Jumping Off

This blog haunts me. I love it. I hate it. I love it again. I long for it to adequately express who I am---all of me, not just the me that feels safe to put out there, the me that won't offend anyone at all, hurt any feelings, not be inappropriate. I hate that at this moment, my life, MY LIFE, has those elements. I hate it because if it's my life, I should be able to express it any way I want to. I hate it because it makes me feel shameful, secretive. That there are vast parts of me that I'm not allowed, for whatever reason, to talk about. I'm sick of feeling shameful, at the risk of making someone else feel uncomfortable, and I'm sick of writing about my life peripherally. I don't do that well. I want to get to the heart of things. I like to be right smack dab in the middle of truth.

I think people appreciate that about me, my willingness to talk about what everyone is feeling but nobody else will say. Do you? Those readers who also blog will get what I mean when I say it's a risk. You put your guts out there and then you hope that people will read, and feel something, and mostly validate what you say and who you are. It's weird to see the reports come in every morning detailing how many people have been reading, and try to reconcile that with dwindling numbers of comments. "They hate me," I think. But, I realize that I do a lot more blog reading than I do blog commenting. I understand.

So, I need to be more real. I've been depriving myself of the cathartic value of this blog for fear of what anyone else might think. That's just not who I am. And surely, the people who really matter, who really love me, accept me and welcome me. Embrace me, even. I say that with no small measure of faith, because I'm trying to learn if those people even really exist in my life, or will one day, but I'm going to think in that direction. That I can be accepted and embraced. Truly loved, even?

Even flawed as I am.

I've been seeing a counselor. It happened by accident, really. I take one of my children to see a counselor to work out some issues, and the counselor would meet with me for a few minutes after that session each week. Turns out, I'm pretty messed up in my own right, and could use some fine tuning. Oh, it's painful!

My assignment this week is to make a list of who I am. Not what I do, but who I am. Good and bad, I need to see ME more clearly, rather than through the filters of the opinions of others. I haven't started writing yet, because I'm not sure I really know all the way what is truth about me and what is deeply-held belief about me. What kind of person am I, really? I'd like to think I'm good in my core in this way or that way, but I know I have a long way to go too in so many areas. Still, there must be a small collection of worthwhile parts of me. I just need to first, find them, and second, believe them.

Here I go.