I woke up this morning and everything seemed the same. The celling fan above my bed was ominously spinning with the same monotonous movement I remembered. The same paintings were hanging above the mess of clothes and dirty dishes on the floor. I had no idea that while everything around me seemed normal, I was a completely different person. When I finally looked in the mirror, there was a white, middle class, older woman looking back.
I heard the sound track of the twilight zone playing in my head until I remembered I am a white, middle class, older woman. As I brushed my teeth, I started to remember my life. My heart began to feel normal and beat at this odd slightly elevated level. I felt the need to fix something or someone, a feeling so familiar I felt relief and my stomach began to churn. A feeling so normal I began to relax.
Today is Saturday October 20th, my daughters birthday. Three days until I fly to Tucson for my mothers birthday, where all my sisters will meet to celebrate her 88th birthday. The year has been a difficult one for my family, because of me. I have been in therapy, and realized I have a right to take up the space my body fills. I do not have to walk in a room and figure out who needs me to make them feel better, I actually have the right to just be there. A very strange concept for me, and an even stranger one for my family.
I admit I am not an easy person, I have so many idiosyncrasies that I have spent most of my life in my studio painting, and now I have the right to be myself. The most uncomfortable thing in the world is to sit and think about the things I want in my life. Usually I would be going over in my head what I have done wrong, said wrong. Being liked and forgiven for being who I am is the first and last thing on my mind. So this trip to visit my family is uncomfortable to say the least. Do I play the role everyone has become familiar with, after all this will most likely be the last time all my sisters, mom and I will be together. Or do I have the right to take up space and not scan the room for someone who needs my attention to make them happy.
For 58 years I have not taken up space, so it is uncomfortable every day to face the world as though I have the right to take up space. So going to visit the people who helped create me and depend on me to be the invisible fixer is unbelievably crappy. I vacillate between just being my difficult idiosyncratic self or really really wanting to just disappear and make it a nice birthday for my mother.
The truth is if I disappear I will still get blamed for not disappearing enough, so it is imperative that I mark my territory and let the shit fall where it does. Sounds easy but it is the most difficult thing I have ever faced. It is another test in my Truman show, my only hope is to be kind to myself no matter what I do.