The Enemy Within

  
I’ll warn you now.  This post is going to be a tangled mess.  But hang in there, I really think it leads somewhere.  It’s really easy to lose yourself in this world.  Everything is so chaotic.  You can see what everyone else is doing all the time and you can measure that against what you are doing and what you’ve accomplished.  But it always feels like it isn’t enough.  I’ve spent most of my adult life lost in some way; spiritually, emotionally, mentally.  I still have that lost feeling more often than I care to admit.  Many are the nights that I find myself looking for the light that shines the way home.  Let me tell you, life is a constant battle.  

It’s easy to write about the past and the good times because in those moments, I had it all figured out.  Maybe it was a lack of responsibility.  I didn’t have three beautiful girls that depended on me to be their provider and protector.  There are traps everywhere and if you aren’t vigilant and you let your guard down, boom!  That may be the toughest thing about being a parent so far.  There is a constant buzzing in your head telling you to stay focused, stay alert.  Even laying down in the bed at night brings its own set of boxes in your head to start checking.  

I have been accused of being overly cautious as a parent but my brain doesn’t know any other way.  I seem to be wired to not let anything happen on my watch.  The scariest part of that is the fact that things are going to happen, it’s life.  The guilt that comes with things that happen are an added weight for somebody with wiring like mine.  I’m not alone in this, there are many like me.  You know the feeling of guilt or pain when something happens around you and you can triple check things in your mind and find this one sliver of something you might could have done different to avoid it.  It is usually never legitimate but you’ll find something.  Overthinking at its best puts me at my worst.

I guess you could say that this makes me overly sensitive.  I wouldn’t argue with you.  Sometimes I wish I could be different but I don’t know if I would be where I am right now and have the people in my life that matter so much if I didn’t have that quality, for better or worse.  My friend Eron, or E-Dub as she is known in some circles, has classified me in the past as being someone who feels what’s going on in other people’s lives and situations and almost feeling their hurt or their disappointment to some degree.  I got that when she said it and I get it now.  I have taken some of those situations and made them my problem when I didn’t have to.  That helps intensify guilt or worry that I have in my own life sometimes and makes me even more cautious and sensitive.  Exhausted yet?

One thing I have learned over the years is how to deal with it for the most part.  There are many different remedies that work at different times.  One is simply writing this.  Before this blog, I wrote almost daily but just for myself and a select few that I would let read from time to time.  Putting thoughts on paper have always been one of my most successful escapes.  I can sometimes feel it leaving my mind and appearing on the paper.  If I could make it rhyme, maybe I could turn it into something asthetically pleasing to the eye in the form of a poem.  For now, it remains this jumbled collection of thoughts.  

Another escape for me is music.  That has already been documented.  But all of this is probably why I don’t get into songs about dirt roads or fishing or tight blue jeans.  All of those things are likeable but they don’t make me use my mind, which is my use for music.  It’s an art form that I can listen to and be amazed in the same way some hipster may look at a painting of a toaster and get some meaning from it.  When I occupy my mind with analytical thinking, it can sometimes carry over into the fuzzy side of the brain.  The side that lives in guilt and overthinking could use a role model.

Perhaps the most important combatant in this mental and emotional battle has been surrounding myself with people I genuinely care about and I think feel the same about me.  I’ve written before about how people in general have become unreliable in nature.  I really don’t mean that in a callous way.  It’s just the truth as I see it.  So everyday for me is reinforcing those relationships and letting those people know that I am still there.  It’s not always verbal or clear to the naked eye.  It could be a snapchat that makes them laugh or a picture that makes them cringe.  It’s My way of saying, “Hey, remember me?  I’m still here.  You can’t shake me that easily.”  Wait, what?  Just kidding about that last part.  

Everybody has their own form of communication with their friends and family.  Sometimes it’s a call, sometimes a text or a share on FB. I’m still learning how to communicate with certain people. I’m not very verbal, despite what you may think.  I find other ways and I think for the most part, those close to me get that.  Not being verbal doesn’t mean I’m an ass.  It usually means that there is a traffic accident happening in my mind and I’m trying to figure out how to get the scene cleared.  I have found the most success with words on paper or a screen.  So I stick with that.  I am usually a nervous idiot when I have to convey feelings face to face.

I guess those are some pretty consistent characteristics for an anxious, overthinking, sensitive, self-observer such as myself.  I was made to feel guilt, to hurt when I otherwise shouldn’t, and to be my own worst enemy.  I’ve come to terms with that.  That was a pretty relieving event in my life.  When I fought it, it came at me punch after punch.  But I’ve learned to live with it and make the most of it by using it when I can for good.  There are tons of people that I have become acquainted with that share my thought process and faults.  It’s really not the worst thing in the world to deal with even though I thought it was at one point in my life.  It helps to know you aren’t alone.  I am not alone.