It’s Time…

There are conversations that are up-lilfting and light and there are those that are genuinely draining and tiring. We all engage in both, and we hope that those who love us will forgive us when we are draining. We hope that people will be by our side during our ugliest times, when we are ugly to ourselves, when we are tiring to ourselves. We hope that the person we would stand by no matter how much they drained us would be there for us when we needed them. We would hope.

It isn’t always the case however. Too often people who are draining, get drained easily. Too often people do not realize that they were draining because we never told them. We sat and listened to every complaint about lost love, ex-spouses, every complaint about money or a child, every complaint about something at work that is getting the best of them. We did it with compassion, we did it with caring and we gave advice. Now when we need someone to just vent to, to be miserable with they aren’t there, because we are draining, tiring. Life isn’t all sunshine and lollipops and neither are real relationships.

This week I was told that someone who I have loved and cared for can’t call me because it is tiring and they have too much drama going on and cannot add to it. I obviously add to it. Of course the fact that I am reeling from the loss of my mom , caretaking for my dad, dealing with my identity crisis and a change in my career as well as some health issues doesn’t seem to matter. I am a drain.

Guess what ? I am a drain. I am tired of myself, let alone thinking that I may tire someone else out. That person was tiring when I all I heard about was money issues, kids taking advantage, ex taking advantage. I never let them know they were tiring, nor did I not call them or ignore them during that time. I was there for them. I let them vent. I let them sit there and talk about their kid in a way I had never heard before, without judging them because I knew they needed that. I wanted to be that friend for them.

I get “I’m a drain, I’m tiring,” in response. This pushed me over the edge this week. I finally broke, feeling powerless again, feeling bad about me, that gremlin of not being loveable coming out full force. I am staring it in the face right now, and not sure what to do with it. I could beat it up and tell it to go away, but that doesn’t seem to work anymore. So I know it is time for something else. I feel alone, tired and done.

I tried to be a hermit, but that doesn’t work for me. I am not good alone, I wallow. And let’s face it, I’m not alone where I can just get it all out, Dad is here. My self-medication is food. I am definitely eating in a way that isn’t healthy and just adding to my lack of loving myself. I have drained myself to such a point I don’t know how to get me back.

Oh, I can turn it on trust me. I can appear to be ok and be me, but inside I am a full out hot mess. I can’t even sit here and write without falling apart. Let’s top it off with my ankle…not the right one this time, the left one! So the universe is reminding me that I am not being flexible, that I need to slow down.

With all that said, I am blessed with the people who did not walk away from me. I have people who are there if I need them, who are trying to break me out of the hermitizing that I am getting good at. I know deep down I am loveable and I am good enough. That gremlin needs to go away once and for all. I think I am just tired. Tired that people you think will be there for you are not. I am tired of feeling alone in the world. I’m tired of hearing myself complain. I’m tired.

It is time to get to a better place myself. It is time to take all that learning, all the work I have done and once and for all, feel happiness, feel joy, truly from the inside out, not from those around me.

It’s time.