FFS!

There’s a topic – an issue – that for a long time has really, really bothered me...

For too long a time. An embarrassingly long time. Particularly for someone who prides herself on doing the self-work. It is absolutely something that I want to let go of ,because it’s certainly not serving me staying pissed off about it.

But I have not, so far, been able to.

Partly, because whenever I draw a line in the sand and decided to let it be, something else of the same ilk occurs. Dredging up the old muck and adding further fuel to my fire.

Partly, because it is an old - ancient- habit now and it seems an almost inevitable part of this aspect of my life’s dynamic.

Partly, because if I let it go, I wonder if whether in some way that suggests that ‘it’s OK’ - and I still feel, very much, that it’s not. It is not OK. I am not OK with it.

And most people agree with me. In the circles I move and with those whom I can talk to about this issue, there is the unequivocal view that I am, indeed, correct. That this situation is indeed, fucked.

The things is, what can be done about it? Other than to let it go?

I haven’t been able to move on but nor have I been able to confront the issue either, which is why I think I have felt so stuck.

I haven’t been able to address it, because it’d be a lot like detonating a nuclear bomb. The fallout wouldn’t be worth it. Even in my anger I can see that. Even if it ultimately brought about change. Better to live with it, than through what it will inevitably become if I push the red button on this one.

Because it’s too close to home. Because I’ve not said anything so far and we’re a long, long time in. And because, as with most things to do with social circumstances, the I issue I have is not all evil either. Or all wrong.

In fact, I’m fairly sure it’s not borne out of any ill intent, this thing. Just perhaps weakness. Or indifference maybe.

At the heart of the issue, as you have probably guessed, are people. And people are never all good or all bad in quite the same way we can make other things. As humans tend to be, these people can be funny and kind and helpful and give me hope as well as being beyond fucking disappointing.

But still, they have hurt me so much that I have cried for hours, thrown things and felt as if I have been punched (bloody hard) in the stomach. They have made me question my sanity, my relationship, my parenting and almost every life choice I have made over the last couple of decades. They have, I should be grateful for I guess, served to challenge me at every turn of my adult life…and I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with them by 'keeping up appearances'.

Until now though, I have failed to navigate these 'challenges' on the inside. I can be in the situations, and I can remain calm and good natured throughout whatever I see or hear about these days. I do not comment. I do not get angry. Not that they see. But this is entirely a mask. In the comfort of my own home, with my own Bootcamp crew or with the girls over wine, very, very bad swear words are used and it is abundantly clear that I have about as much ability to handle this issue as a 3yo does to deliver a Ted Talk.

After more than 2 decades, you might imagine I’d be doing better at a deeper level. But this particular monster is rather adaptable and just when I think I’ve made some progress, it shape-shifts a little and throws me a new challenge, so it’s all I’ve been able to do so far to clip on my armour smile through it.

However, I decided recently, that this probably wasn’t enough. Not for my own sanity anyway. It was time to ‘do better’. And by ‘do better’, I mean ‘do something’ even if that something was just to let it go...

So I took 75 days to focus all my thoughts on this. To examine everything that came up (or resurfaced) in this time and really sit with how I felt. To banish the wine at the times and the places I knew I’d have to deal with this issue and instead remain fully present. Hear it all, see it all and feel it all.

By day 73 I was beginning to wonder if this was going to be long enough to make a breakthrough. I journaled and I vented and I questioned and I read. And, nothing changed. I was still disappointed. I was still pissed. My smiles were still entirely fake.

I remained stuck. Unable to say or do anything and unable to let it go.

And then, on day 74 I read this by Lewis Carroll.

“I sat with my anger for long enough, until she told me her name was grief”

And it unlocked everything.

I wasn’t angry. I was grieving, And grief and I, for all her flaws, are friends. She taught me how strong I was and how in the darkness of sorrow there is the glow of joyful memories.

She broke me but she remade me better.

She stood quietly against everything I threw at her and handed me beautiful gifts once I had finished raging at her; gifts in the form of deeper connections with others and safety in the knowledge that I was stronger than I ever imagined.

Grief also taught me that it was OK to feel the things that I did. That I didn’t need to let her go to create the change I needed. In fact, quite the opposite. It was only when I accepted her and gave up the struggle that real transformation could begin.

And I knew then, that I hadn’t been able to let this go, because I was never supposed to.

I needed to understand it for what it really was and to and embrace it.

To accept its true form, to welcome it in as that and to know that once I stopped raging against it, however quietly, it’d reveal the goodness.

Today I am grateful for it all. Every last bloody irritating part of this thing.

Because I can hold myself up against it and measure myself favourably. I can accept and respect myself and the person I am in it all. It mirrors me something, someone, I can be proud to be.

I no longer feel cheated or overlooked or undervalued or unloved. I just feel free.

I wasn’t angry and judgemental.

Or at least, not JUST! I was grieving for all that could have been and all I’ll never let it be now.

Because on balance, while people are never all good or all bad, there’s enough of them in my world that are mostly awesome. And that means I don’t need to make room for the others. They will never be who I dreamed they might. But by embracing that about them, I am freed up to be able to put that love and respect elsewhere.

And with that, I no longer need to whine about this issue (& these idiots), so I shall have a wine after all! Thank you Mr Carroll for the breakthrough.