Valerie Roney

After all my rest and peace yesterday – it took ’til darkness fell before I had the capacity to stay awake for more than an hour, and still I slept for 12 hrs when I did go to bed – woke up this morning snarly. I’m just plain mad, and angry – okay angry is pretty much the same thing as mad, but it’s got more syllables so feels kinda different, you wanna argue with me on that, do ya? do ya? huh?

You’d think all that rest and peace would leave me with a delightful sense of serenity to fill my days of solitude. Oh no. First off, the fact I probably slept 29 of the last 36 hrs would indicate maybe I was a little overtired. And there’s nothing like disconnecting yourself from all of the distraction in your busy life to leave you alone with whatever’s going on internally.

I’ve been taking risks and hurling myself at all my boundries and limits, thinking eventually something will break. To my credit, the fact that I’ve got the energy and courage to be even trying is a good sign. But right now, stepping back I realize I’m feeling battered and bruised, and cat-hiss-spittingly pissed about being thwarted. I need a hug. Problem is I’m doing the toughest and scariest of this hurling amid a crowd of men – who culturally just don’t get my need for cheering on, comfort, reassurance.

I’m really glad to have a big male influence in my life again, I think I really need it. But it took me a while to find my footing, to not try and be a guy, even if I was “one of the boys.” From my tom-boy roots, it took me a long time to truly embrace my innate chickitude, and a bit of wobbling lately to remember that’s who I am, that’s what I bring to the table. So I’m being a chick; bringing my chick things of interconnection, openness, depth of interaction. But I’m also bringing my softness, my need for appreciation …my frickin’ vulnerability.

My frickin’ vulnerability. For all my talk yesterday of tipping over the shelters that stifle us, I’d sure like to scramble and pop that can on top of me now. Holy crap, it’s hard, and I’m choosing to do it in an environment where I’m just not going to get a lot of hand holding while I do it. Ouch.

So when I’m scared and hurting I do what I do best, get mad. Like somehow that is going to protect me. It’s not. But at least in these days of solitude I get to be snarly all by myself and not lash that whip at anyone around me – like some poor sod who hasn’t packed my groceries right. And because I’m really on a very large project of undoing 20 years of being trapped in illness, I know a good portion of the fury I’m feeling has nothing to do with what’s going on right now, but is splinters, shrapnel of hurt and frustration left stuck decades ago.

I didn’t realize this until I put on a playlist I’d titled Grumpytown, Bittersville (yes, I’ve got a whole playlist for this mood, 142 songs) and out popped a Pearl Jam song that made me cry. One I really identified with when I was 17 – my first year of illness: undiagnosed, tired all the time, angry, frustrated, depressed. Having run-ins with the mental heath system trying to treat me like some angsty teenager without every thinking maybe there was actually something wrong (my deepest gratitude to my Mom, who’s possibly more stubborn that me, who never stopped saying to all these “wise” doctors: But she’s never been the same since she got mono last year.)

And I know these feelings of frustration, being misunderstood, not getting what I need, this strong reaction I’m having now is more tied in to this festering bit of hurt, deeply buried, breaking through, than it is anything that’s really going on in my life right now. And it’s probably a good sign I’m pulling up something so deep, so old, going back to the beginning of it all. The only way out is through, and this is where it all began.

All I wanted was a bit of time to digest and regroup, I didn’t want to do any more work, damnit! Frickin’ solitude. Frickin’ vulnerability.