The malaise is settling back in. Woke this morning to feel the baby devil on my chest and the tightness radiating through my windpipe and down my lungs, slowly tightening the air from my soul, reminding me that it may abate but never leave. Pushed up and out to get up, walking zombie legs and mind, that thrumming of negativity behind each step, knocking, incessant. Sat in the car after dropping the kids of willing myself not to cry with the pain of breathing and knowing that the weeks ahead will be inhumane work to make it through without a hit to the wall.
Are we wired to be happy, I don’t believe so, BPD we are wired to be sad, death-full, pointless, we’re wired to misery. Like the pam trees on the beach reaching to the ocean, no matter how you try, you cannot bend that trunk any other way, it may sway and move to and fro in the wind, but that bark is permanently grown facing the direction it was meant to be. I find happy so fleeting, I have it, and when I do, I treasure it like a newborn baby, watching it breathe, hoping it stays alive, cradling it’s sensitive spots and enjoying the smell of life and renewal.
Work is a dark knife that is pushed so deep inside of me, each flicker of a movement, no matter how slight, triggers a nauseating amount of bile to rise up figuratively and at times literally. I spend so much time reading, researching and re-reading and my core is trust, I need trust and I don’t feel trust at work. My back is vulnerable, there is no comfort that my partners have my back, instead it is more of a scrutiny and constant watch that bores holes into me. I can’t settle into this job because I don’t find it a trusting place. I make it a trusting and nurturing place for my staff but the partner side is a mess. When I worked this job before, 5-6 years, we were a family that leaned on one another, shared and no matter what, business or work, people came first and we were a team through thick and thin. Now, thin means cause and effect, repercussions, scrutiny, and a constant “watch my back” feeling that twists the knife ever so slightly each time and makes me want to crawl into bed and find that depression.
I would say that maybe this is me but I know I have worked other places, like the former iteration of this job and with my other partner with no cause and effect. For me, it comes down to the people and to the trust I feel in them. My other partner, we’ve been in harder situations and more emotional ones, living one on top of the other, and yet we persevere because trust, admiration and an acknowledgment that people come, we come, before our jobs. We’re not robots and I do not govern myself without emotion, it’s my BPD hallmark and I have grown proud of the positive sides of being a person that cares. But oil and water… they will never mix, so we can keep stirring that pot, and stirring that pot and it’s still going to be a slimy, incoherent, mess.
Happiness. I can access it, bring a smile, find a bright moment before I stumble into the grey. Yes, grey, not black, we still have some light in there. It’s hard to go to the light and come back to this horrible, closed up, trussed up city I live in. It’s disgusting really. But I know the devil of this place and it has saved my life a few times, and, by nature of yin and yang caused me to need saving of said life. So best thing for me to do, shrink pep talk, look at my calendar, find the spot 3 months from now to put a light and work towards getting there and leaving again for a respite to come back and do this all over. Yes, work will have another eyebrow raising moment but fuck them, better alive and working than dead. I know what I need- their world may be about the bottom $ line, mine is about staying alive for my children. If they can’t see that they can take their business, up their ass and keep it. I’m working my ass off, maybe not in their “logical, functional, spreadsheeted” way, but my way, which doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way if it’s not their way. And, being in this business long enough, if you get rid of too much of my way, your way will go down with it.
#hatingthiscity #hatingthislife #babyboomerssux #lovemykids #happiness
Last final days of being away. In this time my heart has expanded, contracted and at times split and spilled over with love and pain. Many memories here, coming back after 3 years. The fear of facing memories of my overdose and my subsequent departure into the wind, with not a word to a soul, had me scared of what my welcoming would be. Would people still remember me, accept me into a community I can call nothing else but home, or would I be an interloper, trying to feed back in after turning my back on many that had welcomed me into their home, their island, as a Belonger.
I was scared, very scared, but part of what this year has been for me is facing my fears, setting my boundaries and doing what is right for me and living through what those consequences, good or bad may be.
There is so much love here, belonging and community, giving that I cannot find in my city life. I walk out the door and I can’t help but smile at the feeling of being part of something, of a bigger whole that takes care of its pieces. Not just a dot in a sea of faces as it is in my “other” home where there is no whole, it’s all fragmented parts, people in lobbies that don’t make eye contact, neighbours that don’t care to make friends, strangers that can live side by side for years and never forge a bond. Acquaintances that are looking for the next best acquaintance to further their needs.
Not that my heart hasn’t yawed open at times here, some memories and misunderstandings are fresh and cannot be solved, and they caused such a tightening I thought I could not breathe. Walk away, I did, I walked away, to know that you cannot be everything for everyone and not everyone will understand BPD and suicide. I lost a friend who did not understand, it hurt, but luckily I had 2 friends to hold me up and walk away.
And old friends, they came out of the woodwork, no questions asked. You’re from here, will always be from here and they cannot wait till I return. That causes pinpricks of sorrow, can I ever come back here, can the 2 lives ever intertwine? So diametrically different that I do wonder if there is a split personality that can make me so able to rotate between both so easy. In no way are they the same, or am I the same. Where am I happier, here, with more people, more love, more belonging. Back in the city, its a handful of few, and when you’re in the crowd, you are no one, no one cares. And in the city you are stuck, maybe not stuck but attached to so few, your boyfriend, your best friend, your sister, but the rest are just faces in the crowd, you cannot reach out and touch someone.
I love walking out the door and running into everyone, walking down the street, shopping, sitting at a restaurant and it could be anyone from the taxi driver to the hotel owner, a celebrity, there is no class here, it’s flat, we are all friends. If you need friendly words and company it’s never far.
The city I live in is all about the who’s who and what can you do for me, I don’t trust my back with anyone. I don’t even trust my business partners, I am sure they would throw my BPD under the bus if it served them right. My biggest dread of leaving is going back to that, the constant tension and unease of what’s coming down the pipe next. You can’t run a business without trust and feeling like the other side has your back, for me I feel like it’s N and S Korea, I don’t trust anything and I am not giving anything or sharing anything lest it come back to shame me for my naiveté. It’s all about the bottom line there, it’s not about people, it’s about money. It’s not about feeling, it’s about logic. It’s not me and I feel like a fish in a sea of sharks trying to stay afloat and not ripped apart.
I digress. My heart is happy, my soul is full. I need to take this feeling back and let it buoy me through the next few months if I can. I have done, felt, lived all that I have missed in the last 3 years. I have felt the love, the warmth, the acceptance, and know I can come back and be welcomed with open arms, no judgement. I have a sadness that says, I likely will never return to live, the 2 lives have no intersection point, if I forge one there it never runs perpendicular, and the same for here. So, for now, a day at a time, create a memory box, save some money to maybe come back if the well needs filling.
I am glad I did this, through the insecurity and fear, I faced it, I conquered, and now onwards.
borderlinegirlliveshere 