Tea Bagged?
Women are like teabags. We don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water! ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
I don’t see myself as being particularly strong. I’ve had people tell me, “I don’t know how you did that. I don’t think I could have.” I more or less just see myself as doing whatever I had to do depending on the given situation. No valiant effort, no grace under pressure, no strength in the face of adversity. Just putting one foot in front of the other.
The problem with being perceived as strong is that the people around you seem to forget that as strong as you can be, there are times when you don’t feel so strong and having to take one more step is just more effort than you can possibly muster. If you are quiet people assume you are fine as opposed to complaining nonstop where they think you are a whiner.
And fine, my friends, is in the eye of the beholder.
I’m carrying a huge load and all I can do is sit there with it on my back and keep trying to trudge forward. Sometimes I see a pretty decent return on that trudging. Other times, I worry it’s not worth it. Mostly, I just want to revert back to being 5 or 6 and stomp my feet and scream, “It’s just NOT FAIR!” because it isn’t. This is not the way things were supposed to go and I’ve worked too hard to deserve THIS.
I don’t have the energy to be THAT friend, THAT mom, THAT wife. I feel pretty alone because I don’t think people completely understand that. Actually, I’m pretty sure they don’t. Everyone has their burdens to bear. I know. I’m just a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all and a little dismayed at the lack of support or the outright ambivalence I seem to encounter almost daily. The ambivalence is the worst.
Then there are those rare moments when I manage to pull it together long enough to try, really TRY and I am forced to ask for help. Something, I can’t stand to do. I will spend hours researching my butt off, or trying everything I know to do before I will ask for help. Unfortunately, it seems that lately when I finally do reach out, I find myself hitting that wall of ambivalence again. It hurts, it stings, quite a bit actually.
So, I put a happy face on, pretend it’s all going to be okay. If I can’t… well, then I just stay away. I say, “I’m fine.” A lot. I avoid talking about it, ban all talk of it on the weekends, and dread Mondays in a way that is far beyond the “Mondays suck!” attitude that I might have had from time to time in the past.
I don’t remember a time when I was so close to giving up. In the past I’ve always maintained the attitude that “everything will be okay. This too will pass.” But, I’m tired now. Really, really tired. Now, I notice that when things appear to improve I almost begin to wait for the downturn, which is terrible. I never used to be like that. I used to be the kind of person that when things improved I believed that they would just continue to do so. Instead, now I think, “Oh good. This is good. Where’s the train?”
And I am just so sick of that damn train.
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May 13th, 2008
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I am always willing to lend an ear, even if it is via email.
