That last one—the relationship with myself—matters the most. And it’s my ambiguity about how to do that that leaves me susceptible to disconnection.
“I’m sick of hearing myself tell these same stories and get worked up. I want closure.”
My client’s desire to finally close the doors and make peace with the past felt like a new chapter opening. The subtle distinction is as significant as night and day. One says, “Hear me, hear me again and again,” creating a constant activation loop. The other acknowledges limits, promotes peace, and is doggedly focused on connection with the self.
Often, when reactions are happening within me, I hold onto my seat and deal with them. But not today. When I registered mini–Richter scale activity inside me while seated next to a mother jamming her breast into her son’s mouth as he punched her and made tantrum-like sounds—and her saying, “I know I should wean him, he’s over two, but my fiancé just left, and it’s just easier to do this”—I sat staring at my laptop, looking in other directions, then turned to Dave and said, “I’m going to sit in the sun.”
I’m now at a picnic table of my own. It was a good choice, yet guilt hangs on me like a hideous necklace. Have I done something wrong? The word expectations blinked on in my mind like a neon sign. I wonder if societal expectations disrupt my frequency with myself. All the kinds of shoulds—I should want to be social, I shouldn’t judge. I should, I should, I should.
Expectations surface powerfully in social situations. Their directives—likely early expectations my mom and others put on me—feel outdated, unhelpful, unnecessary.
I easily feel overwhelmed by information coming at, through, and within me. In all I’m deciphering, it’s in the small breaks and spaces where I can organize it. With the volume down, I can support and calm myself. I can also separate other people’s stuff.
That last one is a big one. The vulnerability and sponge-like nature of childhood is a lack of psychic boundary with others. Others’ turbulent emotions become ours; the storm in the home becomes the storm within.
My line is necessary in developing and maturing the self—sifting through data and putting it where it belongs: to you, or to me.
Maybe closure isn’t something we wrestle down. Maybe it’s something that arrives quietly when we stop performing, stop absorbing, and finally return to ourselves.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 