Thursday, May 2, 2013

Nobody Could Possibly Ever Feel This Way. Ever.


I don't get many phone calls in the course of the day, but I imagine that if you've tried to reach me during the past few weeks...be it phone, e-mail, Facebook, whatever...I might have seemed a little quiet. Maybe hard to reach both physically and mentally?

It hasn't been on purpose, that much is true.

But I haven't felt right in a whole mess of days. Stumped, in a way. Stuck. Frustrated. Useless.

The Mister and I sat down and talked until midnight last night which means it was seeeeerious, ya'll, because we start grumpin' and fussin' about what a crappy day it will be in the morning if we're not parked beneath the covers by 9:45. (We're old!)

It was a long and twisted talk about how I've never been a finisher.

Always a starter.

How I have a million projects that I want to do. A million achievements I want to achieve. But how I never get there. And how I get so loaded down with current projects, that I drive myself insane with the rate of failure and demise these passions face. I'm getting no where. With anything.

How I don't want to be this person anymore. I feel potential slipping away every day that I'm berating myself and mad at myself for having a mind like a cluttered, paper-filled desk. Covered in magazine covers I wish I looked like or Pinterest projects I could base a blog off.

Cluttered mind and broken motivation to the point where I can't write. Can't work out. Can't sleep.

I'm a dreamer of dreams with no means of making them happen.

That's how it feels, anyway.

When I dream, I don't want to just find time for jiu jitsu for the sake of jiu jitsu. I want to win Worlds and take a picture on the podium. See how this could possibly lead to me tearing hair out when the babies frizzle out after only 20 minutes of me training with P in the mornings? I set myself up for all or nothing goals on so many projects that I end up with nothing.

That's how it feels, anyway.

It was a long talk about expectations I have for myself. That awful inner critic that's been so mean and nasty my whole life that I don't know how to take it easy on myself when I can't lose the last 15 pounds of baby weight or don't write those 15 goal pages that day. Or post a blog post each day for a month. Or take a photo a day and post them all one month. Or get my purple belt. Or beat my husband rolling.

It was long, long talk. I mentioned that already, didn't I?

At the end of the night, I made a shocking decision that my husband fully supports and thinks might actually be good for me and this missing sense of clarity I'm looking for.. I'm letting go of everything (permanently or temporary, we'll see where it all ends up) that I think I want. Or that I think defines me.

Within reason, obviously.

The first thing (and the most painful) is jiu jitsu. I don't have the time. Or the heart in it. Or the burning fire. And the hope is that by not driving myself insane with not training, I'll come back around eventually and want to train jiu jitsu purely for a love of the sport and not some INSANE need to prove myself to some invisible scorekeeper in the clouds.

And my knees and back need a break while I'm still fighting off the baby weight. They're in rough shape, truth be told.

Also gone are running (I wanted to run a marathon this summer, lol) and every other competitive sport I thought about taking up when my mind wandered...which is constantly. All the other blogging visions and podcasting schemes and Etsy shops with stuff I planned to learn to make...gone. Competitive spirit? On the shelf for a while...on purpose.

But who I am without competitive sports? How boring will my life be without dreaming of the big win?

What exactly is left when  a dreamer loses the big, bulky bag of undefined and unpassionate dreams?

I have no idea. Absolutely no idea.

But what I'm hoping to find is a place inside my mind where the Critic is gone and silenced. And I can wake up and breathe in and out, enjoy the day with my babies, paint a picture, felt an animal...and not be tortured by what I wasn't able to cross off the unrealistic achiever's to-do list.

I'm nervous.

What DO you call a dreamer with no dreams?

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4 comments:

  1. Sane. I'm kind of doing the same thing. I'm just going to work and take care of me. My body giving out on me last month convinced me I don't need to save the world--just myself. And until I can do that--I have no business dreaming. I need to survive. As hard as that is to swallow, stopping is comforting. And I'm realizing how tired I've been and how long it's going to take before I feel like I have a fighting chance.

    <3 Alma

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    1. Get your much needed rest, lady. The world needs creative spirits like you!

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  2. Right there with you, Megan! I feel the same entrepreneurial spirit tugging at me 24 hours a day. And it's exhausting! I too am learning to let go of things that I just don't have time for. Whether it's being caught up on tv shows or trying to attend every single birthday party, they take me away from thing things in my life I truly want. So, good for you. You'll back away and start feeling renewed but you won't ever stop dreaming completely. It's who you are and what people love.

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    1. I feel less crazy reading other people feel that way. I feel such a resistance to letting things go, but they're killing me. Love to you and your house o' boys, Vanessa!!

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