Words really are cheap. Nobody hears them. And if they do they tend to miss the bubbling vat of emotion (when there’s any left) behind them.
The only thing anybody seems to hear is silence. Actually, no they don’t. It gets smothered by the noise others are making. Your gurgles from beneath the plastic bag you’ve tied over your head become white noise.
But smacking someone like a snooze alarm would end up in a restraining order and an assault charge. So, you know. Silence. It’s all I’ve got right now.
Mom’s health problems continue to mount. And for as much as I’ve complained over the past six-and-a-half years since my grandfather died and she moved onto my dime, I really can’t imagine this life without her if something really bad does happen. She’s all I’ve got.
I was thinking about that this weekend. There are few if any people I do call when I need to talk or want to go out. Nobody really enjoys introspective and helpless Goddess; everyone only likes her when she’s in command and is the one either livening up the party or sweeping up everyone else’s broken glass. (Sometimes literally.)
When Goddess is ready to drive into oncoming traffic, nobody cares about THAT girl. And you know what? She’s pretty sick of everyone else coming to her that way too. When they don’t have anything left to give, either, and she certainly won’t be the recipient when they do.
And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I need to reach out more than I do. (Which isn’t much, admittedly.) I dunno. I’ve just gotten too many, “I’m busy” and “Thanks anyway” or silence when it was all I could do to keep the edge out of my voice when I was crying for help on the inside and trying to ask nicely on the outside.
I’ve watched the same thing happen to my family over their lifetimes. We rescue people. We fix their shit. That’s hardwired into our DNA.
I jump into rescue mode and then when I collapse afterward for five minutes, anything to claim just a moment of sanity so I can go on to the next crisis, everyone’s concerned that I missed a deadline on something else. Like I was sitting around filing my nails or something. That I’m keeping someone else from leaving at 5 when that will never, ever be an achievable exit time for me.
Sometimes I think people think I’d be offended if they offered help. But I don’t know how to convey that I WOULD LOVE THEM FOREVER if they not only offered, but just jumped in and DID something instead of remarking about the burning embers from the safety of being inside a Hazmat suit.
I read something the other day from my favorite psychic, who said you know you’re on the right path when you’re filled with excitement. Even if your path doesn’t work out until years or decades from now, you have something to look forward to you and you can feel its gravitational pull.
You know what pulls me? Paychecks. I look forward to every other Thursday when the girl from H.R. hands me my paystub. That makes my little heart go pitter-patter.
I remember working in non-profit grantwriting in Pittsburgh and feeling drawn to using my journalism degree. I ended up in D.C. And years later, I felt drawn to leave the “putting out fires daily” job and move into more creative, project-based endeavors. In warmer weather.
So here I am, after a series of strange circumstances, doing the putting out multiple fires daily AND project-based endeavors. I don’t hate it. It’s clearly a season for sowing as opposed to reaping, and I try to keep that in mind when I still have Friday’s headache on a Sunday morning.
I used to have an attitude of “I can do anything.” Then it morphed into “I can do everything.” And now that I literally CAN do anything and everything, well, what is it I WANT to be doing? Because I can’t do it all anymore. I just want to do something extraordinarily well … and to want nothing more than to catapult out of bed fueled by a massive rush of adrenaline because I just cannot wait to do whatever it is.
Instead of, you know, smacking the snooze alarm every nine minutes for an hour and a half, and trying not to put a face on it in my mind.