Do you know what drives me batshit-crazy?
When people look completely aghast when you reply "I'm feeling pretty crummy" after the perfunctory "how are you today?"
I'm not naive; I know it's a societal nicety, and that everyone always answers "I'm well" or "fine," particularly when it's in passing or when unacquainted with the asker.
However, I've made the (what now appears to be oafish) move of telling a local soul or two about how life is all heavyboots and kind of tough right now - even providing a few of the details. Annnd, I know that no one really understands another's struggles (i.e. how infuriating and debilitating it is to answer the same question ten times a day, how mindbogglingly numbing it is to navigate retirement paperwork and clinical trial options, how hard it is to drag yourself home after a long day filled with vacant, horrendous fake smiles and proceed to then slap on a completely different grin-and-bear-it, level of fake smile and positivity and muster up the energy to tackle social studies homework with a kid who's academically behind because he's been in the thick of it for years longer than you have).
I get that others don't get the depths of how hard some of the days are. I know that I've flippantly asked this same question to friends of which I am fully aware are battling some really tough demons/hurts/losses. Guilty as I charge others.
Still.
What I don't,
do not,
cannot fathom
are that people could miss that it's hard in general. That some days aren't going to be "fine." That when I say "my day is crummy" I don't need to be given the blank look of expectation, I don't owe you some lame back story about losing my keys or missing my favorite TV show this week. Think for just a second: you know the background, and it's not getting better overnight. (Not everyone, mind you, I'm filtering my desire to verbal process with every living thing. But I did confide in one or two people I thought might-could be supportive.)
And to you all: I don't need you to fathom the degree - but I want you to know that it's tough.
--> Not in a, "be impressed with me and place some epaulets on my shoulder" kind of recognition
--> nor in a vapid "my life is so hard, give me attention" kind of way.
...But more in a "I don't have many friends in this city and thus vulnerably confided in you that life is hell in order to get a slight feeling that someone understands/can support, can not ask a vacant, thoughtless 'why?' when I don't have energy to pretend any longer and say that all is swell and thus answer 'completely crummy' when I'm asked 'how I'm doing'" kind of way.
Also,
I really don't want to be a one-upper, or obnoxious or self-involved. However, if one more of my classmates blathers on about how terribly and horribly busy and exhausting their life is (particular points docked from the few that I told bits about my heavyboots and have already kicked off the this stimulating conversation via the aforementioned aghastness/blank stare), I'm probably going to croak.
As in completely snap.
As in completely snap.
I have no idea how we as a society have come to deify and curse, toil for and run from, blather on and be silenced by a lifestyle of (often feckless?) busyness. I do know that a year ago, I was blundering on and on most every day with my cohorts about how 'my life is sooo busy' (and thus - important? valid?), and I hadn't
a
clue.
And I know that I still don't have a clue. I've never woken up for crazy feeding hours or to the cries of a sick kiddo. I'm sure I can't begin to imagine the depths of despair, illness, stress, financial burdens, and loneliness many are currently experiencing - and that are minutely universal, but mostly deeply personal and crippling and seem to weave in and out of different life seasons while no one else seems to notice.
Why do we compare suffering? And scheduling? And validity?
Why is busyness a rallying point? trophy? accolade?
So I am perpetually trying to check myself. And to no longer bring up how busy and tired and crummy I feel in conversation, as though they are a prize to be won. I'm trying to reign in the bitterness and resentment I feel toward my fellow twenty-somethings who can just be busy with middle-class American twenty-something things.
And I'm trying to be mindful and aware that in spite of this {totally obvious} enlightenment(?)/perspective, that I, like the rest of us, am completely immersed in the going, doing, racing, filling up every moment. Right now I can't stop it, but I am trying to name it - and knock it off the pedestal - and call it for what it is.
a
clue.
And I know that I still don't have a clue. I've never woken up for crazy feeding hours or to the cries of a sick kiddo. I'm sure I can't begin to imagine the depths of despair, illness, stress, financial burdens, and loneliness many are currently experiencing - and that are minutely universal, but mostly deeply personal and crippling and seem to weave in and out of different life seasons while no one else seems to notice.
Why do we compare suffering? And scheduling? And validity?
Why is busyness a rallying point? trophy? accolade?
So I am perpetually trying to check myself. And to no longer bring up how busy and tired and crummy I feel in conversation, as though they are a prize to be won. I'm trying to reign in the bitterness and resentment I feel toward my fellow twenty-somethings who can just be busy with middle-class American twenty-something things.
And I'm trying to be mindful and aware that in spite of this {totally obvious} enlightenment(?)/perspective, that I, like the rest of us, am completely immersed in the going, doing, racing, filling up every moment. Right now I can't stop it, but I am trying to name it - and knock it off the pedestal - and call it for what it is.
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