Excuse me while I feel my feelings

My weekend was hell. Even though I really wanted to spend the weekend entirely with myself, I decided to go to a campout instead because I was sure that I would be glad I did. And I am sort of glad, but in a different way than I expected. I had pictured myself writhing around the speakers in hot pants, but instead I writhed around in my hot tent wielding off demons.

I spent the entire weekend beating myself up. I kept asking myself questions like
- Why aren’t Maryann and Brendan spending more time with me?
- Why am I not the cool fashion designer girl whose outfits everyone wears?
- Why am I not the cool psychic girl who everyone goes to with the stuff they’re working on?
- Why am I not the one wearing the coolest dress?
- Why am I not the one dancing carefreely with her friends?
- Why am I so quiet without caffeine?
- Why did my relationship have to end?
- Why am I not the girl with the feathers in her hair who seems to not have to apologize for anything she is or was or has ever done?
- Why am I not the hot girl DJ?
- Why am I not the one with the cool DJ boyfriend?
- Why do I seem like the most woo-woo person here?
- Why do I have to be the understanding counselor type, why can’t I be the mysterious artist type?
- Why do I care more about my internal than about my external appearance? Maybe if I switched it around, I would be cool like all the other people here, or at least people would THINK that I was?
- Why did I leave this community?
- Why am I now coming back to this community?
- Why can’t I make up my mind?
- Why can’t I just belong?
- Why am I not one of the organizers of this fabulous event?
- Why do I like spending so much time by myself?
- What is wrong with picking a community and sticking with it, it seems so simple, why can’t I just do that?
- Why do I have this fear of social commitment?
- Why am I an observer, not a participant?
- Why do I keep ending up heart-broken, over and over again?
- Why do I suck so much?
- What is wrong with me?

On Saturday night I ate a mushroom to spend some quality time with all of that. I was in my tent by myself by about 10pm, trying to answer those questions with a little help from the mushroom goddess. Of course I just ran around in circles that slowly sunk lower and lower, and eventually I gave up and said “Mushroom goddess, please just let me sleep now.” And I surrounded myself with nothing but pink glittery love. I learned how to do that when I was 17, and when I do, I can sincerely look at myself as if I was the most lovely and lovable creature in the entire world, I can look at myself as if I was perfect. So I laid there and pretended that I was perfect. And then this voice came roaring in, and it was fiercer and angrier than ever before, and it screamed WHO EVER SAID YOU’RE NOT PERFECT? And it kept repeating that and got louder and louder. WHO EVER SAID YOU’RE NOT PERFECT? WHO EVER SAID YOU’RE NOT PERFECT? WHO EVER SAID YOU’RE NOT PERFECT? And the roaring, fierce and angry voice would have been scary, except that I knew it was on my side, I knew it was there to defend me against all the demons in this moment of self-hate. And then I went to sleep.

I am glad that I was able to cut my taxi shift short today and stay at home painting and crying all morning. I cried over all the ways in which I have beaten myself up, in which I have felt inferior to others, in which I have felt that I was not perfect. I sat in the field of sun coming through my windows, like a cat, and I cried until I was done. I cried until there was no more imperfection to cry about, I cried until I was perfect. I cried until I understood how perfect I was and always have been.

And I didn’t really feel sad or bad, I felt good. It was a beautiful couple of hours. I listened to the same song over and over again because I noticed that it really triggered me, and I just let the tears flow, out into the tree and the sky who were happy to absorb them. It felt so good to feel my feelings.

And I wondered why I hide from my feelings so much. I hide from them with caffeine, by reading, by sleeping, by leaving events early when I feel uncomfortable. It’s paradoxical, considering that sometimes I fantasize about being in a rehab-like treatment for a month or two where I do nothing but feel and process those feelings. That sounds like heaven to me.

And that paradox made me realize what is going on: Even though I want nothing more, I hardly ever have room to fully feel my feelings. All my life I have been told that I should not be sad, that I should not be angry, that I should not worry, that I should not be bored, that I should not be uncomfortable, that I should not be scared, that I should not be tired, that I should not be jealous. Those are not good feelings to have, so don’t let anybody know that you have them. And sure enough, when I spilled myself out to the wrong person at the campout, I felt even worse than before. He wasn’t willing or able to give me room to feel my darker feelings. He wanted me to be happy and cheery and confident, not insecure or in a bad mood.

And it’s like that a lot – friends get uncomfortable when I cry in front of them, I can’t be tired anytime I want to because I have to work or do this or do that, I can’t be in a bad mood because I will bring other people down. I constantly have to keep my feelings in check; I hardly ever have permission to really feel them, especially if they are not positive. But this morning I had room to feel them because I am lucky enough to be able to take a “short shift” as a cab driver if I need to. And I’m so glad I took that time to feel my feelings, and I intend to structure my life in such a way that I am ALWAYS able to feel my feelings as they come up because I can feel that that’s the healthiest way to be. Thank god for people like Antonio or Trish or Daniel who make me feel like ANY part of me or ANY feeling I might have is always welcome.