I am a hypocrite of the worst kind. I can honestly say to someone who is in their 60’s 70’s 80’s and up that they are not old and that they should look at themselves as beautiful and accomplished no matter who they are and what they have or have not done. Yet when it comes to myself I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit that I am 36 years old (see the hypocrisy there, and trust me when I say that is only the beginning). Where is this shame coming from? Why the hypocrisy?
The answer even though it can be summed up in a few words is actually far deeper and more complex than a single sentence, that I am afraid of time; because each question begs an explanation an answer, and those leads to more questions which leads us further down the rabbit hole. Join me, as for a second time I jump down the hole and discover myself and perhaps you will discover something about you as well.
So why am I afraid of time? What is it specifically that scares me? I am afraid that at 36 I am already running out of it. I am afraid that I am running out of time to do all the things I want to do. To be all the things I want to be. To do all the things I want to do. To see the things I want to see. But what I am most afraid of is that I am running out of time to fulfill the reason why I am here. It depresses, frustrates and infuriates me, that at 36 I haven’t even found out what my" mission" in life is supposed to be let alone start on my path to fulfilling it. So why haven’t I figured any of this out yet?
Because I am a brat of the most despicable kind. You see I don’t make demands, have wants, ask for anything from my friends or my family, but I sure as hell make allot of them of the universe. What kind of demands? The typical, a partner in life, to be happy, to have more money. I don’t just ask humbly for those things, oh no I demand them, I say things like “If you want me to do your bidding than I want X, or unless you give my Y I am not going to do what you want, or my favorite, If you really want me to be here than you are going to give me Z”. Oh how the universe/creator/source what ever you call something higher than you must laugh and laugh. For you see I already have everything I need in order to do what I am here to do. I have a roof over my head that keeps me warm in the winter, I have enough money to pay for my necessities and even some luxuries, I have food on my table. But for me it’s not enough, I want to travel more, I want to have more, I want to do more, more, more, me, me me. How can I not call myself a brat, even worse spoiled for acting like this when the universe has given me so much? Perhaps that isn’t the issue though, because our wants stem from something, what is that? What do my desires stem from what is it that I feel I am missing?
The truth is once again simple, if I look at what I need the answer is Nothing. But that would end the conversation there and leave me feeling empty. So what is it that I am missing, when I am rich in things most people do not posses- my close friends and my family, who love and support me- I have seen things most people don’t get to see and some that none will see ever again (twin towers New York), experienced things most people don’t get to experience (swam in a bio-luminescent lagoon in Jamaica) so what is it? The truth is that I am doing and have done all those things for the wrong reasons, I did them because I wanted to feel alive instead of actually being alive. You might think what is the difference and to some (like me for one) there wasn’t one, I thought they were one and the same, but they are not. I can not explain to you what feeling alive is because I never actually achieved it, because it is a feeling that doesn’t actually exists. It is like saying if I get there I will be happy. The truth is as soon as you get there your, there has moved further over there, and you are still as unhappy as you were when you where here, except instead of being here you are there but your there has moved so it’s like you haven’t really gone any where. It’s the same with feeling alive, you think if I do more, have more, accomplish more, than I can say I am alive. But that is not what being alive is, being alive is facing each challenge and taking a bad situation and making the best of it, taking a headship and turning it into a lesson, it’s taking something ugly and turning it into something beautiful. That is what being alive is it is taking life as it comes and not cowering from it, being alive means strength and empowerment. So why didn’t I feel like I was being alive? What was holding me back from living?
Me. I was standing in my own way for years this time around 6 to be exact. How did I do that? By wanting to be something and someone I am not. I wanted to be someone I am not and because of that I was taking the things I have, the life I have and even myself for granted. By living like a hypocrite and living a double life. This duplicity is, was and always will be at the root of this conflict and this battle within myself. You see I have this incredible gift for for being compassionate, understanding and patient with every one. Every one that is except me. I hold myself to a different standard than I do every one else. If someone elses heart was broken and it took them this long to heal I would say to them “ Hey cheer up, you are only 36 you are young, and beautiful and sweet, and you will find someone who will see that in you and treat you the way you deserve to bee treated. And when, not if, but when you find him/her/them what ever, everything up to that person will seam like a waste of time, and tears, and emotions.” But my inner dialog was different, what I said to myself was “Ok it’s been 2 years now, get over it. It;s been 3 years why are you still sulking. It’s been 4 years it’s been 5, 6, you aren’t getting any younger. Ohp, you haven’t found any one yet, what’s wrong with you, just let go, why are you still holding on. You might as well give up, cos they don’t exist. You might as well accept that you are going to be single for the rest of your life. You might as well deal with it, and learn to like it cos this is your reality now.” I wouldn’t talk like that to my worst enemy. So why the duplicity? Why would I talk to me in such a rotten way.
Because deep down I believed that I am somehow broken, that I am sub human and that I need to change that I need to be better, be more successful, be prettier, taller, thinner, have bigger boobs and a smaller but with longer and skinnier legs. That in order to be someone, to be human, I needed to be perfect, that I wasn’t allowed any flaws, any hardships and worst of all I wasn’t allowed to have a stumbling block. I believed that in order to be liked I was not allowed to fail, to blunder to make a mistake, because if I did I would be rejected. I though that if I wasn’t the perfect daughter, friend, girl friend that I would be unworthy of acceptance, of affection of love. That believe didn’t just control how I behaved around others, but it affected how I felt about myself. I believed that so deeply that I gave up time with my family to lock myself away from the world (you can find that story here) because believed that I am so repulsive and hideous that my condition is offensive to those who look at me. It wasn’t until a random stranger named Travis genuinely and kindly smiled at me during my west jet flight home that my heart for myself melted. Why him right, why not my mom, who keeps telling me that I am beautiful, because I expected that from her, she is my mom, so she will say things and do things to make me feel better.The same would apply to my dad and my step dad, and any one else I consider family. Why not my friends? Because they are just as close to me as they are, and even though I don’t “expect” my friends to make me feel better, I know that, that is what they are trying to do. We know that those close to us care about us so much that they would lie to us to make us feel better ( I know some of my friends wont but that is besides the point), but you kind of get blind sided when it comes from total stranger at 30,000 feet. How he could look at me with such kindness, caring, and compassion, when I haven’t shown myself an ounce of that in a very long time, that did something to me. It started me thinking from the very second I thanked him, as I left the plane. How is it that a total stranger has more compassion for you at your ugliest than you do for yourself at your prettiest, most successful, most prideful moments. What was it about me that I hated so much?
And over the next 48h my life unraveled. I realized that it was because I was comparing myself to others. Who was I to suffer when there were kids with no food? Who was I to be depressed when I had a roof over my head? How dare I not have the energy to take care of me let alone my house when there were people in worse pain physically or emotionally who could? Who was I to not work because I was diagnosed with a mental illness, when there were people who could have a job and raise kids and take care of a home who have the same mental illness as I do? My self talk put me down for years. So much so that the first time I attempted suicide was in Gr.8 because I was picked on and bullied so bad that I wanted of this miserable planet if that was all I had to look forward to as an adult. I had one escape at the time books. They were always by my side. I wanted to be like the people in the books, brave and strong, and able to endure any hardship without hesitation. And when I saw people who were in worse positions than I that made it through and seamed happy and care free I longed to have the same but I didn’t know how. People gave me all sorts of grate advice, like “just let go” and “don’t live in the past” and “don’t be so negative” it got to the point where if I heard “let go” one more time I was going to let go all right. I was going to let go a flurry of cus words, in that persons general direction.
So what changed? My perspective. I finally understood what the words “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” I thought who am I to try and be a writer, I don’t have any life experience for that, bs, I have taken care of myself on and off (mostly on) since I was 16. I thought to myself I haven’t suffered bs, I have. I know what it like to spend weeks and months in hospitals and treatment centers away from my parents, away from those I love, to be tested, poked and prodded. I know what suffering is. I haven’t endured any hardships, bs, yes I have. I have gone through my own abuse, and horror stories, with boyfriends. I know what hardships are. I thought to myself I haven’t experienced enough, bs, I have flew over/in the grand canyon in a helicopter, and swam in a bio luminescent lagoon. I do have experiences. I thought I don’t have enough love in my life (external to my parents), bs, if I din’t I would have some of the most incredible friends that I do. So what really changed? Maybe it was something I read, maybe it was something I saw or heard. To be honest with you I don’t know or understand it 100%, but here is what I think happened. Everything that I have read, seen, heard, experienced, watched others go through weather on TV or in real life, somehow created a complete puzzle, and now that the last piece fell into place I can step back and see the whole picture, and now I can move onto the next chapter of my life. So what in my perspective changed? I stopped comparing myself to others, for ANY reason. The only way any of the statements are true is if I compare them to something worse, and trust me when I tell you, yes people have gone through worse, but than again someone else can look at my life and say waw you haven’t lived on life time in your 36 years, you have live 10 or at the very least 3. So am I the heroin of my own story, you bet I am. Because I am survivor (of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of men, of trauma, of pain, of bullying, of addictions -others and mine-) I am a fighter, because I took all that on and I didn’t have a team of counselors, and Dr. to help me through it, I had my friends, my family and ME. I am a writer because I am not afraid to take all I know everything that I am and bare it all to the world so that others may learn from what I went through. Above all else. I AM ME. and I will no longer be afraid of the challenges that life brings my way because each one of them has made me stronger, each one has taught me to be better, each one of them has made me who I am and I like who I am because I am still kind, I am still compassionate and I am still loving, and I will continue to be that way without apology, because I DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE WHO I AM, because I have accepted my heart, not as a weakness , but as a strength. It is not up to me to decide who will benefit and how from what I experienced, or what I write. My ONLY purpose write and when it helps someone or if it does, is out of my hands, my only hope is that is does. Thank you and Nameaste.
Writters Note: If some quotes, sound or seem familiar to you it is probably because they are. I Have read allot of books listen to allot of audio tapes and watched allot of tv and movies, some spiritual in nature and some not. I am not intentionally plagiarizing the people I have learned from, but for me to cite them all to try and not plagiarize would be too much, because I draw on people like, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Einstein, to name some of the grates, some of my inspiration comes from less, “enlightened” - and I use the word very lightly here, as I am no one to judge who is enlightened and who isn’t- like song lyrics of different bands like Disturbed, Metallica, Linkin Park and Evanescence to name just a few. So I apologize if the words seam like they are stolen, the truth is they just resonated with me so much and I remember them so well that they have become my words to live by without thought as to where they came from.
The answer even though it can be summed up in a few words is actually far deeper and more complex than a single sentence, that I am afraid of time; because each question begs an explanation an answer, and those leads to more questions which leads us further down the rabbit hole. Join me, as for a second time I jump down the hole and discover myself and perhaps you will discover something about you as well.
So why am I afraid of time? What is it specifically that scares me? I am afraid that at 36 I am already running out of it. I am afraid that I am running out of time to do all the things I want to do. To be all the things I want to be. To do all the things I want to do. To see the things I want to see. But what I am most afraid of is that I am running out of time to fulfill the reason why I am here. It depresses, frustrates and infuriates me, that at 36 I haven’t even found out what my" mission" in life is supposed to be let alone start on my path to fulfilling it. So why haven’t I figured any of this out yet?
Because I am a brat of the most despicable kind. You see I don’t make demands, have wants, ask for anything from my friends or my family, but I sure as hell make allot of them of the universe. What kind of demands? The typical, a partner in life, to be happy, to have more money. I don’t just ask humbly for those things, oh no I demand them, I say things like “If you want me to do your bidding than I want X, or unless you give my Y I am not going to do what you want, or my favorite, If you really want me to be here than you are going to give me Z”. Oh how the universe/creator/source what ever you call something higher than you must laugh and laugh. For you see I already have everything I need in order to do what I am here to do. I have a roof over my head that keeps me warm in the winter, I have enough money to pay for my necessities and even some luxuries, I have food on my table. But for me it’s not enough, I want to travel more, I want to have more, I want to do more, more, more, me, me me. How can I not call myself a brat, even worse spoiled for acting like this when the universe has given me so much? Perhaps that isn’t the issue though, because our wants stem from something, what is that? What do my desires stem from what is it that I feel I am missing?
The truth is once again simple, if I look at what I need the answer is Nothing. But that would end the conversation there and leave me feeling empty. So what is it that I am missing, when I am rich in things most people do not posses- my close friends and my family, who love and support me- I have seen things most people don’t get to see and some that none will see ever again (twin towers New York), experienced things most people don’t get to experience (swam in a bio-luminescent lagoon in Jamaica) so what is it? The truth is that I am doing and have done all those things for the wrong reasons, I did them because I wanted to feel alive instead of actually being alive. You might think what is the difference and to some (like me for one) there wasn’t one, I thought they were one and the same, but they are not. I can not explain to you what feeling alive is because I never actually achieved it, because it is a feeling that doesn’t actually exists. It is like saying if I get there I will be happy. The truth is as soon as you get there your, there has moved further over there, and you are still as unhappy as you were when you where here, except instead of being here you are there but your there has moved so it’s like you haven’t really gone any where. It’s the same with feeling alive, you think if I do more, have more, accomplish more, than I can say I am alive. But that is not what being alive is, being alive is facing each challenge and taking a bad situation and making the best of it, taking a headship and turning it into a lesson, it’s taking something ugly and turning it into something beautiful. That is what being alive is it is taking life as it comes and not cowering from it, being alive means strength and empowerment. So why didn’t I feel like I was being alive? What was holding me back from living?
Me. I was standing in my own way for years this time around 6 to be exact. How did I do that? By wanting to be something and someone I am not. I wanted to be someone I am not and because of that I was taking the things I have, the life I have and even myself for granted. By living like a hypocrite and living a double life. This duplicity is, was and always will be at the root of this conflict and this battle within myself. You see I have this incredible gift for for being compassionate, understanding and patient with every one. Every one that is except me. I hold myself to a different standard than I do every one else. If someone elses heart was broken and it took them this long to heal I would say to them “ Hey cheer up, you are only 36 you are young, and beautiful and sweet, and you will find someone who will see that in you and treat you the way you deserve to bee treated. And when, not if, but when you find him/her/them what ever, everything up to that person will seam like a waste of time, and tears, and emotions.” But my inner dialog was different, what I said to myself was “Ok it’s been 2 years now, get over it. It;s been 3 years why are you still sulking. It’s been 4 years it’s been 5, 6, you aren’t getting any younger. Ohp, you haven’t found any one yet, what’s wrong with you, just let go, why are you still holding on. You might as well give up, cos they don’t exist. You might as well accept that you are going to be single for the rest of your life. You might as well deal with it, and learn to like it cos this is your reality now.” I wouldn’t talk like that to my worst enemy. So why the duplicity? Why would I talk to me in such a rotten way.
Because deep down I believed that I am somehow broken, that I am sub human and that I need to change that I need to be better, be more successful, be prettier, taller, thinner, have bigger boobs and a smaller but with longer and skinnier legs. That in order to be someone, to be human, I needed to be perfect, that I wasn’t allowed any flaws, any hardships and worst of all I wasn’t allowed to have a stumbling block. I believed that in order to be liked I was not allowed to fail, to blunder to make a mistake, because if I did I would be rejected. I though that if I wasn’t the perfect daughter, friend, girl friend that I would be unworthy of acceptance, of affection of love. That believe didn’t just control how I behaved around others, but it affected how I felt about myself. I believed that so deeply that I gave up time with my family to lock myself away from the world (you can find that story here) because believed that I am so repulsive and hideous that my condition is offensive to those who look at me. It wasn’t until a random stranger named Travis genuinely and kindly smiled at me during my west jet flight home that my heart for myself melted. Why him right, why not my mom, who keeps telling me that I am beautiful, because I expected that from her, she is my mom, so she will say things and do things to make me feel better.The same would apply to my dad and my step dad, and any one else I consider family. Why not my friends? Because they are just as close to me as they are, and even though I don’t “expect” my friends to make me feel better, I know that, that is what they are trying to do. We know that those close to us care about us so much that they would lie to us to make us feel better ( I know some of my friends wont but that is besides the point), but you kind of get blind sided when it comes from total stranger at 30,000 feet. How he could look at me with such kindness, caring, and compassion, when I haven’t shown myself an ounce of that in a very long time, that did something to me. It started me thinking from the very second I thanked him, as I left the plane. How is it that a total stranger has more compassion for you at your ugliest than you do for yourself at your prettiest, most successful, most prideful moments. What was it about me that I hated so much?
And over the next 48h my life unraveled. I realized that it was because I was comparing myself to others. Who was I to suffer when there were kids with no food? Who was I to be depressed when I had a roof over my head? How dare I not have the energy to take care of me let alone my house when there were people in worse pain physically or emotionally who could? Who was I to not work because I was diagnosed with a mental illness, when there were people who could have a job and raise kids and take care of a home who have the same mental illness as I do? My self talk put me down for years. So much so that the first time I attempted suicide was in Gr.8 because I was picked on and bullied so bad that I wanted of this miserable planet if that was all I had to look forward to as an adult. I had one escape at the time books. They were always by my side. I wanted to be like the people in the books, brave and strong, and able to endure any hardship without hesitation. And when I saw people who were in worse positions than I that made it through and seamed happy and care free I longed to have the same but I didn’t know how. People gave me all sorts of grate advice, like “just let go” and “don’t live in the past” and “don’t be so negative” it got to the point where if I heard “let go” one more time I was going to let go all right. I was going to let go a flurry of cus words, in that persons general direction.
So what changed? My perspective. I finally understood what the words “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” I thought who am I to try and be a writer, I don’t have any life experience for that, bs, I have taken care of myself on and off (mostly on) since I was 16. I thought to myself I haven’t suffered bs, I have. I know what it like to spend weeks and months in hospitals and treatment centers away from my parents, away from those I love, to be tested, poked and prodded. I know what suffering is. I haven’t endured any hardships, bs, yes I have. I have gone through my own abuse, and horror stories, with boyfriends. I know what hardships are. I thought to myself I haven’t experienced enough, bs, I have flew over/in the grand canyon in a helicopter, and swam in a bio luminescent lagoon. I do have experiences. I thought I don’t have enough love in my life (external to my parents), bs, if I din’t I would have some of the most incredible friends that I do. So what really changed? Maybe it was something I read, maybe it was something I saw or heard. To be honest with you I don’t know or understand it 100%, but here is what I think happened. Everything that I have read, seen, heard, experienced, watched others go through weather on TV or in real life, somehow created a complete puzzle, and now that the last piece fell into place I can step back and see the whole picture, and now I can move onto the next chapter of my life. So what in my perspective changed? I stopped comparing myself to others, for ANY reason. The only way any of the statements are true is if I compare them to something worse, and trust me when I tell you, yes people have gone through worse, but than again someone else can look at my life and say waw you haven’t lived on life time in your 36 years, you have live 10 or at the very least 3. So am I the heroin of my own story, you bet I am. Because I am survivor (of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of men, of trauma, of pain, of bullying, of addictions -others and mine-) I am a fighter, because I took all that on and I didn’t have a team of counselors, and Dr. to help me through it, I had my friends, my family and ME. I am a writer because I am not afraid to take all I know everything that I am and bare it all to the world so that others may learn from what I went through. Above all else. I AM ME. and I will no longer be afraid of the challenges that life brings my way because each one of them has made me stronger, each one has taught me to be better, each one of them has made me who I am and I like who I am because I am still kind, I am still compassionate and I am still loving, and I will continue to be that way without apology, because I DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE WHO I AM, because I have accepted my heart, not as a weakness , but as a strength. It is not up to me to decide who will benefit and how from what I experienced, or what I write. My ONLY purpose write and when it helps someone or if it does, is out of my hands, my only hope is that is does. Thank you and Nameaste.
Writters Note: If some quotes, sound or seem familiar to you it is probably because they are. I Have read allot of books listen to allot of audio tapes and watched allot of tv and movies, some spiritual in nature and some not. I am not intentionally plagiarizing the people I have learned from, but for me to cite them all to try and not plagiarize would be too much, because I draw on people like, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Einstein, to name some of the grates, some of my inspiration comes from less, “enlightened” - and I use the word very lightly here, as I am no one to judge who is enlightened and who isn’t- like song lyrics of different bands like Disturbed, Metallica, Linkin Park and Evanescence to name just a few. So I apologize if the words seam like they are stolen, the truth is they just resonated with me so much and I remember them so well that they have become my words to live by without thought as to where they came from.