Lyrics

"My hands are small I know
But they're not yours,
they are my own
But they're not yours,
they are my own...

I am never broken"

"Hands"
by Jewel

At some point...

At some point I need to stop feeling responsible for everyone else's feelings. A wise friend of a wise friend came up with a brilliant quote recently: "My intentions were pure, and your feelings are not my responsibility." I overextend myself constantly in order to keep everyone happy. Which of course doesn't actually happen. People still get upset. Crap still happens.

At some point, I'm going to figure it out.

librarianintx

A Brief History

See, the problem is, when I was younger, I was convinced I couldn't do much. In fact, I believed I SHOULDN'T do much. I was weak, I was disabled, it was dangerous for me to overdo. So to make sure I didn't overdo, I "underdid." Plus it helped that I had a mother who felt she had to overprotect me and do everything for me. Before I knew it I was 28 years old, living in my own apartment for the first time, and I barely knew how to do anything. I had very limited experience with cooking, shopping, and managing my own money. I had never done my own laundry. I was tweny-five when I took my first out of town bus trip by myself, and that was just to visit family. When I was faced with something I didn't know how to do, all I had to do was ask my mother to do it for me. Actually, I rarely even had to ask. She would already know, and just do it for me.

But now I'm learning what a good feeling it is to do for myself, and to figure things out for myself. Its qute a high for me. I'm also learning that within good reason, its good for me to be active. Yes, I do need rest, but the more I use my muscles, again within reason, the better my physical and respiratory health will be. And its true, thanks to certain medications and other medical interventions, I am accomplishing more in a day than I ever thought possible. And that feels GREAT! But again, the problem is balance. How much, how often, for how long? And what activities should I focus on? What are some things that I'm doing that it would be healthier for me to give up and let someone else do? What are some daily activities that I can give up control over for my health?

Balance

I feel like I'm going to search for it forever...work toward it and never completely achieve it.

I'm doing more than I've ever done before to achieve health. I have a big problem with procrasination, and rarely do everything that I'm supposed to in a day. Part of the problem, of course, is that I have too many things I need to do for health, and not enough energy and time in the day to get it all done. Breathing exercises, physical exercising, eating right, taking meds, routine hair, skin, and tooth care, etc. Plus keeping my environment and equipment clean...

Although I'm doing quite a bit in the physical health realm, I'm not faring as well in the emotional health area. All the orange juice, broccoli, cantaloupe, fish, and low fat milk are great, but the improved diet is counteracted by stress, frustration, the ongoing saga of my complicated interpersonal relationships. Every day I'm trying to balance the desire to engage in activities I enjoy with the responsibility of making myself available to the people in my life who need me. My body is almost constantly on a hair-trigger, waiting for some disaster to strike, big or small. I want to fix everyone's life, including my own.

I am not powerLESS to change this. I am powerFUL. But a part of me refuses to alter the status quo. It is that part that gets the pay-off, that feels a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, the satisfaction that the mind and the body has done as much as they possibly could to keep everyone and everything, including myself, as happy and running as smoothly as possible. That part, however, doesn't feel what the rest of me feels...frustrated, overwhelmed, lacking, never enough. Not every day, luckily, but too often.

Balance is the constant brass ring.
librarianintx