a little heartbreak today...

After I wrote the previous post early this morning I cried. I didn't cry for anything in my past. I cried for what I've never received, for what I needed that I've never gotten because not getting it when I should have has made me wander all over seeking it not knowing how to wander in a purposeful fashion. But the truth is that none of us are given a guidebook to life, to how to figure out how to get the tools that are missing in our toolbox. Frankly it seems to me like some people don't even see they are missing tools in their toolbox of life, they don't ask themselves this question or don't like to hear it. Maybe not everyone figures it out. Maybe some give up trying. Actually I know some give up trying because I've spent my entire life witnessing that up close, too up close in the people I love. I think this is common actually, just not spoken about, at least not in the Indian culture I've experienced. But my truth is that there is a fire that burns inside me that refuses to give up. While I definitely should win the award for stagnancy and slow, snail-paced movement, what Rumi wrote about how our job is to "remove all the barriers within ourselves" is how I've always seen my adult life. I'm not good at it, but that is how I view things. What is the point of burying something? It isn't going to go away, it just stays there until you deal with it and if you don't it can manifest and come out in lots of different ways.

I've been asking myself a lot lately who is a witness to my life on a daily basis. There isn't anyone. Even single friends are busy or wrapped up in their own major struggles so there is not much continuity I feel in our interactions like there once was. Plus it seems like many people want to do the bulk of communicating over text message or email and I'm opposed to long conversations in these medium when I live in the same city with that person and we can both make time to spend together. The lack of witness or daily interaction with a roommate, best friend, romantic partner, etc. is hard for me because I'm what a friend of mine calls an external processor. I like to talk about things and I realize I have a need to be heard. I wrote that last sentence just now and then deleted the last part and rewrote it because writing "a need to be heard" just sounds pathetic. Anyway, it is the truth. And over the last few weeks I'm coming to see that I don't feel heard...I'm unheard in my life. I think I probably have been unheard my entire life if I'm really honest with myself. There was never any space to be heard, there were too many things to manage growing up, a voice was not considered a necessity, but a silly luxury and the American way, not the Indian one. To survive was the goal. Even though my family successfully achieved this goal they never then jumped to thriving...thriving and surviving are two very different things. Life has been a series of things that are treated like mini-crises mixed in with the rare, but at times real and tragic crises. And this week, this morning it all came to a head. The background relates to my therapy appointment this week. My therapist is organized and reliable. When she says she is going to do something she does it. When we make an appointment she is always there when I show up. When I challenge her she steps up and answers my tough questions honestly. I feel she kicks my ass on a regular basis and doesn't sugarcoat or gloss over. We don't have a standard meeting time as both our schedules change weekly lately so we just schedule a time at the end of each session for the next one. Well on Tuesday I showed up and she wasn't there. Her colleague let me in and I waited. 30 minutes later she showed up. She thought our appointment was an hour later than it actually was. I had a dentist appointment after and so couldn't stay for a whole session so our session was short. She, of course, apologized and asked how I felt about her mistake. It was too early at that point to process it and plus I hate those typical therapist/client things where you have to analyze why you're late to a session blah blah.

As the days went by I thought about how I felt and realized what I felt was not anger, but disappointment. Last week we had a really powerful session and our work together has been evolving and getting stronger. She was able to hear me, support me, and also state her case about what the next course of action was I needed to take. So I realized this week that I wasn't mad, everyone has missteps sometimes and screws up. I don't think she did it on purpose, I don't have typical abandonment issues about this. As I knew she would raise this in our next session I wanted her to have time to process my reaction and collect her thoughts so I called to leave her a message this morning. As I was leaving her a message the voicemail time expired and I was cut off mid-sentence...I realized I had left a long message and instead of calling back again to finish it I just deleted it. Her outgoing message says leave a brief message and for once I thought oh I should abide by that. But after I hung up I realized how unheard and pissed that made me feel and I saw oh that is what I'm really feeling...is unheard by her as well. That even after this really powerful session last week her showing up and mistaking our appointment time activated for me that feeling of being unheard by another.

I don't think a lot of people think seriously about me as a person. What does that mean? I mean I don't know how many people really think and consider my life and what I have to contend with or what I come from and how that colors who I am and how I interact and manage my life. I realize that most people in my life do not look at things through a psychological lens and while that is ok because they are my friends, coworkers, or family at times this perspective would be really helpful and would make me feel really valued and considered. I assume a lot of people in my life look at me and think oh whatever, it is just her whining about her privileged life. I think because I have food, shelter, money, family that my life is easy and I have no right to complain. I think what is wrong with me that I can't get my life in order the way I want, why when I know I'm the one stopping me do I continue to struggle, why am I so stupid? And I realized in the early hours of this morning that my life emotionally is really hard. Everything I have to manage between me and my parents is real and has been there since my first memory and will be there throughout my life. I also have always thought that since I talk so openly about my shortcomings and problems that I'm weak, that others are managing so much better because they rarely if ever discuss things and I'm the screwed up one cause clearly others are having the "normal" reaction and I'm not. I'm a late bloomer, I don't bounce back easily, etc. But lately I'm surrounded by a lot of people who don't deal with their major struggles, at least it doesn't seem in a very pro-active manner. And when I thought about that this morning I realized well Samosasforone, it has always been this way. This is what you were born into, this is the monkey on your back from your family. This is why you attract people like this and why at times they grate on you because it is all too familiar. And in sitting there in the early morning crying with all these thoughts swirling around my head I thought no one sees me. This isn't true fully. There are people that do see me and a few...a rare few that actually aren't so self-absorbed despite their huge responsibilities and actually selflessly ask on a regular basis how I am and what is really happening in my life or how I am feeling about things and then sit back and let me answer. But the truth is that I've never been seen in my life by those that are closest to me and rarely been heard by them. And I've gone about my life not thinking consciously about it, but now I see it and get why when asked for a detailed picture of what I want in my life, when given a white canvas to create I can't. I have always had to be who we needed me to be, one of the pillars that was needed to hold up the foundation of a family, a responsibility I was way too young to take on. But one that I feel is common in first-generation children of immigrants in this country. As things were somewhat different in my house than most others it seemed and as I'm an only kid I was emotionally given an adult serving of this responsibility rather than something kid-sized. I know it was not done on purpose, I know they did not mean it. I know they did the best they could with the tools and knowledge they had. But this is the truth. Because I grew up in such a fear-based household...seriously some of the parents I grew up with in our Indian friend circle probably are secret partners in that whole Worst Case Scenario book series...any risk, especially an emotional one based on feelings was seen as flighty and horrible and drastic. It continues to this day. My response when this happens now is "You can't live your life in fear." I've never had anyone to rely on except myself. I have no siblings to share the pressure. I've tried to rely on the men I date, but obviously that never works. And so when my therapist mistook our appointment time I felt more of the same. I ended up calling back and saying some of this in a voicemail. And when I replayed my message and listened to it my heart broke a little bit for myself because everything I felt was perfectly justified and I felt sad for the little girl I once was and for the lost woman I am today.