But, I deserve it!

This thinking gets me in trouble, on so many fronts. And yet, it's not wholly false.

This thought has been rattling around in my head for a while. Where is the balance between a healthy sense of entitlement and narcissism? Of course, when you ask a practitioner that question (as I must, when questions bounce around in my own head, right?), then the immediate answer is that no one knows. And beware of practitioners who claim to know the line between sane and crazy, healthy and unhealthy, but that's another story.

Moreover, today is roughly the 3-year-anniversary of arriving home from a trip and discovering that my "partner" had taken all the family money and hidden it, so that I could not have access. I was "unentitled" in an instant. Even my own paychecks had been re-routed to this mystery new account. His clearly distorted sense of entitlement.... my distorted willingness to give up all sense of entitlement... it's all enough to give a person pause.

Now, though, I have the pedestrian delight of being in charge of my own finances. Both of them ;) There is a strange (really, I think it's strange) sense of awe and power when I get to choose a new dress or a new piece of furniture or which brand of milk I want. But one must quickly find a sense of balance here. Equating self- worth with purchasing power isn't a safe or wildly ethical path to enlightenment.

This struggle with entitlement shows up in other places as well. "I'll just have one bite of ice cream; I've worked hard today." Uh huh.... when was the last time you ate one bite of ice cream -or anything, for that matter? The consequence of that thinking has been 40 pounds. Or, I'll try to squeeze too many activities into a single bit of time, because I want to do them all. And therefore, the universe should allow that by expanding time, just for me? What am I saying here?

I am starting to define the way Dave treated me as domestic abuse. I don't want to slip back into a "woe is me" rant, though. Many, MANY people on this planet experience much worse, every single day, with no hope of the luxury of choosing their own milk or having a bite of ice cream -or freeing themselves from abusive men. That acknowledged, however, surely I'm entitled to something.

So I need to locate the healthy expression of the sentiment "I am here. I am powerful. I deserve to be seen for who I am." I suppose defining the question is a good start. The corollary of this question is "Do I dare speak my dreams out loud?" Stay tuned.

An Upside-Down Grownup

So the story is this. When I was a little girl (and I must have been very little, based on my memory of the house where this happened), I remember standing on my head on the couch, kicking my feet up against the wall behind the couch. Mysteriously, my mother was not charmed by this behavior. Admonished to get down and go do that in the yard if I needed to do it, I asked my mom if she thought the world looked better upside down or right-side-up. Our mom would definitely reply "right-side-up" which, of course she did.

She further said that mostly, grownups like right-side-up better. Even now I'm not quite sure that's true, but then I just felt sad for the grownups. I wondered why, then, anyone bothered to become a grownup.

"Mostly, they just have to."

I don't think she meant anything metaphorical, but even then, that's where my brain went. And revolted. "I want to be an upside down grown up".

And so it will be ;) I just have to figure out what that means.

The Grown-Up in My Own Story

Somewhere around day 2 after driving away from my marriage (He left me, just to be absolutely clear. It's just that he made me do all the work associated with that leaving. Great system.), I wrote the phrase "becoming the grown-up in my own story." I didn't realize, of course, that I had identified an important theme for myself, or that it would take so long.

But here we are. It's hard. I've recently realized something mind-altering. I was an abused wife. Without being libelous (he never hit me -or would ever hit anyone, I imagine), I was definitely abused. There's not a legal definition of emotional abuse; it's not criminal in the way that assault is criminal. Nonetheless, there are working definitions:

* name-calling or putdowns
* keeping a partner from contacting family or friends
* withholding money
* stopping a partner from getting or keeping a job
* actual or threatened physical harm
* sexual assault
* stalking
* intimidation

There are more examples; you can see them on the Violence Wheel. Suffice it to say that I was looking at the wheel (an old social work standby) for another purpose, and was flat-out gobsmacked at how many examples applied to me.

ME! How can this be?

Actually I am less interested in that question than in how to move forward to make things different. Sure, patriarchy had a role in this. Grandiose narcissism (not mine) probably had a role in this. My personality absolutely played a part -which isn't the same thing as saying that I caused it. My upbringing had, perhaps, a little role. Catholicism, perhaps a little more. There's a complex story to be told there, but it's already been done.

What's more important to me right now is to acknowledge that abuse infantalizes its victims. This becoming a grownup thing is profoundly NOT metaphorical. Rather, it is exactly the task in front of me.

I remember asking my mom once why people became grownups. (I'll tell you more about that story tomorrow.) Her reply was "they just have to." At that time she was in a complicated relationship herself, so a little fatalism was to be expected. But my toddler self wants to go back and say, "Nu-UNHHH, you GET to."

So now I get to become a grownup. I'm a work in progress, way back at the starting line. All this crashing around I've been doing -well, it will doubtless continue for a while. But the house, the physical fitness, the friends, the family, the job, school, the cats, the travel.... I've been crashing around experimenting with things the way a toddler does. "You mean, the world holds all this STUFF, and I get to try it ALL?"

Well, yes dear, it does and you do. Now you just have to be big enough and brave enough and graceful enough to figure out how to do the things you want, give back to the world, and say thank you all the time.

So, that's the project, for now.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Everyone has seen the revived poster from World War II by now, and doubtless smiled at the British restraint of it all. I certainly have. Moreover, I have used the phrase to myself and other people repeatedly. It's easier said than done, that's for sure.

In some areas, it is perfectly easy for me to break goals down into teensy-tinsy pieces, and just do the next right thing. I step back and congratulate myself that I have done what I need to do today. I'm following the plan, on the path.... gosh, I'm good. When the exact same process needs to be undertaken in other areas, I freak out and think that I'll never finish and that I might as well not start and that I'm not smart enough or disciplined enough ...or whatever enough... to get this done. The small step seems too small to be meaningful.

Is this fear? Embarrassment at being afraid? Embarrassment about being/feeling powerless? I can't tell. It shows up in the weirdest places. The garden. The front porch. And of course, it shows up in more predictable places. Will I ever understand my retirement funds? Honestly, I'm beginning to doubt it. But I'm done with feeling stupid. Consider this the start of the embarrassment alleviation project ;) Forward motion -no matter how small- is still forward motion.

I will just keep breaking down the tasks into smaller and smaller bits, until the step is too small to avoid taking! I will be calm, and I will carry on!

Fantasies

Not those fantasies. Calm yourselves.

When the kids were little -and from time to time, driving me right 'round the bend- I would toss off fantasies of my alternate life. You know, the life where all is peachy, no one's diaper needs changing, no plumbing breaks, and one meets up with only interesting challenges. Yeah. That life ;)

Leaving to go live on the beach and sell margaritas to the tourists was a favorite. Or, I would threaten to join a communal household where my only tasks were making bread and knitting for the community. This would be a LARGE communal household, apparently, since there are quite a few other tasks involved in managing a home. The details are a little vague, obviously, but it goes without saying that this household too is near a beach.

Of course, the fantasy life would be every bit as much trouble as real life; we all know this. However, humans also still occasionally fantasize about starting over, taking the path not chosen this time.

I was given that opportunity to start over (tragically, minus the beach part)-although it felt like a cataclysm at the time. My life today has very little to do with my life a few years ago. All my fretting about this life's new challenges is just the admission that being the grown-up in my own story is occasionally hard. However, it is way better than NOT being the grown-up, that's for darn sure.