Whole

I'm learning that it's really ok to jettison people.  that it's still ok to want to do that, even after getting rid of narcs and whatnot - even though these people may not have been from 'the bad time' - when being with someone takes more energy than you like, it's time.

When a person is broken also, same as you, it can mean 'hey ha ha we get each other!' or it can mean nothing.  I can see that you are broken but your pieces do not fit with my pieces, not really.

I'm just so done with things/people/events that sap my energy and don't give me any back.  Now that I've had an epiphany about myself - that I'm really not all THAT broken and that my definition of what makes me strong and good is changing.  And that just because I might like a person doesn't mean they need to make it into my inner sanctum of peaceful friendship.  Arms length is a good place for some people and the best place for me to keep them.

We all know that going no contact with narcs is the only way to happiness in that area.  All of us get there eventually.  Once you realize that no birthday party, no christmas morning, no family event is worth their presence.  But it seems to have boxed my thinking up.  It isn't just SUPER BAD GUYS that need weeding out.  It can be other people too - perfectly friendly, nice, non-horrible people who I just don't like all that much.  There doesn't have to be a reason other than MY reason, which is that they don't make me feel easy and energized.

Absolutely nothing is coming with me into my new world, my final third - nothing that I don't want.  And picking what I don't want is fun, actually.  It's very easy to recognize.

I'm going to break the mold for Thanksgiving and Christmas from here on out too.  There is more than one way to skin that goose before you roast it up.  Being with family, nope.  Being with a FOC - well, maybe but being ALL ALONE might be the nicest, happiest thing ever.  Maybe renting one of those cottages on that pier and finally feeling completely light, free, and RIGHT is what I'll do.  Jeff will join me on the porch (once he is home from his family obligation) and we will watch the sun set over the water.

Nothing bad happened on Thanksgiving!  nothing at all.  I didn't feel threatened or unhappy.  But I didn't feel SWELL, like it was the best use of my time and energy.  By the end I was just looking forward to it being over, which yes any company can make you feel that way, really - but there wasn't an equal and opposite feeling at the beginning, a feeling of excited looking forward.  And during, no feeling of energized conversation.  It was fun - it was fine.  The best that could be said was that there was no drama.  Which used to be all I asked for.  I want more these days.

I'm done with feeling uncomfortable around anyone.  I just realized, the point of this post - my being uncomfortable isn't about how broken I am, it isn't about personal space or anything to do with ME actually.  Besides the fact that I chose to spend time with people who make me uncomfortable.

It's my bad choices, made out of a misconception that broken people should stick together.  It stems from choosing friendships with people when you are first and foremost broken, and you want to surround yourself with other broken people.  I'm not really broken anymore, and I don't want broken anymore.

And my life is wide open to meet people I can really connect with.  Simply by not leading with my abused child self I imagine I will meet better (more whole?) people.  Broken people attract broken people.  I want to meet 'whole' people.  Interesting people.  NICE, calm, happy.  HAPPY people.  No more gathering people close simply BECAUSE they are broken.  More to the point would be gathering nice, interesting people into my world broken or not.  Not the first thing I look for, not the first thing I talk about.  Not the first think I show of myself.  The broken places aren't the most interesting places anyway!  not always.

Spotlight on the whole person, not just the cracks.

I have some good whole people already in my world.  I am cutting and culling the others.  And in turn I am making my own self learn to lead with my whole self, my interesting, happy, whole (as in not missing pieces) self.

The cracks are there - there is just no need to point them out.

Acceptance comes in many forms.  I ACCEPT ME.  I like me.  And all of me, the WHOLE me, is a pretty great person.

My mosaic table top *edited*

This is the mosaic table top I made at the class I signed up for.

Lo and behold, the woman is a kindred spirit.  not in the Lived with a Narc way, but in the 'wow my brain doesn't feel quite as broken when I'm around you' way.

I've already told her I'm interested in taking another class.

Doorway INDEED.

**********

Good grief.  Remember when I found this random photo on the internet?

I used Picasa and re-cropped it and lightened it:

TW - you are right, they are pretty Celtic looking.  Also IT'S A MOSAIC. (well, if by mosaic, in this case, you mean tiles in a frame.  but still.)

The table I just did.  Mosaic Celtic trinity.

These coincidences are just happening all the time, and if I wasn't writing this stuff down I wouldn't even remember.  Because stuff like this has happened all my life but unless it's on this blog, I don't really have specific examples.  Not many anyway.

I just keep moving forward into this new great place, and take notes on the way!

Elimination Round

So - let's talk doorways.  Thresholds.  The type I keep alluding to here and there.

Here's some woo-woo for you:  for about 6 months now I would get VERY dizzy in doorways.  I know I mentioned - but it was very weird.  I would get seasick unlocking my own front door.  It also happened at the elevator lobbies, which I figured could be explained by the way the building might shake?  because of the elevator machinery?  but yeah - even the gates out to the river behind the complex.  Just a weird feeling of vertigo while I was unlocking/waiting/passing through.  It also happened at the ocean - when I would/still do stand in the waves and look toward the horizon, listening to seagulls and watching the cute surfers (what?) I would get very dizzy.  Chalked that one up to the movement of the ocean around my knees.  I do TRY to be logical...

random beach house from google but what a view...

So I started wondering what could be going on, in a woo-woo fashion (that fashion back up until like 2 weeks ago was thinking it was SKEERY NEGATIVE STUFF I mean I always, always thought if it was woo-woo in any way, it had to be negative)  I thought maybe the little protection spells/intentions I have done for my home may be stronger than I thought?  ha - but you know, one does like to be all egotistical once in a while.

Once I started paying attention - which that phrase started being very loud in my head PAY ATTENTION! I started to think of doorways and thresholds in a different way.  In a more 'you are on the verge of walking through a life doorway hello!' way.  Which was part and parcel of the stuff I've been realizing over the last year?  At least 6 months or so.

First it was, I think, realizing that I had so much actual PEACE in my life.  Any fighting or arguing with anyone was going on inside my own damned head.  None of that was happening to me in reality land.  I was/am still so used to FIGHTING and feeling scared and alone and tossed around that my brain just kept going on that path even though there was nothing really there.  That sort of thing has been happening to me for the last 4 years actually.  So I had to forgive myself for that, pat myself on the fanny and start telling myself 'it isn't real, you're just used to turmoil it isn't real' - and kept learning to let it go.  And the doorways started in.

(doorway dizziness and the hairpins - started finding one a day again I'm on the right track I think)

And then I figured out about the 3 cycles of my life - and I'm entering (soon) the final cycle.  And I've just started to think about what I want to drag with me into this new wonderful place.  And the doorway dizziness is SHOUTING at me to pay attention to this loudly now.  'you have a choice and it's huge what are you going to do?'

And so I'm deciding I'm leaving all the overt negativity behind me.  ALL of it. I am not bringing any of my childhood abuse crap with me into this new place.  If I can shake it off and get rid of it, it's going.  I can't remove my past but I can stop SWIMMING in it.  Stop marinating in it.

I've gone through my favorites bar on my computer and deleted well over 100 links to blogs.  DONE.  I don't want to study NPD anymore.  I was absolutely immersed in it for years, and it was like an AP college class and it saved me and brought me here.  And now I'm done.  I still have the links on my sidebar, people I have 'met' and who have helped me so much.  But I'm not going to spend the best part of every day checking a shit-ton of blogs about abuse anymore.

I deleted links to Child off Hoarder blogs.  To alcoholism blogs.  No more weight loss blogs, no more personal finance blogs.  NO MORE.  The struggles are real, the successes are wonderful, the stumbles are heart breaking - but it's drama and it isn't MY real life.  And I know enough about ME and my childhood now to not have to study the fuck out of all of the ways people can abuse children, themselves, their families.

And with that, I've decided to leave my own childhood abuse outside this new door.  It is a part of me, sure.  But it no longer defines me.  I made an analogy of my broken self, my abused self, that I'm like a 3-legged dog who has learned to cope with only having 3 legs.  To take that into this new headspace - yes - I am still a dog with 3 legs.  But - this is stupid maybe.  but this:

rather than having people say 'oh poor doggie!  you have only 3 legs!' 

I want to be 'you're a smart, kind, loving, funny great dog!  

oh yeah, missing one leg but meh!'

(also:  I don't want people describing me as a DOG but I'm hoping you get my drift here)

So this next couple of weeks is going to be a lot of walking and thinking.  And getting rid, really getting rid, of this sackcloth and ashes I've been wearing.  I still haven't truly decided what I'm going to be when I grow up - I haven't decided what I DO want in this next phase of my life.  Beyond WATER, grass, a hose, some mermaids IS IT SO MUCH TO ASK? but I know what I don't want.

And that, y'all - that is one way to head into the future.  I'm walking down that path, heading toward that doorway.  Elimination round commences.