Doing an Emotional Cleanse

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I was tired.  I laughed and asked her if sleepwalking was a symptom of being tired.  I wasn't tired at that moment, but it occurred to me that I seem to be tired so much of the time – just not physically tired.  My fatigue is more emotional than physical.  I've spent these few weeks pondering this state of mind, and realize that I am tired of

caring what others think of me.    I’m 53 years old, and it’s time to Be Carolyn, no matter the opinions of anyone else.  I've got this one life and I’m scared of getting to the end of it wondering who I am.  I want to pirouette in the halls of my school – and not just when I’m alone there – and I want to order what I want in a restaurant.  I want to wear clothes that don’t match but are comfortable.  I want to listen to my favorite music without apology. 

feeling negatively towards my body.  Once upon a time, I must have been happy with my then young, lithe, strong, working body, but I don’t remember it.  For as long as I can remember, I've felt too big, too tall, too fat, my hair too stringy or frizzy or straight or wavy or long or short.  I was told to lose weight from such an early age I don’t remember a time my weight wasn't a crushing concern.  But here I am, 53 (still), and I have a body that carries me through the day.  It shoveled my car out of the snow yesterday.  It carried and fed three children.  My heart keeps beating.  While I can feel it aging, I tend not to recognize any limits and when I ask my body a favor, it always says yes.

feeling shame about the general clutter in my house.  I don’t live in a pristine environment, but I don’t live in filth.  For reasons that go back to my childhood, I've been reluctant to rid myself of things – until recently, I’ve been comforted by the stuff that surrounds me, and threatened by those who would strip me of it.  Now I find myself feeling hemmed in by that same stuff that brought me comfort, and little by little, it’s been leaving my house.  Little by little, I've acquired me things – a coffee table, a cat tower, new silverware and dishes, a storm door – that appeal to my soul, and shed the things that have begun to weigh heavily upon me.  And I continue – junk to the garbage bin, books to friends and colleagues, unworn clothes off to Savers, gently used items to the school’s holiday store – carefully putting the past where it belongs.  In the meantime, my house is messy – I’m not a housewife, never claimed to be – but I’m tired of caring, of feeling guilty over what I've not done.  I live alone.  If people love me, my clutter won’t bother them.  I’m tired of feeling shame over a dish left in the sink, the laundry left for another day, a table piled with reading material, or cat toys scattered about.

feeling anger.  What is, is.  Here I am in the now, and no amount of anger is going to change how I got here.  So my neglectful parents are forgiven – I choose to remember the ways they loved me rather than the ways they pushed me away.  They did the best they could with what they had, as I do for my children.  My ex-husband too – I don’t like how he forced an end to our marriage, but he is the man I chose way back when to be the father of my children.  I choose now to find his redeeming qualities, not the ones that hurt me.  God, who gave me a lifelong sentence, but who also gave me the chance to experience the keen sweetness of an “I love my mommy.”  I struggle to release the anger I feel toward the man who made a unilateral decision that broke my son, then washed his hands of him, but someday I’ll come to it.  I’m still working on Reagan.

putting off until tomorrow.  I’ll be happy when I lose weight, and I’ll lose weight when the warm weather comes.  I’ll write when I have the time and I’ll have time when I rearrange my life.  I’ll crochet/embroider/other craft when I have room in the house and I’ll have room in the house after I’ve cleared it out.  I’ll save money when my children are independent, and I’ll travel when I’ve saved money.  No one is guaranteed the time or warm weather to come, and I’m not immortal.  If not now, when can I do these things?  The end of my life may come in 30 years, or in 1 day.  It’s my one life, and I’ve got to live it now.  But I also realize the folly of too many intentions.  I can easily overwhelm myself with lists, plans, and schedules.  My way of handling anxiety is to cover it over with surface management, so I’m making no schedules for now, no commitments to feel guilty about later.  All I need do for now is tweak my attitude.

the resentment that comes from judging others.  I try, I really do.  When that driver cuts me off, I tell myself there might be a good reason he (or she) is driving like a maniac – a wife in labor, a crisis at home, a child in danger.  That pushy person might not have seen me in the crowd.  The store clerk didn’t know I was here first.  Some are hard to explain away:  the man at Starbucks who leaves his garbage behind for someone else to clean up.  The people at Black Friday sales who trample others in their rush to get cheap(er) electronics.  How does one explain greed?  Selfishness?  The attitude that rules and etiquette are for other people?  Well, I can’t.  I cannot explain away the rudeness, the small hearts, the evil of others.  But I don’t have to carry the weight of judging them either.  I can allow the sadness that comes with seeing injustice, but the resentment is poisonous.  I know this will be an ongoing battle for me.  Is it human nature to feel “it’s not fair,” whether for ourselves or on behalf of others?  For now, all I can do is work at it – and perhaps throw out the trash left behind at Starbucks so no one else has to do it, bless that man’s soul.

Well, I feel better already.  No promises or commitments, just the recognition that I've lived long enough with these burdens to know when it’s time to relieve myself of them.  Like the items I’m sloughing off my physical world, these weights need to be shed from my emotional one.  Maybe then I can feel I’m no longer sleepwalking through my life, but waking up.