Holly Golightly (and a fellow blogger I stalk) nailed it when she expounded, "I don't have the blues. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?" ?"
I've got the reds. The mean, mean reds. Do you ever feel like the rules that you grew up with and live your life by don't seem to make so much sense anymore? Like they weren't designed with you in mind. They make sense in theory and on paper, but in reality you seem to have grown out of them...they just don't seem to apply to any of the situations that you find yourself in. Your choices are to continue to peddle your bike with training wheels, even though you have been riding that bike for YEARS. Long, lonely, years.....but in all fairness, there has been a crap-ton of fun during certain points of the ride. Or you are shoved into the swinging senior singles bus simply because you both have unadorned ring fingers. Again, just to be fair, there are some wonderful people on that bus, but just not 'my people.' In each situation you feel more and more juvenilized. More often then not, I feel as though I am being placated, and verbally pat on the head. (I am sure you can imagine how well I take to being patted on the head, literally or verbally.) I appreciate the sincere encouragement that most people toss out which well intended, I am sure. But seldom does it serve the speakers intended purpose, "Buck up lil' camper. Things'll get better. Look at Sister Dew!"
(For the record, I have never found that as anything other than completely terrifying.....never even a little bit comforting)
I guess this might just be some cruel cosmic teaching opportunity meant to help me relate to my fictional and mythical teenage children. I do, in fact, know how they feel. But I've got the message dude. Now I just feel like we are beating a dead horse....and sadly, I feel like I actually am that horse. Yes, indeed, I know now how those angst ridden teenagers feel when they stomp their foot and shout, "You don't understand!" Now I get where their angst comes from. I also know that the problem is mine. My attitude needs to change...but plain and simple I am out of ideas as to how to go about that. I've tried all the usual suspects and fixes. Honestly, they leave me feeling worse than I did when I began. You may want to step away so the lightening doesn't strike you, but I can't think of a more lonely place on Earth than sitting in the celestial room, by myself, or with one of my girlfriends/roomates.
So- I for now, I go through the motions...more often than not, faking a smile and the enthusiasm that seems to be expected, but hoping and praying to God that this too shall pass. Fake it till you make it, right? But truth be told, I don't know that it will. Certainly there has got to be a place for all of these square pegs...but all I can see for now are round holes.
Like I said, don't quote me on this. I have no answers. I am renouncing nothing, nor proclaiming anything. I am neither turning in my recommend, nor doing anything that would require such. I am rambling...musing on, if you will. But there you have it. I can't be the only 30-ish Morm who feels this way. If one of you has the magic bullet to fix the problem....spill it, ASAP. If you quip, "Why don't you just get married," then pat me on the head, I am definitely going to go track down that magic bullet....and I am quite a good shot.
I'm trying to old out hope like Holly. Heaven knows I've spent enough money at Tiffany's to put one of my hypothetical children through college, that is neither here nor there. But I would like to find that place that makes me feel peace, safe, warm, and welcome. Right now, I can't ind it. But if Holly (who was pretty much by actual definition a whore) managed to find her place, I can too.
"Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!"
Right now, I have no such place. But when I find it, you better believe I am buying some sweet furniture and naming the hell out of that cat!
*Don't need to get the APB out to the bishop, I am just venting about the frustration of feeling like one of the few single people around here in a very family oriented church, like I no longer am going to a church where 'everybody knows my name,' and who wants to go to a place where you don't feel like everyone knows your name?
5 comments:
I understand. I've had the mean reds before, and I'm sure I'll have them again. What I do know, is that they don't hang around forever. That's all I know.
Oh Jill, Jill, Jill, married or not, boy do I relate to a lot of this. Thank you for sayin' it out loud. Not to burst your bubble, but getting married did nothing to change my feelings of being a very square peg in the very round world of Morms. Maybe that's why I am at home while my family is where we all should be on Sunday mornings.
Don't you judge me, I have a headache.
This is what you get when I have a week off work, nothing to do....and stay up too late.
No judgement here. If I didn't have to teach Young Women's, I'd be at home with a headache as well. Believe me.
Let's hope the reds don't last long. I look horrible in red. :)
I probably shouldn't post, but I'm going to and you can just disregard. It hurts my heart to read what you're going through. I got tired of feeling like I was in the wrong place around age 26. I think mine was a deeper crisis of faith that had been brewing on and off since age 16, but I was very tired of that constant feeling of inadequacy -- like something was wrong with ME. So I stopped going to church. There. Done. And overall, I was happier. There was an adjustment period but I think it was harder on my dear friends than it was on me. Ten years later, I don't regret the decision. I'm not going to tell you all my problems disappeared, but a certain set of problems disappeared and I found I was more suited to handle the new problems that arose. And I felt more at peace.
We don't know each other and I'm not telling you to stop going to church. I'm not sure what I'm saying. But there. I said it.
I just reread my post and I should clarify. The "There. Done." part wasn't so "there. done." It actually took months of praying, fasting, scripture reading, journaling and crying to get to "there. done." But then I just got to the ledge and jumped.
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