Hermit Crab
And I'm done being pregnant. I always get to about this point and then I'm ready to just skip to the end; 1,2, skip a few 99, 100! Basically.
Who I am is this strong outer shell, like a lobster, I have this hard exterior and to the naked eye you could look at me and think that I'm impenetrable and that things don't phase me. I simply bear my bones on the outside of my skin like tribal war paint. It's supposed to intimidate and scare you.
It isn't something that happened over night, I wasn't born like this, not like lobsters. Now that I think about it, I'm more like a hermit crab in retrospect. I could be just myself and bear all, but that's dangerous because I've had it happen too many times in life where you bore your soul and allowed vulnerability to only be gobbled up by someone who sees how easily manipulated you are. I've been prey too many times in life to stay out of my shell anymore.
And I like living like this, people don't look at me like I have feelings, because mostly I don't and I don't show them if I do.
One time the stress at work was mounting higher and it was to the point where I had sponged more than I could handle and I started crying. People can only take so much constant feeling like you've got no one on your side anymore before they just break down and I had taken what I could and couldn't take another condescending word. Then my boss looked at me like I was some kind of alien because I was crying and at the end she says to me, Don't ever let it get this bad again. I don't ever want to see you cry again. It's just not right. {Naturally, I'm paraphrasing}. But basically, the idea that I had feelings was completely foreign.
And normally this is what I'm going for. Don't let my feelings manipulate how you're going to treat me. That would just be a false floor for me to walk on. Tell me to my face if you don't like me, that way I'll know where I truly stand. Instead of believing for years that I have people on my side only to learn that I have foolishly been deceived. So, now I'm disrespected and stupid. Which means, I'm hurt and pissed.
Let me be frank, the only times in life where I am not completely honest with people is when I'm not allowed to be. I like to let people know where I'm at with them and give them the benefit that I rarely ever am given myself. People mostly like to keep the socially unacceptable opinions to themselves because if they told you how they really felt you might not be their friend anymore. So, the socially acceptable move is to pretend that you like someone so they'll be your friend. Which makes me wonder what benefit those relationships have? Do you actually want a friend? Or do you just want another notch to pretend that you're likeable? Because to me a true friend can take a beating of honesty and know the other person loves them enough to not sugar coat life. I thought the benefit of friendship was like the ocean and sand to the glass or rock? With enough grinding {horrible word} you eventually become soft and what was once otherwise a completely common object becomes rare and beautiful.
I stopped pretending years ago that being liked was the most important thing. Of course like everyone else I want to be liked, I'm not inhuman! I have feelings and an ego, I want the human race to accept me as one of their kind! But it has never benefited me to be one of their kind. It has only suited to hurt me.
It has only brought me relationships and friendships that have inevitably taken advantage of my soft supple side and eventually brought me to my knees. Everyone needs at least one person that they know is safe.
I think of those people like children in a game of tag, safe base. That one place where you know you won't be judged, you won't be talked about behind your back, they will stand up against your back and fight anyone who's against you. What do you do when you don't have that? You get a shell like a hermit crab and do your best to keep vigil night and day to ward off the sneaky fish.
Every now and then you meet those soft exterior children whose feelings are right on the surface of their skin, a harsh word or a brush with an angry facial expression has them reeling into self doubt and blaming themselves for not being enough. I see myself in my son. He is very much completely dedicated to every person he meets, completely sacrificial of his feelings; not always selfless, but still cares very deeply about everyone. Sometimes all you have to do is scold him for something he obviously did on purpose and should have known better and he acts as if you've just told him you hated him. And his reaction makes you feel like you did just tell him you hated him. But my feelings on this is, I'm not given an out. Even if I am justified to scold him, his feelings count and I wished that someone would have taken the time to guard my feelings better in life realizing that I was extremely sensitive. I don't want to grind his skin up to be hard and I don't want him to want to be "emotionless" like I am.
How do I equip him? Because I still don't know how to handle people. I'm completely not the right person to ask about how to make sure my son doesn't end up as bruised and wounded as I am. I'm wonderful at being sympathetic, but I want more for him than being manipulated and used in life. I want him to be strong, but not impenetrable and not unable to really be loved because he is so spent on protecting himself from being hurt he no longer invests in any relationships.
I suppose the answer is the foundation. Who he thinks of himself shouldn't depend on us, it should depend on why he was made who he is and to have everlasting faith that who he was created was on purpose. There is no accident. We aren't born to accidentally fall into life.
Hermit crab or not I have to stop thinking about what is going to hurt me and think about how my behavior affects how my children think of themselves and life. If I board myself up, I'll be safe, but I'll also be unintentionally boarding up my children as well. I'll be forcing them to live a life similar to what I grew up with, a mother who put so much pressure on her children to be her life that they feel guilty for going out and having one of their own. At a point in my young adult life I began to really feel it.
What starts out as being about me always ends up being about my children, because the line travels down now. I'm the one holding the umbrella, I'm the one who has to make sure that the holes I saw in my roof aren't going to rain on them.
So, my original point, I'm done being pregnant because at this point at 28 weeks I'm completely spent. My wall has turned into jelly and when you're so exhausted you can no longer hold up a shield you end up letting in the floods and every crooked eyebrow and wrong tone sends you reeling into a sharknado. What you could normally just shrug away, even in private, makes you react like somebody just slapped your face and called you ugly and you handle it badly. Hormones always get the better of you. Pregnant women need support, lots of support. And don't question them....ever. Just tell them they're beautiful, tell them to sit down and rest, and ask them how big of a chocolate cake slice {Omg, I forgot I had chocolate cake!} they want. Otherwise, even a hermit crab is going to find a way to make your life miserable.
The End.
Who I am is this strong outer shell, like a lobster, I have this hard exterior and to the naked eye you could look at me and think that I'm impenetrable and that things don't phase me. I simply bear my bones on the outside of my skin like tribal war paint. It's supposed to intimidate and scare you.
It isn't something that happened over night, I wasn't born like this, not like lobsters. Now that I think about it, I'm more like a hermit crab in retrospect. I could be just myself and bear all, but that's dangerous because I've had it happen too many times in life where you bore your soul and allowed vulnerability to only be gobbled up by someone who sees how easily manipulated you are. I've been prey too many times in life to stay out of my shell anymore.
And I like living like this, people don't look at me like I have feelings, because mostly I don't and I don't show them if I do.
One time the stress at work was mounting higher and it was to the point where I had sponged more than I could handle and I started crying. People can only take so much constant feeling like you've got no one on your side anymore before they just break down and I had taken what I could and couldn't take another condescending word. Then my boss looked at me like I was some kind of alien because I was crying and at the end she says to me, Don't ever let it get this bad again. I don't ever want to see you cry again. It's just not right. {Naturally, I'm paraphrasing}. But basically, the idea that I had feelings was completely foreign.
And normally this is what I'm going for. Don't let my feelings manipulate how you're going to treat me. That would just be a false floor for me to walk on. Tell me to my face if you don't like me, that way I'll know where I truly stand. Instead of believing for years that I have people on my side only to learn that I have foolishly been deceived. So, now I'm disrespected and stupid. Which means, I'm hurt and pissed.
Let me be frank, the only times in life where I am not completely honest with people is when I'm not allowed to be. I like to let people know where I'm at with them and give them the benefit that I rarely ever am given myself. People mostly like to keep the socially unacceptable opinions to themselves because if they told you how they really felt you might not be their friend anymore. So, the socially acceptable move is to pretend that you like someone so they'll be your friend. Which makes me wonder what benefit those relationships have? Do you actually want a friend? Or do you just want another notch to pretend that you're likeable? Because to me a true friend can take a beating of honesty and know the other person loves them enough to not sugar coat life. I thought the benefit of friendship was like the ocean and sand to the glass or rock? With enough grinding {horrible word} you eventually become soft and what was once otherwise a completely common object becomes rare and beautiful.
I stopped pretending years ago that being liked was the most important thing. Of course like everyone else I want to be liked, I'm not inhuman! I have feelings and an ego, I want the human race to accept me as one of their kind! But it has never benefited me to be one of their kind. It has only suited to hurt me.
It has only brought me relationships and friendships that have inevitably taken advantage of my soft supple side and eventually brought me to my knees. Everyone needs at least one person that they know is safe.
I think of those people like children in a game of tag, safe base. That one place where you know you won't be judged, you won't be talked about behind your back, they will stand up against your back and fight anyone who's against you. What do you do when you don't have that? You get a shell like a hermit crab and do your best to keep vigil night and day to ward off the sneaky fish.
Every now and then you meet those soft exterior children whose feelings are right on the surface of their skin, a harsh word or a brush with an angry facial expression has them reeling into self doubt and blaming themselves for not being enough. I see myself in my son. He is very much completely dedicated to every person he meets, completely sacrificial of his feelings; not always selfless, but still cares very deeply about everyone. Sometimes all you have to do is scold him for something he obviously did on purpose and should have known better and he acts as if you've just told him you hated him. And his reaction makes you feel like you did just tell him you hated him. But my feelings on this is, I'm not given an out. Even if I am justified to scold him, his feelings count and I wished that someone would have taken the time to guard my feelings better in life realizing that I was extremely sensitive. I don't want to grind his skin up to be hard and I don't want him to want to be "emotionless" like I am.
How do I equip him? Because I still don't know how to handle people. I'm completely not the right person to ask about how to make sure my son doesn't end up as bruised and wounded as I am. I'm wonderful at being sympathetic, but I want more for him than being manipulated and used in life. I want him to be strong, but not impenetrable and not unable to really be loved because he is so spent on protecting himself from being hurt he no longer invests in any relationships.
I suppose the answer is the foundation. Who he thinks of himself shouldn't depend on us, it should depend on why he was made who he is and to have everlasting faith that who he was created was on purpose. There is no accident. We aren't born to accidentally fall into life.
Hermit crab or not I have to stop thinking about what is going to hurt me and think about how my behavior affects how my children think of themselves and life. If I board myself up, I'll be safe, but I'll also be unintentionally boarding up my children as well. I'll be forcing them to live a life similar to what I grew up with, a mother who put so much pressure on her children to be her life that they feel guilty for going out and having one of their own. At a point in my young adult life I began to really feel it.
What starts out as being about me always ends up being about my children, because the line travels down now. I'm the one holding the umbrella, I'm the one who has to make sure that the holes I saw in my roof aren't going to rain on them.
So, my original point, I'm done being pregnant because at this point at 28 weeks I'm completely spent. My wall has turned into jelly and when you're so exhausted you can no longer hold up a shield you end up letting in the floods and every crooked eyebrow and wrong tone sends you reeling into a sharknado. What you could normally just shrug away, even in private, makes you react like somebody just slapped your face and called you ugly and you handle it badly. Hormones always get the better of you. Pregnant women need support, lots of support. And don't question them....ever. Just tell them they're beautiful, tell them to sit down and rest, and ask them how big of a chocolate cake slice {Omg, I forgot I had chocolate cake!} they want. Otherwise, even a hermit crab is going to find a way to make your life miserable.
The End.
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