Last week I made my blogs private temporarily and deleted my FB account. I just needed a break from everything, everyone, from the pressing needs of so many that weigh so heavily on my heart so much of the time. It was a selfish, but necessary choice that had the unintended effect of freaking people out. That was not my goal. I just needed space to breath. I was feeling suffocated by everything.
I learned some valuable things in the process. First, I really didn't miss FB or twitter or my blog all that much. I missed individual people and I feel badly that I kind of left them in the lurch a bit. I do think, given that I will be job searching starting next year, that I need to warn people this will probably happen again. I don't really want people crawling over every thought I have and judging my worth as an employee based upon it. The idea is kind of oppressive. At the same time, I know I don't post every thought I have. I censor myself quite a bit to take others feelings and desires into account, so who I am online is only a shade of who I really am. Somehow it makes me feel dishonest. I can't really explain why.
There has been a lot going on at Casa de Smurf lately and a lot going on in other friends lives (the link represents only one of the things going on) that has made me realize that I really straddle many different worlds, but I don't really walk in any of them. In the words of Harold from Twin Peaks, "J'ai une ame solitaire." I don't have the typical military spouse experience and so my experience is discounted by many (not all) as somehow not authentic. I don't have the typical graduate student experience because at the end of the day, I don't just worry about grades or research or graduating, I worry about all the crazy military crap in our lives. I don't know how to explain to my advisor that one of the tougher things I have ever done is work all day, come home to sleep only to be awakened by a phone call 3 hrs later telling me all hell is breaking loose and knowing that I cannot do anything about it and that I still have to get up and do my job that day and interact with people as if everything is fine. I continually worry about whether I am being a supportive enough wife. I worry I am giving bad advice. I worry this ride is coming to an end with the Navy, which I know my husband doesn't want. I worry that it isn't and I will have to continue to find new depths of patience within myself and new sources of internal conflict between who and what I am and who and what I am believed/expected to be.
And in the end, that's what it all boils down to, as much as I love my friends, as much as I appreciate their support (and I really do), there isn't a soul on Earth that I have found that has walked in my shoes and can advise me on how to get from point A to point B, especially considering point B is poorly defined. I'm not sure I know where it is. And I don't feel like it is really fair of me to be so damn needy at a time when so many other people I know are as needy if not more so. Given all of this, it seemed a good time to spend some quiet time to try to find some peace and some center so I can be there for my husband and the people I care about. I guess I just don't find the interwebs at times to be all that calming or centering. They sometimes make me feel like "The world is too much with us" and so I needed to find a place apart from that to find the peace I felt I lacked.
I don't have any better answers than what I did a few days ago, but I feel a little more able to face the path, whatever it is, ahead of me. I need that. I just feel badly that I stressed some other people out in the process. I just didn't know how to explain what I was feeling to anyone and I didn't want people to be unnecessarily worried about me. I knew I would be okay, but I also knew I had to honor what I was feeling at the moment. I hope that those whom I have worried will forgive me and know I love them.
4 comments:
honey - we understand. Just give us a heads up next time.. cause we worry. and then we get pushy and demanding and all that stuff, cause we worry. So consider us all your mom.. I at least am old enough to be your mama. We may not understand it all, but we can be a shoulder, a sounding board or just here when you need us.
LAW
LAW:
You are very sweet. Honestly, I had a week of Senior Jefe calling me ever morning at 0730 with "the sky is falling", followed by sickening panic attacks as I waited to hear how far the sky had in fact fallen, after being up until 0430 at work. The decision I made was made in panic. I felt like if I didn't put some distance between myself and all the stuff going on right that moment, I was going to have a week of sitting on the floor rocking back and forth while breathing into a paper bag. I couldn't afford that because I had to babysit my experiment. I know you guys are here for me and I appreciate it. At that point I didn't even have words to explain everything and I couldn't find words. The idea of trying to explain any of it got to be too stressful. Add the betrayal of false friends on top of everything else and well, the best I could do last week was sit at my bench and pipette my samples into test tubes. You needn't ever worry. My shrink is amazing and totally makes room for me in her schedule when I am having a freak out.
And I will try harder to find words so I can give people a heads up. I promise.
Love you ...Mom... ;D..
Smurfette
Babe, we love you. And if I was closer I would sit next to you in your lab and just be there.
Like LAW said... we just wanted to be sure you were really "okay". Okay being relative. *Hug* *Hand Hold*
That's sweet, but I think the lab would bore the hell out of most people. You should see how bored Senior Jefe gets when he is drug with me when he visits. He tries so hard to be patient, but he looks like he is about to go mad.
Spring is always a rough time for me. I think all the time changes and light changes and weather changes get to me. Every year around this time I get really depressed and frustrated and need a mental health break. I successfully postponed it with DC and HI, but it has been brewing. Add the Navy and some very not nice people at work into the mix and it was bound to boil over. Gosh, I was so close to making it to the end of the semester this year. I really thought this would be the first year I might get past it. Alas, the Navy had other plans.
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