Every year at Thanksgiving lunch, my grandma passes around a notebook. In this notebook, she asks everyone to write about what they are thankful for. She passes around this notebook and pen; everyone writes their thankful things and signs them with their name. I always feel immense pressure when someone asks me to do something like this like it’s a game I have to win. I always want my response to be perfect. So, I write about my family and God and whatever else I know people expect me to write, and it’s all true. But this year looks a little different. I’m not going to my family’s Thanksgiving this year. Not because I was uninvited, but more because I can’t figure out a way to reconcile what’s been said with what I want so desperately to hear.
I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, though I think they probably do, but there’s a phenomenon where everything I do is incorrect and causes harm in some way. I spend most of my time, or at least I used to, trying to be perfect (see the Thanksgiving message anxiety above). I tried really hard to never rock the boat, never say anything out of turn, and never make anyone upset. That was the worst thing I could ever do. Well, that and people not liking me. Luckily for me, I’ve been feeling all these things to the extreme for the past few months. I have so much I want to say, but anything I feel makes someone else feel bad, so I don’t know what I should actually say here. I’ve gone through a lot of grief over things I thought I knew, people I wish could see me for who I am, and the person I officially revealed myself not to be. Through that grief, I found anger. I’ve been sitting with both of those feelings for a while now.
It’s interesting here. I feel both sadness and anger so completely. I’m so sad. But I’m also completely enraged about those same things that make me sad. I’m also strangely happy and comfortable and free. I do have a lot to be thankful for, but also a lot to grieve. I’m thankful that I’m not pretending anymore to keep the peace. I’m thankful that I’m not letting people talk to me however they want and get away with it. I’m thankful I’m not staying quiet. I’m thankful for my husband and my friends who remind me I’m not crazy and I’m not the worst person in the world. Because they listen to me and understand what I’m saying rather than writing me off and praying that I stop whatever I’m doing and be quiet again. They don’t send me messages assuming the worst of me. Which tells me the ones who send the messages don’t know me at all.
Something I do when I feel unwanted is I make myself small. I’ve been having a hard time doing that lately. So, instead, I’ll stay away. You don’t answer my messages? That’s okay. I would love to talk to you, but you are not obligated to talk to me. You don’t reach out to me at all? That’s okay. If I don’t reach out to you either, just remember that it isn’t all my fault. Whether I’m told it is or I thrust that upon myself, it has always been on me to fix whatever is broken. Usually, it’s something I broke by attempting to get someone to listen to me. But I can’t be responsible for that anymore. It’s too much.
I hate that there is nothing I can say not to be the villain now. I don’t want that. But, I’m deciding to accept it. Every time I try, I make it worse. There is a fight or tears, and it’s not productive. So, here, in my very public personal diary, sometimes I like to express these feelings in the hope that someone else can understand them. Will anyone miss me? I don’t know. I think they may be relieved I’m not there to cause trouble. Again, maybe that’s just something I’ve made up in my head, as I’ve been told I do so often.
The sadness and the anger mix together so completely, sometimes I can’t tell which is which. Sometimes, the tears I cry are from the sadness of some things that are said or unsaid, and sometimes those same tears turn into angry sobs that fill me with a fire. Sometimes I want to hit something. Sometimes I want to scream into a pillow. Sometimes I’m tempted to rewatch Tick, Tick… BOOM!, and that is a dangerously slippery slope into a depression cocoon.
While I’m thinking about it, another thing I’m thankful for is being able to get out of bed every day, even though I’m feeling all the emotions. When I lived in Ada in the house I owned, I would come home from work, lay down, and not even be able to drag myself out of bed for dinner. I kept a bag of Takis by my bed and always had a Dr. Pepper with me. And that was all I could do. When Ben started coming over, he would clean the litter boxes and sweep for me. Maybe even do laundry. I was so depressed. I’m more than extremely thankful for my state of mind now, even though I’ve let a lot of people down. Something I figured out is that I have to take care of myself, and I’m doing better at that.
So, overall, I’m still thankful. I’m still sad. I’m still angry. I’m still happy. I’m still content. I’m still scared. I’m everything all at once. I wish I was understood for who I am by all the people I love, but maybe that just isn’t meant to be. Maybe the people who have stayed with me through my messiness, my sadness, and my ever-changing emotions are the ones who were meant to be there all along. But a part of me still wishes I was at Thanksgiving lunch to write a note in my grandma’s journal.
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