Too Many Dang Bites

Q:  How do you eat an elephant?
A:  One bite at a time.
Q:  Who in the world wants to eat an elephant?

I don't think anyone WANTS to eat an elephant, at least metaphorically speaking.  But the thing is, we tend to have a lot of elephants to deal with in our lives when we don't keep it simple.

As I write that, I wonder if there is such a thing as "simple" when it comes to the human experience.

Simple is defined as "easily done."  (I actually went to look it up.)  When I think about simple, I tend to think of it as something without many layers.  However it seems to me that many layers could still be simple if they are "easily done."  I also tend to think that something isn't "simple" if I am feeling overwhelmed like I have been lately.  When I think of simple I think of not having to deal with all of the stuff I need to deal with.

So maybe I just have the wrong word.

Interesting how words are.  We rely on them for so much, and yet there are times words can be woefully inadequate, even if used properly and at other times we just don't have the word that truly suits a situation so we interact differently with it than we might if we knew the "right" one.

I almost feel like I have more than one elephant to deal with.  And I don't know where the heck to start.  "At the beginning" I hear in my head.  How funny.  Where the heck is that?  I tend to think it is the fact that I have heard that so many times, it is a conditioned response.  There may be some truth to it in there somewhere, but I think meanings get lost when the words are casually treated.  Ever notice how there is a gloss to many of the "feel good" sayings?  They sound good.  But if you were in the middle of the trial or thing they refer to, it takes on a whole different feel - and isn't always so helpful then.  At least, that is the case - in my experience.

I have used the elephant metaphor many times.  It really does sound good.  But right now I really can see how it is an incomplete one.  I have so many things I am looking at, so many things I am doing, so many people I am reaching out to, so many different things, and even though it might have still been a lot before all of this, it feels like so much more now.  And which one is the "right," first one?  I wouldn't feel so much pressure if it wasn't for the fact that I am big trouble financially.

I don't want to drop any balls.  Yes.  I guess I am now mixing my metaphors.

There is so much going on, and I am scared.  I am scared of what people will think of me if I do drop one.  I am scared of what they will think of me acting so scattered.  I am scared of what the effects of not being able to be "professional" will be.  There are occasionally some unrealistic expectations even when one is seemingly healthy.

When I was undergoing chemo I didn't do much because I didn't want anyone to expect anything of me because odds were I wouldn't be able to meet the expectation.  Now that I am no longer undergoing it, I still don't want anyone to expect anything because I feel so wobbly.  I feel so disorganized.  My right brain is seriously challenged to help me do what the left brain would usually help with.

Even before this, I was very right brain dominant. I guess you could almost say that is a good thing.  If I had been dominantly left brained and lost that ability, it may have felt a lot worse to me.  But what seemingly little I may have had over there was something that I really need to depend on to be able to function in a way that makes me money, and pays my bills, and prepares my taxes and paperwork, and...

When we think that we know how things should be, we create standards.  And at this moment in time, there are many standards that I feel quasi pressured to meet.  I am in some ways afraid that if I don't, I won't succeed.  I suspect I could be wrong.  And I am really hoping I am.

It is like learning things all over again.  The speech therapist I spoke with basically told me as much. It brought me to tears.  When you know you were once capable of something, and then you're not, and you have to go back to the ground level and start over, it's like wtf?  I was already somewhere else. You're making me go back there again?  I don't remember how I learned anything before.  I don't even know how I got to where I did, and now you are telling me I have to do it all over again, and even worse, do it in the presence of a world and people who expect me to be in the vicinity of where I once was?  And not only that, I feel like I keep confronting the same stumbling blocks over and over again.  You really gotta be freaking kidding me.

It occurs to me that to begin again means that maybe I will find a new way to do it.  But that doesn't really help too much when I see the mess that is my life at the moment.  The mess that is my life that I have to add more to as I continue to move forward and try to get back to some semblance of me.  If I am lucky, maybe it will be an enhanced version.

In the meantime, I am just gonna have to keep trying to balance the fact that I am here, there, and everywhere minute to minute.  No wonder I get so tired.

Interestingly, I am not sure that has anything to do with the elephant.

Q: How do you eat an elephant?

A:  One bite at a time.

No wonder I am choking.

I am trying to eat one all at once.

Today is the anniversary of something horrible,
and it fits the way I feel.

It started last night, and it continues today.
I am emotional and I am tired and I am
overwhelmed by life in general.

Have you ever been one to "feel" what another
person feels?  If so, you may know what I am
dealing with at the moment.  I can often feel
what another is feeling emotionally and physically,
and I am wondering if I am picking up the
feelings of those who are focused on the events
of THAT day, 11 years ago.

I am wondering if I am picking up those types
of feelings if it is making me more vulnerable
to the more immediate concerns I have.  I was
speaking with someone earlier about my
situation going forward.  All of my concerns
are tied together, and in one heck of a freakin'
knot.

The person was trying to be helpful.  I know he
was; but he was anything but.  I got emotional.
I started to cry.  I needed to end the conversation.

I was told that I shouldn't be the way I was being.
How else could I have been?  It overtook me.
Emotion is like that.  Emotion is a wave that
overcomes and never looks back.  It covers
everything else and wipes out logic of any kind
from its path.

Logically one might offer ideas and solutions for
dealing with emotion, but one has to be in a non
emotional place to get the most benefit from
whatever the advice might be.  The time one
needs it the most is the time it can least likely be
of any help.

I "know" things consciously, logically.  But that
doesn't mean that I can extract the "emotion-maker"
in my body.  I find that logic often wants to get
rid of emotion - especially when it is someone
else's and we don't know what to do with it.

It would seem emotion serves a purpose.  At least
I would have to hope it does, given its effects.

This person was trying to help by making my
emotional reaction wrong, and telling me what
they believed was right.  In the midst of an
emotional moment, it was like he put kerosene
on my emotional fire.  His well-intentioned
reaction only made things worse.

I am not in the best place in general these days.
I have so little tolerance for things that I can't
deal with.  Is it the best way to be?  I haven't
a freakin', bloody clue.

But at the moment, it is difficult for me to sit
back an analyze things in the way that I would
have pre-all of this (crap.  There I said it.  Didn't
want to, but it is honest for the way I feel at the
moment).

So much of my life has been analyzed and
assessed to death, and for what?  I still am
standing in a place I would never have
consciously chosen.  I could pretend like
everything is "normal," but I am not sure
that if what was before was normal, it is
where I want to be.

In the meantime, I am craving chocolate like
crazy in between being tired and crying and
writing this little diddy.  Good thing I got
some chocolate pudding.  Although, sadly,
it doesn't seem to be the grand fix I need.

That darn elephant.