Thoughts must be avoided

I don't know who I am anymore. Does it matter that this is so? Who are we? Are we what we think we are? Do thoughts dictate what we are? Thoughts are just the ego, right (Eckhart Tolle...)? Are we what others think we are? Who actually knows with 100% certainty what we are and what we will become (who being humans, not God)? I am thinking I should just stop trying to define myself with thoughts and words and start selling doubt. It's a whole lot more believable.

Alas, I cannot think anyway. Whenever I think, I weep. When I think, I still cannot accept that this has happened to me and I am weakened with humility and self pity. There are no reasons for what has been done with me, for the words that have been spoken to me, the deeds, the near complete denial of my self to be good enough as just what I am. Which is what, again? I know I didn't deserve it, but yet it was done and I am not foolish enough to pretend that I am unaffected. I am not even sure what "coping well" really means. Relative to what?

I wept every day from about mid-November 2008 through January of this year. And somehow, I must have adapted to the pain, because it simply doesn't bring me to tears so often anymore. News that would have devastated me months ago, now brings a quiet sigh and a nod and sometimes the word or thought, "again."

So is it any wonder that I procrastinate? It's self-preservation, an unhealthy (or neccessary?) coping mechanism that I feel particularly powerless to. This destructive wishing that someone else will come in and just take care of everything, as I clearly haven't been capable. I desperately wish to ask for help, but when help arrives, I have nothing to suggest.

Friends have called me strong and have uttered tremendously kind words to me. And I have been strong in their eyes, I suppose, because I have been as honest as possible and I have held together my sanity. For me, I believe the alternative "sucking it up" would be harder for me. And truth be told, I know that putting off the inevitable has been what's behind my calm demeanor. My friends don't understand how I am doing this. And I don't understand how to do this any other way. And what am I doing anyway? So much of it isn't dictated by anyone but ourselves and somehow I think I was expecting a divorce decree to magically become my new manager, trainer and orientation package. Like a software program instantly downloaded in my brain and set to run.

So thinking is out. For now. It spirals out of control if I let it. I need only attach invasive thoughts of my regret over my father, my children's future, the stupid economy (@#$%!), my college endeavor, my vices, my scattered mind, etc. etc. and any momentum I was feeling is sucked right back out of me and I am promptly returned to my frozen pond like the lost ugly duckling before the self-absorbed farmer plucks her out.

(and then she starts writing and that plan for an early bedtime tonight is shot)

Spiritually, being removed from the frozen pond seems like it has happened several times over already, yet I am not yet performing on that stage and I am still a bit too close to that stupid pond. I hope my readers are familiar with the ugly duckling story...what happens with the duckling is that after she flees her duck family, she is alone in the winter and finds herself stuck in a frozen pond and about to just give up. The freeze is representative of that point in life when you just don't know what to do next! Then the farmer rescues her from the pond is only doing so because a duck could be useful at his farm. He is only offering her a temporary home, among hens and a cat, and the duckling figures out that while it is certainly better than her cruel duck family and better than freezing to death in the pond, the farm is not actually where she belongs either. Because she is not a duck. The farmer simply represents the people or things we might hang out with while we are figuring out what to do next, but not the ducklings "true kind."

I hope that made sense. I just love that story. It's very very old and when told properly, is so wise and offers hope, especially for those of us who have always felt at odds with the world. The duckling, as we all know, eventually finds her kind, after she has regained some of her senses while living on the farm. (thank you Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes).

Have I mentioned that I prefer a stream of consciousness writing style? I think I will stop here.

:)