For Lack of a Better Phrase: It is What it is

I am at an impasse. Or perhaps I am at a crossroads. It is so hard to tell. These days perspective seems to be in such short supply.

I have been silent lately. I wondered about it. Perhaps I had run out of things to say. Perhaps I had tired of weeping at the same old wall. Perhaps my light had, due to neglect, snuffed itself out. But I still wondered, and I worried and I searched. I found that the stirrings of words, a mish-mash of syllables, were still somewhere within. But as of late, I cannot bring them to the surface with any coherence. It is as though the mouth which holds my inner voice is filled with pebbles. Its' progeny hard. Clunky. Without natural rhythm. Falling - cast out - upon the ground. Destined to lie there. Shining. Smooth. Almost steely. Perhaps beautiful, however, more persuasively characterized as disjointed and immovable. Reflective of the character that bore it.

What stopped me dead in my tracks and made me a pouchy-cheeked mute? A few weeks ago, through the course of my self actualization, I decided to attempt to describe "my pain." This may not seem like something that is new, innovative or even particularly helpful, but I thought that in writing it, in giving it voice, I might finally be able to purge it from my life. The letters carrying it away in the blogosphere.

At first I thought I might be trying to describe it for everyone else ("well, it is bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a dog house... or in other words, approximately the size of my head") and to that end set upon a number of silly metaphors, including the oft-used, "this is like trying to describe the color blue to a blind man." It all felt disingenuous. The very use of the word "pain" seemed disingenuous. This "pain" I carry with me does not physically hurt, sear, stab, spindle or mutilate. It is not active enough to be "pain." It is not tangible enough to be "pain." My dear friend with fibromyalgia is one who really has pain. She has pain that has robbed her of so much time and experience. Her energy is sapped. The simplest tasks seemingly unending and unreachable. Even on good days, so much of the world seems to be closed off to her. When described this way, I see a commonality in our experiences, and immediately, the observation shames me. My own subconscious trying, through metaphor, to elevate and legitimize my inner failings as "pain." To the extent I am limited, it is my own making. The argument for the issues of brain chemistry and resonance of early nurturing (or lack thereof) can - and should - be made, but at the end of the day, as the saying goes, "the past is merely prologue." I have to live my life today, and it seems to me, that I should be able to surmount this dysfunctional relationship I have with myself.

I realize that the last year has been so hard because I have been giving up the fight. The metaphysical shortcomings I may have - organically-based and otherwise - will always be there. It won't matter how many HappyPills I take, how supportive others are around me, how little stress there is in my life, I will always have to fight for myself. I will have to be vigilant, to defend the position of the people and the things in my life that I love. To protect them against being swallowed up by the inner-angst.

In some ways, I think that, like the wily welter-weight, this requires that I keep moving. I have to keep myself moving towards a goal, however, small. Ironically, the movement keeps me grounded. The difference going forward, or rather, the difference now must be that I am moving closer to myself, to my true desires, rather than past them.

Direct discussion of all of my this, that and the other has always left me jumpy. Uncomfortable in the supreme. Better to riff on the eccentricities born of the "pain" and laugh all the way around the problem. Keep'em from finding out how much of a failure at the little things that you really are. Keep yourself from taking that long hard look, at last, in the right direction. It is a narcissism and and a blessing in and of itself, this "pain" of mine. Clearly, were my life tracked by true tragedy, loss, pain and difficulty, I wouldn't have nearly the time to dote and nurse my misery. I wouldn't have hours to mentally encircle it, to pace in ever deepening grooves around it. To discuss it ad uber-nauseum.

I am smart; but I use it to obsess and worry the outer edges of my life. My work can be emotionally taxing, but it keeps my hands soft and a silver spoon in my mouth (and designer shoes on my feet). So many work so much harder, for so much less. The good people who populate my life - related to me by blood and/or by inexplicable, indellible love - are a blessing to me, and they have their health, and the support and joy they bring are immeasurable; but I worry about losing my place in their lives. As though my presence is not substantial enough to leave an imprint - that I am merely a placemarker, to be filled by someone more substantial, more deserving. They all tell me differently; I will not be dissuaded from my draconian point of view. The shoe will always drop, I feel it.

In all of this time to think, this comfort to explore, that the circumstances (the blessings) of my life have afforded me, I have created the perfect portrait of myself. The reflection I wish I had. The one to which I will never measure up. And as the portrait gains in layers and complexity as the years go on, I have umwittingly continued to blur and distort the woman beneath. A not-very-subconscious effort to erase her. Or to never allow her to form.

And so it is that I am 28 years old, and the fatigue of my worry has made me feel older, and the narcissism and insecurity borne of my anxiety has often made me act far younger. But the real me, the person I am and who I need to learn to be, is actually just 28, she is smart, her two feet touch the ground, and she is always a scared little girl, but she does her best and she appreciates the bravery of her own efforts to never stop trying to be as good as she can, and no worse than she is - nothing more, nothing less.