I say all the time that this column is about everything. My most read columns are the ones where I am engaging in commentary on politics and culture. This column may or may not spark as much interest because it’s one where I am just processing what is going on in my head. I promise I will get back to the others soon.
But this week has pretty much sucked.
From my fibromyalgia flare that put me in bed for two days- the worst I’ve had in a while- to an overwhelming time at work, to a medical crisis with someone I love, it’s been one stressor after another with no opportunity to recoup and find my footing.
I have felt like I was wired way too tightly.
And then, when I didn’t respond the way someone thought I should have, I received this feedback:
You used to be softer. You act like you don’t care.
Full stop.
Needless to say, my response was not pretty.
I spent decades in the fog of depression, trying to measure up to what I felt others wanted me to be and failing. That softness? That was me crying on the floor.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped tearing myself up. I gave myself permission to be the person I knew was inside.
My DGAF score went to an eight. (If you don’t know what that is, think about it.)
Maybe it was all the times that the Bs weren’t enough, and I had to make As.
Maybe it was boyfriends who said I wasn’t enough and left me standing after I had given them my heart.
Maybe it was the jobs that told me I was great, only to turn on me and say I could no longer do anything right.
Maybe it was the broken foster care system that had me fighting for my son for eight years, watching him suffer with the fear of being sent back to his birth home and the uncertainty of the limbo.
Maybe it was fighting for a loved one to be well, only to find they have given up.
Maybe it’s walking through menopause and being liberated from those pesky hormones that make all of us women emotional basket cases.
I don’t know what the source for the change was- maybe all of it.
Yes, my outer shell is harder. My mouth is saucier. My opinions are a bit more vocal. My fight or flight is a little less patient.
And it’s okay.
What no one saw is that after I fought that assertion that I was no longer as soft as I used to be, I cried myself to sleep.
See, that person is still in there. I just protect her a bit more.
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