A habit I have is seeking escape. I have escaped in all manner of ways. As a child I was told that whenever I was sent to my room for punishment, my Dad would come up later feeling bad that he had punished me and then he would peek in and I was happy as a lark in my room, alone, absorbed in one thing or another. Distracted. Escaped.
In High School I escaped study hall by sitting down in the Music room office with some of the other musical deadbeats and do NOTHING. Just sit around... hang out. Ofcourse this is a common thing with most High School kids, but I was aware even at that early age that I could probably be doing better things with my time.
I escaped with booze, drugs... never really hooked on anything to the point of destroying my life, but I USED them to escape and that is always a danger sign. Sometimes the subtle usage is just as damaging.
I escaped as all readers of this blog know through PLANNERS! Sigh.
I hide. I lived for ten years in Minneapolis and actually referred to it as my hide-out.
I hid behind shyness. I resorted to being shy. I wanted to be the center of attention but didn't know how to achieve that successfully. Most people who know me will say that I am always the center of attention but the weird thing is, I don't feel I am. I always want more. I want justification.
I escape behind pessimism. As I am getting older I feel like I am evolving into one of those “grumpy old men”. Yuck. I don't want to be that. I want to be the kind and patient cute old man. I don't want to frighten people.
Escaping... sometimes this BLOG is an escape. We NEED escape. But I tend to use it not nescessarily to refuel myself but to avoid things altogether.
Having to be on my mark, to be ahead of the game with myself is my constant struggle. I want this struggle to end.
In the last few days I have made some major strides in getting things done. I have had so many things hanging in the air. I am learning that most things take about fifteen minutes to do when you just pour yourself into them. But to get to that place without stopping to hear all the noise in my head is very difficult. I either have to turn down the volume of the noise (which seems impossible) or I have to just plow through it.
Plowing through...
A couple of years ago I was in a fading relationship that was actually pretty much a complete flatline. But I stayed in it. I was one of those comfortable with a sense of normalcy. It was comfortable. It was FAKE but seemed real, consistent. It wasn't until I was placed out of that normalcy that I realized how ABnormal it was. I had to get out but I truly had NO idea how to do it. It frustrated me. I realized I was in a relationship that wasn't working but didn't know how to get out of it. I realized then and there that I had to bulldoze my way out of it. I had to put blinders on and plow through and not be affected by any of the things that would distract me from following through with my wish.
The thing that distracted me the most was the idea that I would somehow either convince myself to stay and try to work things out or that I would be convinced by the person I was leaving that I should give it one more try. I knew that there was nothing more to try. No self help book, no counseling, nothing could fix it. And I didn't want it to be FIXED. It had been a long time coming because I had felt this way for a couple of years but ofcourse, never got the nerve up or the ability to communicate how I was feeling. I instead allowed myself to wallow in frustration and apathy. My world became a negative place. I resented my partner and started resenting myself for not going for what I wanted. I didn't think I had the ability to help even myself. I become extremely self absorbed and THAT was yet another escape.
I knew that I just had to plow past the fear of what might happen, I knew that there was a better place beyond this. I finally talked myself into it and when I started the process, sure enough there was alot of ugly stuff that came up. There was alot of upset and tears and I was removed from it all. I stayed calm and sort of left myself through the process. I don't know if this was such a good thing for me to do, but I knew that it was the only way I could get to the other side.
The act of doing that opened up a bunch of windows for me and slowly through the next couple of years, many of the other things that were seemingly wrong in my world were things added to my spring cleaning list. As I am typing this I have just NOW tied up many of those loose ends. It has been hard and I feel shell shocked and numb. I feel weird and tired and foolish that I was so lost in those things to begin with.
So now I have a clean slate. I still have alot of issues as I always will, but I am learning how to deal with them and manage them. That is the key word. I am learning how to manage them. I am hoping that with the beginning of therapy here, things will improve considerably.