As a result, I never shaved my head.
Now that my hair is growing back, I have people telling me to go without a wig. Again, I know they think they are helping, but again it isn't really helpful.
It would be different if I had asked for short hair. It would be different if I chose it. But I didn't.
It was not my choice. But wearing a wig IS MY choice. It allows me to control one piece of my life that is most uncontrollable and unpredictable.
The fact is wearing a wig is at times annoying now. It slides. I still have to worry about it getting wet. There are all kinds of reasons wearing a wig isn't all that great, but I don't necessarily like the alternative, either. I am obviously not yet ready to wigless in a big way.
I had a dream a few nights ago that someone was telling me I had to take a test. It was assumed in their actions that I would just go along with the program. When I asked what it was, I was told it was a test I would need to take to further my education. When I found out what it was, my reaction was one in which I was not going to take it. I saw no reason to. I had no intentions of going on to the next degree. I was told that I needed to do it.
I don't remember how the dream ended, but what I do remember was me putting my foot down. How could someone tell me what I needed to do?
I am guessing it was a reaction to the person who told me that I should be different in the last week. The implication in the dream was that I wouldn't be able to function in life without going on. The conversation with that person implied that I could not function in life the way that I occur to them - which is why I should tone myself down, and be different.
Life is freaking short enough without having to line up and walk to the beat of the drum of someone else. Many people live a life that they do not choose - and are unhappy as a result. I may not be in the best place these days, but I am fairly certain that I would be a lot unhappier if I was having to be the way others thought I should be.
I often have spoken about speaking in a way that people can hear you. If you want to be "heard" by someone, you may have to moderate how you come across. But the thing is...you are going to come across a lot of people in your day-to-day life that vary one to the other. How can you be how you need to be to be heard by all of them?
You really can't.
The world is full of people. A lot of people. I don't know that we are meant to be heard by all of them. At the same time, if we all knew how to respect others, we could all live in a greater sense of peace as we allowed people to be who they are without feeling a need to change them - or ourselves.
What that person said was hurtful to me for several reasons, but there is nothing I could say that would vary how that person feels. Ironically, perhaps, that person would never change for anyone, and yet they think *I* should. That is often the way of the world. Who I am is OK, but if you are not like me, you are not.
There is more to this that I cannot discuss as I promised I wouldn't. But there is an element that explains to me why this person may feel as they do. And it has to do with something that I think they see in me that they do not like about themselves (which goes back to a previous blog entry - If You Don't Like Me - Do You Like Yourself?). So in some ways, it isn't so much about change as much as it is about something else deeper and more difficult to address.
I love my family. I really do. But I don't really feel like I fit in for so many reasons. I am not sure they understand me. It is difficult for me to interact with them when I feel like they think something is wrong with me and that how I look at things is a problem. When I haven't spoken with them it is because I do not feel supported by them but rather like our interactions take me down.
I have been wondering about moving back to New York.
When I left back in 2007 I did not think I would ever be back. The fact that I am even thinking about it dumbfounds me. Something about it feels right, but there is something about it that feels really uncomfortable, too. Is it healthy for me to be back in that mix? Some say you got to take the good with the bad. And there could be good being back there. But is the good worth the "bad?"
I know some people who would never understand what I am feeling, or why I feel it. I am not sure I understand it at times, myself. But just because it isn't understood does not mean it is not in some way valid.
Oddly enough I spoke with my mom while I was in NY. And when I told her some of the things that were bothering me, she pointed out (rightly) that by me not telling her how I feel about things gives her no opportunity to alter anything, or to address it.
Why would I do that?
I found myself thinking about how the 3 women in my life who weren't a fan of my mother are now gone. These 3 women were in some way a surrogate mother for the mother that I didn't have. Maybe my mother would have been there, if it wasn't for how these 3 treated me and her and the situation.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But it doesn't really matter now. They are no longer in my life. But my mother is - if I let her be. I have no idea what it means. None. But I am thinking that even though I never had a relationship with her before doesn't mean I couldn't see what I could do to create one now.
Life is short.
And who knows
how much time
any of us has left.
I wish I knew what to do.
One last thing. This may sound strange, but the day I left Long Island I went to the cemetery. An uncle of mine is buried in the same cemetery as my aunt. I decided to visit them both. When I was standing at my uncle's grave, I felt like parts of my family who had passed over were surrounding me. It was kinda like a scene in a movie.
I was standing there, looking at the marker and there were several energies almost in a semi circle around me, at a bit of a distance. Like they were supporting me, but giving me space. It makes me wonder how much of life we don't know or understand. It makes me wonder what markers our energy leaves as we traverse this place.
My energy is all over Long Island. So is the energy of my family. And yet many of the places that I once visited are no longer in the family. People have come and gone. People will continue to come and go. My young nieces and nephews will be tomorrow's adults when I become a part of the past history with my passing.
This last week has been very surreal and it makes me really want to simplify my life. This track we're on has the potential to really take us away from ourselves. So do the disagreements and arguments and differences of opinion. So do the things that we own that really own us.
I don't know where or how to begin,
but this past week may have been
the place to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment