stuck

i have dabbled in poetry all of my life.  not sure i can call myself a true poet, as i write so simply.  what i mean by that, is that i read poetry that is intricate and the meaning is something you must figure out by reading it a few times…and then it’s beautiful.  my poetry is like my journaling…kinda straight to the point.  no one needs to ever wonder what it is i’m trying to say.  i have written hundreds of poems over the years, and most of them in dark, confusing times, as thats when my mind seems to spill words onto a page so randomly.  i want to share one here this morning, about this place in my life.  

WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE

there used to be a time,

in my busy, chaotic life

where i craved any tiny moment

of silence…free from strife.

“be careful what you ask for”

i’ve often heard it said.

i know now that too much silence

echos painfully in my head.

when the divorce became final,

and empty nest soon followed suit,

i found myself so lonely…

without direction or pursuit.

the quiet i used to hunger for

has now become my enemy.

i feel so lost and so confused…

don’t know what i’m supposed to be.

i thought that quiet would equal peace,

and now i know that’s it’s not true.

the first is void of all sound,

the second must be settled into.

its not as easy as it sounds

to feel the peace i’ve craved so long.

sometimes i think i’m broken

and just repeating the same sad song.

yet i feel deep inside

like this is where i’m supposed to be.

this silent, empty life…

is where i’ll finally find…ME.

i wrote that about four months ago, and then last nite i came across a quote that said…

“lonliness is a sign that you are in desperate need of yourself”

this, of course really resonated with me, and validated my feelings in that poem as far as knowing that others have felt like this.  i know that i need to find myself…and i really hate that phrase. when i’ve said this members of my family, i’m told things like, “you are right here”…and they point out the things and people i have in my life.  they don’t understand.  and the scariest part for me, is that i’ve spent so many years not using my voice if i meant others would be uncomfortable with what i had to say or what i felt.  so many years just being what others needed.  so many years slowly burying myself without even realizing it.  i wonder sometimes if there is even “enough” of me left to find.  and again…i hate this kind of phrase…i feel like at my age, i should have so much more figured out.  but…instead, my head just swims with the same things that seem to swirl like a storm i can’t calm.  i truly feel like i’m inside myself and keeping myself IN, but i don’t understand it, when i want so desperately to just come out and LIVE.  what am i afraid of?  what stops me?  

i tell myself all the time, it’s time to move on.  let go of what hurts so much.  let go of what you can’t change and work with what you have right now…and MOVE ON.  but i honestly don’t know what that means.  when i decided to divorce, i literally uprooted my entire life.  i lived in fear for almost a year that i could survive alone financially, and so i was in some sort of robotic state just “functioning”, trying to do it all.  everything had been done for me for so many years financially for so long.  i didn’t know how to be financially independent and so that became my focus.  it HAD to be my focus…i had a home to keep.  i had to eat.  and when almost a year went by and i realized i COULD do it…WAS doing it, something on that level calmed in me, and in a way i can’t really explain, i also realized that all that time, i hadn’t really breathed.  but when i did take a moment to catch my breath and look at where i was, it’s when i realized that i’d pushed every emotion that should have been tended to during all that time, far away.  i didn’t have time to FEEL.  honestly too….i probably didn’t WANT to feel.  even now, as i write this, i fear that if i allow myself to fully feel everything i’ve been thru the last ten years…that it will bring me to my knees, and i just can’t afford to let that happen.  

dismantling a long marriage is painful and daunting and takes so long.  having my grown children angry at me for wanting the divorce is painful and daunting.  i couldn’t allow myself to wallow in the pains i felt, because on some instictive level, i felt a desperate need to save myself and i knew(still do) that all those hard decisions were the right and best thing for me.  but no one could understand that, and the anger still persists with some of my children, even tho my ex and i have gotten to a truly friendly place.  he and i communicate better than we ever did in marriage.  but two of my children still don’t speak to me.  it’s a pain beyond anything i can explain, and i’ve written many a poem or journal entry TRYING TO.  they have told me that “they don’t KNOW me”.  and it’s true, i guess.  how can they know me, if i don’t know myself.  but when i started this process to try to find myself…it hurt alot of people, and that adds guilt to the list of things i carry and try not to drown in.  guilt for hurting people around me in order to save myself.  for so many years, everyone was fine…even happy, as long as i was being what and who they needed.  no one could see that there was more somewhere in me and that i was unhappy.

so….after the illness where i thought i’d die, and deciding i wanted to live, i made all these changes.  took the bull by the horns, so to speak.  i decided i could no longer “settle” for the life that everyone around me wanted me to live.  i needed to find whatever it is that’s always simmering inside me…always.  but now after all that change, all that uprooting, dismantling, and hurting everyone, what do i have to show for it?  i can FEEL this more inside me, but i can’t reach it.  so…i’ve found nothing.  i’ve figured out nothing.  everything i’d done can’t be for nothing, can it?

i guess on some level, i’m waiting for everything to be okay before i try to move forward.  i’ve been told, not to do that.  that what if everything is never okay?  (a thought which petrifies me, by the way).  i’m told that the anger my two daughters feel toward me is something that THEY have to work thru, and i need to just give them the time to do it, WHILE i try to figure out my own life.  but it’s so hard to move any kind of forward with things like this between us.  it feels like moving ahead without them, and i know that’s not really the case, but it FEELS like that.  how can i BE happy, when my children are so unhappy with me? how can i just let that go and take forward steps?  it seems so wrong, as a mother.  

and forward steps towards what?  i have no idea what i want to do or be.  i’ve KNOWN things along this journey, that i DIDN’T want, for sure.  i DIDN’T want to be married to someone who didn’t want to understand me, and only wanted me to get over the things i struggled with.  i DIDN’T want to live in a life where people looked at me, but saw thru me…never SEEING me.  i DIDN’T want to live in situations where i couldn’t voice what i felt or thought.  i DIDN’T want to be lonely in rooms full of people who were my family.  i knew alot that i DIDN’T want.  but for the life of me, i can’t figure out what i DO want.

i feel so incredibly STUCK in this place of transition, and i hope deserately that it’s like people say; that maybe i’m in some sort of cocoon, and will eventually come out of it, with some quality of what will feel like “life”.  

i am not without hope.  in fact, i hope DESPERATELY to “get somewhere” that feels right and happy.  i want that, or i wouldn’t have taken all the hard steps i have to get “here”…wherever here is.  and i’m not without gratefulness.  tho two of my children aren’t speaking to me (which means i don’t see my grandchildren either…another painful thing i can’t even begin to convey), i’m grateful that they are all alive and well and living lifes that make them happy.  i’m grateful for my job…not only has it been a saving grace financially and given me a place to go everyday that have given me a sense of purpose, but i LOVE my job.  i’m grateful for my youngest who is about to have my fifth grandbaby.  i’m grateful for the little furry roommates i have that greet me at the door every day when i get home.  i’m grateful for my back yard which is a beautiful oasis at my own hands and doing.   i’m grateful for my physical health…more grateful than most understand.  

but my mental and emotional health could sure use a boost.

for ANYONE who made it this far thru an entry full of “blah”…thank you for hearing me.