, and rebuild others?

Where is the confidence of a 5-year-old girl who said she would fight off an attacker, fearless brown pools in a tiny frame.

The terror of my best friend when he realized I was serious.  How he used every tool in his arsenal to discourage me from running headlong into my own death.

I can say that, until recently, I was not afraid to die.  I was afraid of pain.

But pain is nothing.  Pain is transient.  Pain fades.

Low confidence is a battle that is fought forever.  Having a lack of confidence in one's abilities, that lasts.  It's been reinforced by every poor life choice and every bad decision made.  It's been reinforced by all the well thought out decisions that go sideways, it's been reinforced by:

Me, and the evidence my broken brain provides.

And the thing is, as a will worker I know this doesn't serve me, but I am having a hard time reprogramming myself to believe that good things can and will happen if I just let them.  This means that this is a self-limiting problem with a known, well thought out solution.

It is just doing the work toward that.  It's moving, ever constantly, ever forward, and never stopping to take a break.

But, also knowing that I am fallible and therefore must take constant frequent breaks in order to let my creative brain PLAY.

It has to be someone, doesn't it?  Why not you?  Why not now?  When will you stop using your family as an excuse.  Why are you so afraid of making it?  Why?  

Just remove the brakes and let yourself go.