Perpetual Teacher

Are you still teaching

guilty lessons from the grave?

Why can’t I just learn?

~ smj

 

“You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.

2012-11-27 – A sorry mess…

I’m learning I need to quite making plans.  I have always tried to “do what I say, and say what I mean”…  but, lately, this doesn’t work for me.  I will mean things when I say them  –  but, then, when it comes down to it, I just can’t make myself do 1/2 the things I think I should be able to do anymore…  because I’m physically just not able to… and I hate being like that… like this… but, it happens more and more lately….

So, I guess I need to accept this is how I am right now… handicapped. There, I said it.  I’m handicapped, and there’s nothing I can do about it right now. Hopefully, it will be better in the future – I am lucky to be going to the best for surgery in the near future…  so, I have high hopes I will be better.  Like really high hopes… and I know I’m lucky to have that…  but right now?   – life is a guessing game each day for me…   and I’m not fucking Kreskin.  I can’t know how I will be tomorrow… and, I’m sick of apologizing all the time when I fall short.  It’s like adding injury to insult.  Like a double slap in the face.  First, is when I realize I can’t do whatever it was I thought I could/would do.  Then, the second is when I feel like I’m letting someone down.

Lately I say “I’m sorry” a lot.  Like, A LOT.  Sorry I didn’t get this done, or that done… Sorry I can’t make it to this meeting… or to that event…   Sorry I’m such a pain in the ass… Sorry I’m such a downer… Sorry I’m a crappy Mom…. Wife… Friend.  Now, I’m sorry for being so sorry! WTF?  I am dealing with all this crap – my whole life feels like it’s upside down –  and then I feel guilty all the time on top of it?!  Ugh. It’s not right.  So, I decided I’m gonna try real hard to STOP apologizing for myself.

I have a long history of doing this – feeling guilty and responsible for things even when they are not my fault.  I’ve done it nearly my whole life.  I thought I was better about it the last few year.  I thought, I finally worked through a lot of crap.  Then, I caught myself, in tears, apologizing for something and beating myself up about it and thought, “Wow, I have taken this guilt-tripping thing to a whole new level!”.  Which led me to the other infamous, ever repeating internal question of, “what the hell is wrong with me?!?”.

Well, no more.  Screw it.  Life is too short, and I don’t need to feel guilty on top of everything else I’m dealing with right now.  All I can do, is all I can do.  for now, I need to start saying, “I’ll try”… and not “I will”, because the fact of the matter is that there’s a good chance I won’t be able to.     And, then, if I can’t do it, I’ll say I can’t… but, I need to stop apologizing and feeling guilty about it.

Learning to Fly…

“Can’t keep my mind from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.”
– from “Learning to Fly”, by Pink Floyd…

———————————————————

I’ve been procrastinating again.  Putting off writing in this blog… or writing anywhere for that matter.  Why?  Why do I do this to myself, when I know that writing is something I not only enjoy doing, but feel compelled to do?  I know that writing things out helps me think things through.  It helps me vent and it helps me feel more clarity and grounded.  I know it may be difficult to believe that, when I tend to write in random babbling circles…  but, somehow it’s true.  I’m happier when I write regularly.

Not writing is almost like punishment. 

and yet… more guilt…

In a past life…  (okay, a past blog) I wrote quite frequently about guilt….  and feeling guilty…  often, and usually, for no real good reasons. Well, I’m sure I absolutely DO have a few good reasons…  but, #1) who doesn’t?  then again, what constitutes a “good reason” is also very debatable…  and #2) eventually, I discovered that this “guilt” thing was something that was ingrained in me… taught to me at a very early age.  I was made to feel responsible for not only myself, but all kinds of other things that really shouldn’t have been, and ultimately could not have been, and were NOT my responsibilities…  but, I believed they were.

I then carried that with me into adulthood, and developed a nasty habit of personalizing things.   Which was, of course, my fault.   I’m not trying to just blame my parents

Going Crazy. Wanna Come?

Excuse my jet lag while I recover from my latest Guilt Trip.  Oh, it was a doosey,  alright.  I made a pit-stop at Memory Lane…  and then went all the way to Woe-is-me.  Somehow, I completely missed the Road to Redemption, and instead wound up in the Land of the Lost.  Yep, barely made it out of there alive.  I even lost my baggage somewhere over Shoulda-woulda-couldaville.  But that’s okay.  It wasn’t worth claiming anyway.  So – now, I’m saving up for my next big jaunt.  Going Crazy.  Wanna come?

=)