The Queenpin hates to feel needy, but sometimes she does and today was one of those days. Actually, it has been a three day affair and that is a total bastard. I was in a wedding this weekend, and I love weddings. I feel lucky that I have had two. The bride and groom are great people and so in love. They had worked together adding all these amazing handmade things to make the wedding uniquely theirs. The service was one of those yummy outdoor, love fests, and I have to say, the bride was one of the most beautiful I've seen. All of that sounds great, right? It was, but the needies started on Friday and until the wedding was over on Saturday I could not put my finger on the cause.
You might think, poor single mama, she just wants to be married again, but I really don't, so stop right there. Sometimes I wish I had more of a partner, but I get it that my life does not have room for that business right now. It wasn't wanting a ring, or a white dress that drove me to the needies it was the ghost of life past, and from my experience with her this weekend I can tell you she can really screw with your head.
Most of the people that I knew at the wedding I had met while I was dating and married to the wasband. Most of us had been great friends and celebrated each others' loves and relationships. We had shared intimate details with each other about everything, and then my husband left, my life took a turn and we all moved on. I am still friends with some of those people, but not all. There we sat celebrating a good friend's marriage and trying to chit chat like the elephants in the room were not wearing sequins and doing jazz hands at our table. AWWWKWARD.
When I left that wedding I was LONELY! I felt like a total mess and I had longing that I could not fill. I came home to neighbors winding down from a cookout, but even chatting with them could not fill the hole that seemed to be gapping in my chest. It could not remind me of who I am. I was unsettled, and I didn't want to go in my house because it was so dirty and disorganized that just reinforced my jaded view of myself.
I decide to sit in in it. That's what the Buddha teaches. I sat....for about 10 seconds, and then I decided to go to a movie, but in that 10 seconds of sitting with the pain I realized that to my old friends I had wanted to present myself like I am so together. I wanted to seem like a Single Mama Success. To them, until the wasband left, I was a Married Mama Success. At the wedding I wanted them to see what a Queenpin Mama I have become. I wanted them to see how good being left has been to me.
Unfortunately, it is so obvious I am not together. After answering all the chatty questions posed by old friends it came out like this: I am a overwhelmed single mother, who will have no job in a week. I didn't officially get fired, but I did. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do for money, but I hope it's legal. Yes, I am seeing someone, but he is such a hermit I would have to hog tie him to get him to come to any shindig. Yes, I dated the gay guy serving the food, and who apparently just had his first overnighter in jail. Yes, that was me that fell down while walking to get pictures taken. And no, I did not have time to get my hair and nails done like all the other bridesmaids because I couldn't afford a sitter and I was sleeping off a hangover. Oh, and that purple bump on my back, it was a boil.
My therapist says I need to work from the inside out, which makes me want to pull on his goatee and scratch his eyes out. But that is what the Buddha would say too, and I certainly wouldn't pull any of that WWF action on him. The mess outside is a reflection of the mess inside. The way I feel about me. The fear of what others think is because I need them to tell me how to feel about myself and that is shaky ground, because surprisingly, not everyone thinks this Queenpin is fabulous. Some people think I'm a mess. Some people see me walking towards them and turn away. Some laugh behind the boil on my back. Some judge how this Mama is running her organization.
Yesterday in therapy I imagined myself walking on the shaky ground that is my life, that is myself. I stayed with it, letting the feeling of my feet sinking into the muck envelope me. Feeling my arms reach out for balance as I moved forward. In the distance I saw an island. Bare of everything, red earth packed tight. When I reached it I sat down in meditation and came together. The earth stopped shifting, the ground supported me and there was peace. The peace is not here yet, but it is coming. I'm working towards it. Making my way to centeredness. The Queenpin is constructing an island of me, an island of peace. The creating of a peaceful person is a messy thing, so I've got to go through that to get where I'm going, even if I scare some folks off along the way.
Let's hope the island is not what the boil on my back really is. I'm not sure how I would meditate on it if it springs from my back.
Perhaps one of the funniest lines I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and now, one of my all-time favorites:
ReplyDelete"There we sat celebrating a good friend's marriage and trying to chit chat like the elephants in the room were not wearing sequins and doing jazz hands at our table. AWWWKWARD."