The age of worry....

Therapist says she worries about me when I get quiet.  When all she sees 'round these parts are book reviews, she knows I've gone underground and am only posting safe things.  You know, I just get so frustrated with myself and with life and sometimes feel like I'm doing nothing but spinning my wheels.  I'm told this is a totally normal and human thing, but I'm also my worst enemy and like to think that I should be somehow superhuman or something, and I guess beyond all of this already.  I mean, how many years of introspection and analyzation and therapy and book reading and praying does one have to go through before they start to get some of this stuff right.  See, the problem is that I thought stuff was taking root and I was doing stuff right, but then I found myself in a few situations where, as usual, my behavior was bad.  Not just bad, but stank.   Beyond stank.  Like Bad Girls Club level behavior.  I was beside myself, and unfortunately that was merely the kick-off of what seemed to be like a week-long trial.

The day after the first incident, I was quite upset with myself and the whole situation.  I was in a shame-spiral that hasn't been matched for quite some time.  I could not believe that I acted that way.  Oh I understood why I did what I did.  A few years of frustration of not feeling like I could properly protect my child came bubbling to the surface when face-to-face with the person causing it and out it came.  I went OFF in a most heinous way.  I was screaming, yelling, throwing rocks, acting completely G-H-E-T-T-O.  When it comes to protecting someone I love, I protect FIERCELY.  And it was to that level.  When you think of how ugly, heated and belligerent you think it may have gotten, take it another few notches higher.  Yeah, it was there.

So, anyways, the next day I was praying about it and apologizing to God.  Most of all, I was disappointed and shocked that I could still be made vulnerable to this kind of stuff.  I thought I was so past all of that.  So I asked (with honesty) that if I still had this tendency in me (obviously I do), then let's please just get it done and over with and get it worked out.  Okay, probably wise and what I need, but ouch.  Big mistake.  Not really.  But really.  The next week was MISERABLE!  Be careful what you ask the Lord for because He doesn't mess around.  Seriously!  If it could bring out a reaction in me?  It showed up!  I won't name names or give specifics in all situations, but we dealt with drugs, drinking, car issues, rained-on vacations, not feeling well, tempers, money issues, disowning a child, and even a CAT showing up in our back yard and adopting us and now LIVES IN OUR HOUSE (*sigh* and y'all know how I feel about pets).

Yes, that's how surrendered I was by the end of the week.  At the beginning of the week I was like a bucking wild stallion, mid-week picture me in the backyard at 6:30 in the morning throwing handfuls of gravel and torn-off bits of green pool-noodle over the wall at the neighbors too-loud landscapers (true story.  don't judge me, I'm admitting I was off the hook), and by the end of the week I have a cat living in my house. 

You know what's weird though?  It's like the whole week was an out of body experience.  I mean, trust me, I was definitely in my body.  I was stressed to the gills and felt every rage-filled moment of it.  But that's not me.  That person is not me. I'm normally much more peace, love, kumbayah, lets pray about it, tomorrow will be better.   It's definitely like God was working something out in me and like it was a divinely rage-filled week, if you know what I mean, because it's like as fast as it came and then I asked Him to work it out, then He did, then as soon as I had my fill and learned to control it and submit, the switch flipped and it turned off and things have been fine since.  Like invasion of the body snatchers.  Hopefully I've learned more of a lesson this time.  I know that this is something I will always deal with though.  I will go to my grave being on guard to protect my (and all) children & loved ones.  I will always feel a need to right wrongs and fight injustice.  There will always be a bit of vigilante in me.  I cannot see or hear of someone being bullied or harmed and not have an instinct to rescue.  I have a 6th sense for other people in danger (why do I not have the same sense of putting myself in danger?  I know, I stink at that).  Hopefully I can get better at managing my reaction to those situations.  I'm not the best at that yet.  But every time I think about acting stank, I can hear a permanent reminder of this week's trials meowing at me.

One of the things that has helped me chill out this past week has been John Mayer's new album, Born and Raised.  I LOVE THIS ALBUM.  Okay, lets be clear, I've never met an album of his that I didn't love.  But this album, absolutely fits the bill at this moment.  Bravo John, bravo.  It's not his bluesy norm, it's a very chilled out folksy sound, which is exactly what I need right now.  It's very laid back and has just the right vibe to bring me back to my normal, healthy frame of mind that I need to be in.  It's my mental funk detox music of the moment.  There's only one song on it that I don't really dig and it's that submarine song.  But the rest of them I love and play it on a loop.  The song below didn't start out as one of my favorites, but has become one.  I appreciate the lyrics and they speak to me on a number of levels right now.  Especially these.....

"Don't be scared to walk alone
Don't be scared to like it"

 and

"Give your heart then change your mind
You're allowed to do it
'Cause God knows it's been done to you
And somehow you got through it"

"The Age of Worry"

by

John Mayer

lurve you, xoxo v.