For Me

Saturday, March 11, 2017

What am I feeling right now?

What has been stirred up inside me over the past several days as I describe a significantly dramatic portion of my life to anonymous readers?

Right now, I am feeling wiped out.

I feel as if I am some battered piece of flotsam, or jetsam, washed up onto an exposed, steep rocky beach with waves crashing all about me.  Somehow, surrounded by all this turmoil, a small piece of solitude has been located.  The storm rages all around me, but for now I have a small island of peace.  At some point, I will be swept back up into the tempest and forced to face the demons again.  I know this.  My story has only begun to unfold.  In order for me to write from the heart, to say what I truly want to say to anonymous readers, to share the small amounts of wisdom I have gained, I must step  back into that storm and describe it on paper.

I struggle with details.  Specifically, how many details to include and how specific those details should be.

Privacy is another matter I struggle with.  Specifically, my children's privacy.

I have no problem, from my perspective, putting my experiences out there.  My goal is that my experiences may help another human being to keep moving forward.  From a selfish position, I can happily be as specific as I choose to be.

But those details could indirectly, or even directly, impact the right of privacy for my children.  Is it fair of me to have them innocently swept up into my tale of self-discovery?

To be perfectly clear:  My experiences that I write about are not those of my children.

Our goals, as parents, my former husband and I, were to provide to our children with a childhood that would offer a sense of freedom, independence, confidence, capability, self-reliance, insight, and an appreciation of the world at large.  I believe that goal was successfully accomplished.  Regardless of how much, or how little, input I had in this decision, the success of it is not in question.

My children have had an amazing childhood, and have grown into well-adjusted, insightful, fun loving and mature individuals with good hearts and minds.   What more could a parent ask for?

I do not wish for my stories and my experiences to reflect badly upon my children.  They have their own stories and experiences which reflect the people they have become.  Considering how they each are confidently going about their lives today, one can only surmise that they have been offered a stable and secure foundation from which to launch their own adventures.

My children are not scarred.  My children are not dysfunctional.  My children are healthy members of their own social societies and participate willingly in their lives.

They are happy and content and inquisitive and keen to discover what the world has to offer.  They love to laugh.

As for me, especially today, I feel quite vulnerable.  I feel limp and washed out and lacking energy and lacking the capability to process any more thoughts.

Earlier this morning, I was a complete mess.  I had camping gear spread out over the living room rug in preparation of an overnight alpine trip with a few ladies.  I was in tears at the thought of pulling myself together for this trip.  I could not do it.  It was simply too much for me to handle.

The mountains may be calling, but I may just have to let the call go unanswered.

I know there are more details for me to write out.  There is another episode in particular that I need to explore as I have done with this previous episode.  It may not be included as part of my book, but I do think it is an exercise in which I should participate.  It would be good for me to face yet another demon and exorcise it properly.

It is time to push away the distractions and really feel what I need to feel, and think what I need to think, and cry as much as I need to cry.

For me.