]Being in many different situations has, in my experience, turned out to be a pretty good way to get to know yourself. The things that stay consistent are probably part of your core being and the things that change is probably a part of yourself that you should get to know better to figure out what you really are.
My natural condition is apathy. I tried to come up with a better work for it, but I don't have one. When I am in a comfortable place, I just do not give one eff. I am so happy to go with the flow and move with the universe. Now, there will be people that disagree and say that I am not easy-going (hmm, probably a nicer term but I'm not changing it). I would beg to differ and posit that if you believe that, you have seen me in a high stress situation. I would argue that our true selves do not come out in such a scenario as we are in a place where our survival instincts are coming out. [I just had a, "wait a minute, that might not be right," moment but I'm gonna keep going with my argument. . . ] When I sat with that, the feeling that I am easy going and really not an anxious or self conscious person, it came up for me that perhaps my anxiety is not because I am a nervous person. Perhaps it is an uncomfortable feeling of guilt that deep down, I don't want to give a sh*t about what is going on and society has made me feel that, to be a good person, I need to care about these things. Well I don't. I do not give on sh*t. Not one. I challenge you to think about some of your beliefs about yourself and observe some of your tendencies. . . what changes around different people? What feels better to you? What feels lighter? Because not caring and going with the flow feels a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT LIGHTER than this anxious feeling I have come to be used to (which sort of starts another conversation. . . am I just anxious because this has become a known state for me?. . . we'll save that for another day. . .)
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Yesterday someone did something nice for us. We had a delivery from a company and the driver struggled to get out of our driveway. Well, maybe I should back up and set the tone.
The love of my life wants to finish our attic. Really, it needs insulation up there, among other things, because we’re losing a ton of heat and it’s destroying the ceiling of our bedroom. I have a penis watermark above my bedroom door and sheet rock screws are showing in the ceiling. For as nice as that room is, this sort of mars it. So Jody got up there and was like, I think I can remedy this problem. We cleaned out the attic a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome. There was old stuff from the bar and both of our pasts that needed to go. Some of it just needed a better place than the attic we don’t go into that is filled with stink bugs and dust. So we have a wedding to go to this weekend and will be home with some time on Monday, Jody goes ahead and buys the stuff and thinks he can set it up for delivery on Monday. Nope. It came right away. Whatever, I went into work late. Not the end of the world (not ideal but whatever). First of all, the poor guy is by himself. We, among other things, 8 pieces of Sheetrock coming. So, this poor guy is carrying these pairs of sheets into our house. I tried to help once he got to the porch to move this along for both of us. Now came the fun part. Our driveway is not the best. We have been actively trying to get someone to come fix it but PEOPLE WON’T TAKE OUR MONEY. So he was struggling, worried about our lawn to which I replied, “really, I don’t care about our lawn.” I offered to move my car to give him some more room. I moved it to the end of the driveway. I was going to leave for work but then I was like, ummm, I should stay. So I went back in the house for a minute. He took off the fork lift and backed up the truck and he was on the driveway and off the lawn so it looked like a couple more turns and he’d be good so I checked with him, “are you sure you’re good?” And he said he was and my intuition felt better, or maybe my anxiety about still not being at work took over, about it so I left. From my view, all he had to do was back up and forward a couple times and all would be well. All was not well. Jody tells me when I got to work that he got stuck and had to call someone to get him out. Poor guy. Fast forward to me coming home to find him RAKING OUR DRIVEWAY! In the rain. He waves at me with a big grin when I pull in. I was stunned. Me: You really don’t have to do this. Him: I want to. It’s not about ***** (the company). I ruined your lawn. It’s my fault. Me: It’s really not that bad. It’s okay! Him: Did you talk to your husband. He sounded really upset on the phone. *At this point he looked like he was going to cry.* Me: Yeah, and he was laughing about it when I talked to him. Really. It’s okay. And please, you certainly don’t need to stand in the RAIN and do this. Look, that’s what the plow did. That looks worse than any of this. He’s not over here fixing anything. (I mean, lord knows the thing is barely mowed most of the summer. Really. I could not have cared less that it happened. Our attic was being done and I’ll soon be able to remove my ceiling penis. If this is our price, DO NOT CARE.) Him: Well, the other truck did that, I want to fix that and I’ll be out of your hair. My heart just went out to this guy. I mean, we’ve all messed up at our jobs. We’ve all wanted to do crazy things to fix it. I mean, part of me can’t believe he came back to our house. This guy had probably been at work since 6am and it was 5pm and he was still working because he felt SO badly he ruined out lawn. I didn’t know how to make him not worry! I could just feel his regret and him beating himself up. Of course I immediately sent Jody a text message asking him what he said to this guy. He swears he didn’t say anything too rough. I think he was just beating himself up so badly no matter what was sad, he’d feel badly about it. Accidents happen. We’re human. It was a great example of how we exaggerate our mistakes in our own heads and make them bigger than they need to me. We were the people affected and I honestly couldn’t have cared less. But also, what kindness! (I mean, it was a still weird to find him at our house when I got home but. . .) He just wanted to make it right. I’m not sure I have a point to any of this but I wanted to share this story. The end. I don't know what to say but I also want to say something. I enjoy writing every day because something new comes out of me each time I do it. The blog starts writing itself and each time I'm in awe of it.
I had a cool realization yesterday doing an exercise for a class-ish thing I'm doing. The assignment I was tasked with was talking for 30 minutes into a voice recorder and just letting things come out. In doing that, I realized that I was giving my fiance the advice I was really giving myself. He's trying to make a relatively life changing decision and I keep saying, "I do not want you to do this for me. You need to figure out what you want to do. I will support you either way." That advice wasn't for him. That was for me. When I try to make a decision of that caliber, all I do is try to figure out what he wants me to do. Then I'm frustrated when I don't like my decision. This also has NOTHING to do with him. Sometimes I put words in his mouth and act based on how I *think* he wants me to act without him saying anything at all. That's really short but I don't think anything else needs to be said. Try the 30 minute exercise. You might be surprised what you learn about yourself. |
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