Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Henry David Thoreau

Let me ask you one thing?

When is it ok to take time and clear your headspace?
Like…for real?
When is it ok to say, ‘no. This is what I want right now. And I don’t have to give you any reason. It just is.’

Thoreau did it. He ran off to Walden for two years and lived in a cabin. People think of him as one of the great thinkers, right? I can kind of relate to that idea sometimes.

I’m on the cusp of a risk and I feel like I’ve been here before over and over again. I feel like I’ve written this blog before. Life keeps repeating. And I know that they say that if the same thing keeps happening over and over, you should probably do something different otherwise you could be considered legally insane. (Or at least my paraphrased version of it).

The truth is I don’t trust myself a lot of the time. I don’t trust that I can make things happen. I say that I do on my good days but when it comes down to it…I really don’t think that I do at all. If I did, my life would probably look a whole lot different.

Ugh.
Some days I really think I just need a really really, snot running down my face, taking large gulping breaths kind of cry.

But not me.
I’m way too controlled.
I’ve come to realize that control is the root of all evil for me.

The things that go through my head, the things I think, the things I feel… there is a lot going on in there. It’s all bubbling under the surface. And I’m constantly feeling like if I could just crack that veneer even a little, the tiniest bit, the walls would come crashing down and I could be who I really am inside. I would say what I really mean. I would fight harder for myself. I would care less what people thought. I would love with all my heart. I would work tirelessly at things I really believe in and stop wasting time half-assing situations and jobs and relationships that I’ve only got a toe in.

I would jump in.
With both feet.
Maybe even head first.
And feel what it’s like to fly.

That’s what I feel inside. That’s what’s swirling around in there. But somewhere along the way, with all the heartbreaks and the disappointments, some bad advice I took far too seriously, and that hard lesson I learned FAR too young that people disappoint and life can be really hard, I blocked that part of myself off. Not even just a little. I cemented that sucker in!

What happens if I can’t let that girl out?
What if I did too good of a job keeping her quiet?

One of my closest friends in the world (Hi Lauren) who I’ve known since my sophomore year in college told me once that she was watching the movie Garden State and when it got to that scene towards the end where Zach Braff’s character leaves the couple who live in the boat (if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I mean) and it’s pouring rain out and he decides to climb to the top of an abandoned machine that has been seated and rusting for some time and his girlfriend and best friend join him (played by Natalie Portman and Peter Saarsgard) and he opens up his mouth and lets out a big, giant scream with the other two doing the same - my friend said that she thought of me during that scene.

That it was something I needed to do.
Maybe something I should do.

Just
Let
It
All
Out.

And now, to this day, I can’t watch that scene without getting a tear in my eye because I get it. Because I know she’s right. And because I haven’t done it yet.

Life is pushing me right now.
I guess it has been for a while.

But it’s really pushing.
In some ways, I feel better equipped to do the work this time than I ever have and in other ways, I feel like I’m on the cusp but I’m unsure I can get there. Like I’m lost a little bit. All the time.

In order to do it I have to learn to trust. Not only other people but myself. Trust is hard for me. Much harder than I ever thought. And it’s frustrating.

I recently read an article on children of abuse and (without going into too much personal detail about my own situation) it stated that one of the main characteristics of adult children of abuse is not just people pleasing but lack of assertion over their own life. They learned a long time ago that to speak up would cause risk. Maybe even danger. A threat. Sometimes to your life or (even worse) the lives of the people in you love, the people in your family.

So, they learn how to read people. How to assess situations and give people what they want. To smooth things over. To turn off any emotion that might get in the way of that goal. And put themselves last. Over and over and over again.

It was an eye opener for me because it’s my greatest challenge in life. It’s affected my career. It’s affected my relationships with men. It’s affected my ability to fall in love (or should I say my gross inability).

I’ve been talking about abuse my whole life. Over and over. I’ve been talking about it since I was a brave little girl in 2nd grade who knew it was the right thing to do. To tell the truth. I was in a position at the time that I felt safe enough. That I figured this person wouldn’t be able to hurt my mom the way he said he would.

I called his bluff.

And a lot of healing came out of that. And therapy. And depression sometimes. But mostly healing.

The thing is…

sometimes talking isn’t enough. Habits get picked up; survival mechanisms that we use to keep our hearts safe from anything like that happening to us again. I didn’t realize I was doing it. But now, here I am. Fighting those demons all over again. Sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever end.

I really feel all alone sometimes. And I’ve done it to myself. It’s all a part of that survival mechanism.

I have a boyfriend now that I know would go to the ends of the earth for me. He tries to understand but I only let him in just enough but not enough to really let the relationship do what it should be doing. The direction I want it to go. I’m self-aware enough to know when it happens now. I can feel it. Every time. That wall that goes up when he says something that he didn’t realize hurt me. Or when my fears start to run rampant. Or when he disappoints me. Or when I feel rejected. Or when I want to hold onto him for no reason other than I just really need to feel safe for 10 minutes and I don’t let myself. It’s hard. It’s like I’m standing at a fence looking through to what could be, gripping hard at those chain links, this close but I can’t break through.

I’ve kept myself in the background of my life. I’ve done it with work too. What would happen if I tried to grab that spotlight, huh? What would happen to me? Would that light hit me and I’d turn to dust and blow away? Or would it be exactly what I needed to grow from a struggling weed to a beautiful flower?

I want it so bad that I feel like I can taste it sometimes.
But I’m terrified.

That’s when I think that scream would come in handy.
Honestly.

Just
Get
It
Out,
Girl!