Isolation Chamber
What do you call a person who goes out of their way to put you in a position of loneliness? Someone who takes great care to make sure you're always available to them, yet is never available for you? A person who knowingly puts you on a shelf until they want you and anything in between is just grey space. I know I wouldn't call that person a friend of mine.
It's important for me to get these things out somewhere, because Lord knows I don't have a soul to talk to. Not even one. See, I'm not allowed to have the friends that I did have, so I had to carefully lay that down. I'm not allowed to have friends that I can actually count on, because that would mean inconvenience for somebody else when they have to figure out how to take care of their own kids for a couple hours so I can be a person again outside of the home. I'm not allowed to have male friends, because that just makes them insecure, even if those people have been friends since I was a teenager.
For all the strides some people think they may they sure are creatures of habit. They sure maintain certain levels of themselves no matter the growth. Because humanity says we must get what we want. We must be comfortable. I kind of see humanity as a Gollum. The more you become, the less you are.
For all the words we say, our actions become us in reality. We are how we treat others. We are the support we give, the words we say, the time we spend, we are the carefully maintained secrets & the entire portion that we hide from everyone that doesn't live in our homes to see us at our worst. We are our worst parts, but yet so often we try to snip those parts out as if they don't exist. It is not convenient to admit you're pretty selfish. It's definitely not good for the ego to let the words sink in when someone is simply telling you the truth, the people that see you at your worst may not be able to imagine those parts away as much as you will them to. When the morning comes we can't just pretend like you were somebody else, especially ten years later. You are all those memories we have and when the bad ones outnumber the good, that's who you are. No matter how much you want to hear it. Maybe you'd like to change that before your eulogy so we can find some loving things to say about you yet besides, "He always worked hard at his job. He did well in school." I'm not sure what else we could say after that at this point.
Those are your two defining good traits so far. What else? He was too stubborn to quit. I guess.
I used to be a romanticist, but at a certain point in life I was sobered up and became a realist. The ugliest thing you can be, in my opinion, because I no longer lie to myself about all this potential. At a certain part in the season you look at your garden and you realize any chance you had for a harvest is probably gone because the plants are not producing fruit. If a plant will be known by it's fruit. What kind of plant are you?
And better yet, what kind of plant am I? I don't even know anymore. I look at my life and I spent so much of it toiling, it kind of feels like when two people are drowning and only one can swim the other one always grabs on like a drowning cat and efficiently starts to drown the other person because even a strong swimmer can't always keep two people afloat. Especially when the other one refuses to do their part. I always tell my kids when they're learning to swim, If you get tired and can't tread water anymore, just float and rest. But you don't even float, you just panic and claw at me to fix it.
I know I'm pregnant and hormonal, but it always becomes so much less bearable when I'm pregnant dealing with living with someone who does not want to become their own person. They stand there in the pantry staring at the rice, but yet have to come to the bedroom and make you get up to find it -- also because you don't know how to cook rice. Well, how would one learn how to cook rice if one never ever tries? Or asks to be taught. Or stands there while I'm preparing it and actually observes it. Because you don't want to be your own person, you want to be taken care of like a paraplegic. But I'm not your nursemaid. I'm growing a whole human and my body has enough to handle without also holding your hand through the most basic elements of everyday life.
I have 4 children that need me to be put together emotionally, but do you know how difficult that is when you're literally all alone? I have not one single soul to call and tell about my day, to talk about my struggles, to talk about life, to talk about anything at all in particular. I sit at home staring at the walls sometimes I'm so devoid. What is there to ponder on except my problems that I can't fix. Time seems to literally stand still. It begins to feel like you're locked up in an asylum. I don't want to be hanging all day waiting for someone to talk to, to just be ignored. And they're ignored. So, I don't even get a break from the constant need.
Constant need. Kind of swallows you up. And I get really impatient at this point in the week when I haven't had a break at all. I feel guilty for wanting one. I feel guilty for needing time to feel like a person, for needing to try to ignore reality. I just sit and look around and begin to hate my prison cell. Which is why when my energy goes up I just start loading crap up to go to be donated. This year more than ever I look around and I hate everything I look at because it all just sits there being pointless. It doesn't make me happy, doesn't make me feel fulfilled, it doesn't solve my problems (probably caused some of them), it doesn't talk back or make me feel warm and loved, it doesn't do anything but need just like everything else. It needs me to care for it. And so all the time I could be spending caring for someone that actually should get my attention is spent maintaining some stupid inanimate object sitting in my house. I can take my frustrations out on stuff instead of a little person who doesn't understand what could possibly be making mommy so miserable. It isn't their fault that I'm just trying to survive in complete silence... like a very long stay in an isolation chamber.
It's important for me to get these things out somewhere, because Lord knows I don't have a soul to talk to. Not even one. See, I'm not allowed to have the friends that I did have, so I had to carefully lay that down. I'm not allowed to have friends that I can actually count on, because that would mean inconvenience for somebody else when they have to figure out how to take care of their own kids for a couple hours so I can be a person again outside of the home. I'm not allowed to have male friends, because that just makes them insecure, even if those people have been friends since I was a teenager.
For all the strides some people think they may they sure are creatures of habit. They sure maintain certain levels of themselves no matter the growth. Because humanity says we must get what we want. We must be comfortable. I kind of see humanity as a Gollum. The more you become, the less you are.
For all the words we say, our actions become us in reality. We are how we treat others. We are the support we give, the words we say, the time we spend, we are the carefully maintained secrets & the entire portion that we hide from everyone that doesn't live in our homes to see us at our worst. We are our worst parts, but yet so often we try to snip those parts out as if they don't exist. It is not convenient to admit you're pretty selfish. It's definitely not good for the ego to let the words sink in when someone is simply telling you the truth, the people that see you at your worst may not be able to imagine those parts away as much as you will them to. When the morning comes we can't just pretend like you were somebody else, especially ten years later. You are all those memories we have and when the bad ones outnumber the good, that's who you are. No matter how much you want to hear it. Maybe you'd like to change that before your eulogy so we can find some loving things to say about you yet besides, "He always worked hard at his job. He did well in school." I'm not sure what else we could say after that at this point.
Those are your two defining good traits so far. What else? He was too stubborn to quit. I guess.
I used to be a romanticist, but at a certain point in life I was sobered up and became a realist. The ugliest thing you can be, in my opinion, because I no longer lie to myself about all this potential. At a certain part in the season you look at your garden and you realize any chance you had for a harvest is probably gone because the plants are not producing fruit. If a plant will be known by it's fruit. What kind of plant are you?
And better yet, what kind of plant am I? I don't even know anymore. I look at my life and I spent so much of it toiling, it kind of feels like when two people are drowning and only one can swim the other one always grabs on like a drowning cat and efficiently starts to drown the other person because even a strong swimmer can't always keep two people afloat. Especially when the other one refuses to do their part. I always tell my kids when they're learning to swim, If you get tired and can't tread water anymore, just float and rest. But you don't even float, you just panic and claw at me to fix it.
I know I'm pregnant and hormonal, but it always becomes so much less bearable when I'm pregnant dealing with living with someone who does not want to become their own person. They stand there in the pantry staring at the rice, but yet have to come to the bedroom and make you get up to find it -- also because you don't know how to cook rice. Well, how would one learn how to cook rice if one never ever tries? Or asks to be taught. Or stands there while I'm preparing it and actually observes it. Because you don't want to be your own person, you want to be taken care of like a paraplegic. But I'm not your nursemaid. I'm growing a whole human and my body has enough to handle without also holding your hand through the most basic elements of everyday life.
I have 4 children that need me to be put together emotionally, but do you know how difficult that is when you're literally all alone? I have not one single soul to call and tell about my day, to talk about my struggles, to talk about life, to talk about anything at all in particular. I sit at home staring at the walls sometimes I'm so devoid. What is there to ponder on except my problems that I can't fix. Time seems to literally stand still. It begins to feel like you're locked up in an asylum. I don't want to be hanging all day waiting for someone to talk to, to just be ignored. And they're ignored. So, I don't even get a break from the constant need.
Constant need. Kind of swallows you up. And I get really impatient at this point in the week when I haven't had a break at all. I feel guilty for wanting one. I feel guilty for needing time to feel like a person, for needing to try to ignore reality. I just sit and look around and begin to hate my prison cell. Which is why when my energy goes up I just start loading crap up to go to be donated. This year more than ever I look around and I hate everything I look at because it all just sits there being pointless. It doesn't make me happy, doesn't make me feel fulfilled, it doesn't solve my problems (probably caused some of them), it doesn't talk back or make me feel warm and loved, it doesn't do anything but need just like everything else. It needs me to care for it. And so all the time I could be spending caring for someone that actually should get my attention is spent maintaining some stupid inanimate object sitting in my house. I can take my frustrations out on stuff instead of a little person who doesn't understand what could possibly be making mommy so miserable. It isn't their fault that I'm just trying to survive in complete silence... like a very long stay in an isolation chamber.
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