Update with a sprinkle

It's been awhile, so I suppose I'll do a bit of an update.

I didn't read, and aside from proofreading and admiring my own poetry, I don't tend to re-read what I've posted here. So, cut me some slack if any updates are redundant.

I quit my office job in February, because I didn't like it. That's it. I didn't have another job or grand adventure lined up, I just felt the pit of sickness and dread in my stomach as I anticipated going into the office, walking back to the 50 shades of grey square-shared area that was 4 cubicles, mine in the back corner, facing a wall. For the life of me and my technicolored 'business professional' clothes with a shining personality to match, I could not understand why they put me in the back, in a corner, facing a wall. No windows, no light, just the god-awful fluorescents and my sensing of the office manager stomping past while peering into our little square. Well, no more reading spirituality wisdom books under the privacy of the front desk. No more journaling and getting into my creative workshops with ceiling-tall windows surrounding me and the occasional unique insect I was able to research in my own time and bug the pest-control guy about when he stopped in to do his rounds. Just my new role, a fancy and 'impressive' sounding name for system data management that made me want to spring out into the woods somewhere for a week-long tribal scream, and a continuous stream of 9-to-5ers with full visibility of my computer screen.

I've learned an occurring pattern for me is saying 'yes' when i'm internally sobbing 'please, no,' out of a fear of not being accepted (I think). A fear of getting in trouble (maybe). A fear of others believing I'm not 'living up to my potential' (According to whom?) I feel there must be fear within me.

"Why, how dare you, Miss Becoming, be so content and pleased in a receptionist role? Don't you get bored? We assume you're just staring at the elevator doors, waiting for a person to smile at and be beautiful for... but those are few and far between. What is your 5-year plan? Don't you want to be like me? A slave to work, running on 4 hours of sleep but my name is feared in these halls? I can promise you exponential growth over the next 18-months. Now, are you committed to this company, do you just have the T-shirt with our logo, or do you have the metaphorical tattoo, our culture inked within you, forever?"

How can I explain that no, I love being paid to sit at a desk surrounded by windows and enough privacy and quiet to write in my journals, craft new poetry, and google the spiritual meaning of bugs that get through the cracks of the office building, and bats that get through the holes of my apartment? How can I explain that I absolutely adore being paid for a job that I can do well, while working on myself in the privacy when it arrives? I love leaving the building and not thinking about it all weekend! Is that allowed? Am I 'allowed' to exist as an individual human being with unique preferences and personal desires that fuel up when it is quiet? Am I 'allowed' to say hell no I don't want your crappy tattoo or your chemically-dyed t-shirt? I have the cheap logo pin that falls off on it's own when I run back to my real world. Am I expected to be staring at the wall bored out of my mind? I want to be at the beach!

I never got that. Working desk jobs for big corporate companies have privately been my safe haven. An opportunity to fuel my inner world. I can complete what is expected of me, very well, with my 'high ceilings for learning' and my 'very impressive resume,' and when the work has been worked, I use that additional time for me. Is that wrong? I suppose I've believed it's at least wrong to others, because I've hidden my books and journals when the supervisors, leads, and bosses come around. And yet internally, I don't feel any guilt. I just know I will be 'in trouble.' Or I believe I will be 'in trouble.' Given my upbringing, the fear of getting in trouble is one I can accept that scares the inside of my muscles and organs in a way I may still not be able to intellectually understand. Like an instinct.

So anyways, I quit my job because, for the lack of better words, fuck that.

After a week of activities that would sound like depression, but to me feel like deep rest, I made the decision to (again) prioritize my continuous healing. And I'm learning that there is more than processing and accepting the contrast of deep trauma I've experienced in my life. Part of me feels an instinct to explain my trauma, because it seems 'trauma' is a buzzword that is thrown around left and right, up and down, all around town. Part of me wants to be seen and understood as truly having experienced "real trauma," though I'm utterly aware of the unspoken 'ticket' of pain and suffering a woman must hold before they are accepted, respected, and embraced in society in their state of joy, positivity, and love. And for the lack of better words: fuck that, too. But also, maybe one day. If I feel like it.

There is more to healing than crying about my experience with my father, and the words exchanged with my mother. There is more to healing than buying a stuffed animal for my inner child and wrapping starved arms around it on the way to an Al-Anon meeting. There is more to healing than accepting the past as an experience I had and cannot change, accepting that a family member with Narcissistic Personality Disorder likely will never change, accepting that disordered eating is not just the years I spent shoving my mouth, spilling up my guts, and starving my body, but a phenomena that, despite my "getting help," continues on in not just my family member's obsessions with food, diets, and exercises, but a unique and somewhat Spiritual appetite that only I can decipher.

Nobody really tells you what to do after. After the healing workshops, after you go to the retreat centers and re-enact both childhood and adulthood trauma to release it. After you write the letter to your inner child and she writes one back. After you attempt to set boundaries with a parent who I remember saying "I am your father, you do not have boundaries with your father. The bible says respect your parent and women must submit to men," or something like that. They do not tell you what to do after you speak your truth, and what seems like the entire internet personally messages you in hopes that you experience more pain, and reporters want to make money off a 23-year old woman still in the trenches of that healing work. After you "do the healing work" and discover that you're not Christian, you're not straight, but your entire extended family seems to be and seems to also expect you to have been 'fixed' at the healing centers.

So now what, you know? The 9-5, capitalistic hustle with handfuls of misogyny and patriarchal bullshit just wasn't cutting it for me, anymore. I thought I could be who I authentically am and strengthen my inner garden enough, tending to my unique beliefs and values, allowing both myself and others to be who we truly are, regardless of where I am and whether others allow me to be who I am. But I can't get a full night of sleep, meditate every morning, practice yoga every day, journal, read, AND be expected to have the ridiculous metaphorical 'tattoo' or my place of work. The healing I've done has revealed values and practices that are so treasured to me, but simply do not fit in that other world. Perhaps I've outgrown it, perhaps having one foot in my world and one foot in their world isn't working anymore.

Perhaps this is me stepping further into my 'after.' Because these systems are what harmed me to begin with. I can create community and continue my healing past the processing, and into the building positive habits, choosing kindness and loving myself by matching my verbal answer a bit more with my internal, tribal screaming, "no," by simply saying (probably not screaming), "no." I'm learning that, for me, the next step in my healing could very well and possibly be stepping both feet into my world. Which scares the shit out of me, quite honestly, because I fear and somewhat sense that my authentic self is not one that will be accepted and embraced by those who may be closest to me.

So, basically the update is this: You'll be hearing more from me here. I'll be enjoying Michigan summer, at beaches and in forests as much as possible, practicing #yogaeverydamnday, inhaling personal growth and spiritual journey books, journaling like a mad man, and beginning to step deeper past my thighs in the somewhat terrifying waters of my Sexuality and gender identity. I guess I just needed to get some of that out. I recently read in Holly Ruth Finigan's book Wholeheartedly, that you tell a story 3 times, the first time is to release it, the second is to understand it, and the third, if you ever tell that story again, is to gift it. I may have told this story before, though I don't feel this has been a gift. I'm still releasing some of the more recent discomfort I've allowed into my life.

Write you soon. Until later,

Miss Becoming