Speaking Up...

Well, it is something that I tend not to do.  I would prefer to hold it in, generally, and allow what I am not saying to fuck me up, rather than say what I am thinking or feeling and have it fuck up the ongoing relationship...

And yes, I do know I got it backwards.

It is hard to change though.  Really hard.  Somehow I seem to have created this intimacy with myself and now all these years later it is really hard to let you in to what Erin: The Committee thinks, feels and believes.

I am not sure where I came to believe that what I thought or felt was no one else’s business but I did.  And it became the thing that made me feel powerful in the face of feeling powerless.  I hate that feeling more than any other.  Fuck, break my heart but give me options...it is when I am rendered completely useless that I feel the most broken.  I would rather throw a lot of activity at something even if that isn’t really what is best than have to just sit there and not be able to do anything to change the current sitch one bit.

So I have suffered in silence for a long time.  Or probably more accurately, I have shared what bothered me with someone other than the person I have the issue with, of course, this is counterproductive, and it is embarrassing how long that took me to figure out.

I think I was so desperate for a connection that I was loathe to do anything that might sever it once I felt it.  Also, there is my consummate politeness...which will be a blog in the coming days.  Between the two, I have NOT said a great number of things in my life.  Now, most of which was probably a good thing.  But there have been times and things that I should have spoken up about.

And I can also admit that my timing in this department is way off.  I don’t say anything for a long time then I have tendency to bring it up, or rather it expels out of me like Vesuvius.  Shocking that this is an all or nothing proposition with me also.  I say nothing and suffer or I explode with a word  volcano that rains down fire and ash.  Totally fitting. Totally not productive.

So these last few years, I have been trying to find some middle ground.  And it looks pretty much like you would expect someone who is just beginning something...sporadic, haphazard and awkward.  But I am, at least, working on it.

I am learning, S L O W L Y, to say what is on my heart and mind is almost always the right thing regardless of whether you like it or not. I have to like the relationships in my life, and I cannot tell you how long I have NOT enjoyed the relationships in my life but just accepted them because they, well, they were the relationships in my life.

Today, I am gaining ground on speaking up and saying my truth and allowing you to then make decisions about me and our relationship that are based on who and how I really am instead of whatever dressed up version of me that I was trying to peddle back then.  It has become more important that I say the things, even if that means the end of us, than to go on one more day feeling the way I do and holding my tongue.

I would love to tell you that my new resolve has lessened the anxiety and fear around speaking up but it hasn’t.  I just now have more anxiety and fear about keeping it to myself. So much so that it now out weighs the fear and anxiety I have about saying the thing that is likely to piss you off.  The scales have tipped and now, well, this is where we are...me being willing to say the stuff rather and lose you than to not say the stuff and keep you under completely false pretenses.

It has taken a long time to get here but I am grateful to have ever arrived at all.  Seems like life is this ever evolving relationship with yourself where you find things out about yourself that you kinda knew all along but just were afraid to own or allow or express.  Crazy.

However, if you are on the path, then you will inevitably arrive at the place where you are much more content to risk fucking up the relationship by saying the things than you are to take a hit and fuck yourself up by remaining silent.

And that is a very good day...

For you, maybe not so much for the other person.  But they are not your business and you have to live in your own skin...might as well be as comfortable as you possibly can.

Say it.   Speak it.  And let the chips fall where they may.

You will thank yourself later when the person who was not all that great for you to begin with is summarily exited from your life...and space is created for someone else to come along and fit into your life and world much better.  My experience?  We evolve to the level of our willingness to face the shit about us that we do not want to change...but do the work anyway.  And the rewards pay handsome dividends to our self esteem, ability to live comfortably in our own lives and create a hospitable soul to inhabit once more.