Smash (Turns Out)

First, watch this. It is twenty minutes long but it is an amazing twenty minutes. Trust me

I know most of you did not stop and watch it. Oh ye of little faith. Just know that this will inspire a few blogs after this one.

Saturday I reconnected with an amazing woman that had been an astounding friend for many years with. (We just went a really long time between phone calls.) She linked me this and it made me think. Thinking gave me panic attacks and yesterday everything went smash.

I felt like I had done some crazy Wiley Coyote stunt where I attached myself to a bungee cord attached to a brick wall and turned on my jet pack and eventually the bungee cord and the brink wall won. BOOM.

I am Selina, Handler of Things. When there is a problem I handle it. I sit down and look at my options and figure out a plan of attack. When I am struggling I come up with multiple plans and go through them one by one caring little about actual success just caring about keeping moving. I do this with the people I care about too. It is why I seem bossy or controlling, it is because I am trying to handle things because I want to make things as good as possible for those I love. It is just what I do.

Turns out you can’t just handle heartbreak.

Selina, Handler of Things met her match with this one.

This is how I explained it to my mom after the cord smashed me back into the wall and I realized I was hurting: I am only three blocks of better trying to run fast and be one mile of better. Eventually something is going to happen and snap you back and wake you up. I was working so hard to push push push push things to make them better, to make them move, that I lost track of were I was and stopped being honest to myself. I was so busy trying to be okay that I forgot to actually help myself be okay.

Turns out that doesn’t work so well.

It also turns out that I have to be okay with that. My tendency when bad things happen to me is to downplay them. It was just a stupid break up. He was not right for me, everyone knew (including me.) He was a big bag of jerk and I am free of him. I deserve better anyway. He was holding me back an now I can be and do whatever I want.

The life I had built for that year plus died. That Selina that I was died. I gave that relationship everything I had and I went into it with my whole heart. It causes damage.

I honestly do not miss him. I see my life as better with out him. In my mind, I know I deserve better. I thought this meant the damage should be better and I should be able to move on. Yeah, so maybe I was a little wrong there. The damage is still there and it still hurts. Turns out making plans and handling things do not work on feelings of being unworthy of love and of feelings weakness. Turns out that planning and handling just hides them.

Push push push. It pisses me off so bad. I want to be better and I should be better but I am not. I should have a job. I should have plans. I should be skinner. I should be writing my great whatever the hell it is that I am going to write to change the world. I should be out making a bevy of new friends. I should, I should, I should.

I was doing the ugly cry (the one with the red face and snot) while talking to my mom and I realized I have a massive double standard for myself. If I saw someone else going through this I would say I was doing fine. I would give them far more leeway than I give myself. I would tell them they are trying hard and that these things take time. I would tell them to stop worrying about should. I would tell them that after a crash it is okay to take a few days and hide and heal. I would tell them that sometimes in life merely doing what you can is enough. Turns out I am kinder to others than I am myself.

I am hurting. I have no plans to handle it. I am just going to feel it. I am going to take a few days to hide and heal. I am going to try to be more honest with myself and try to be kinder to myself. I am going to write what I feel and not what I think I should. Beyond that, I don’t know.