I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my energy and who and what I give it to. This pandemic has been awful for many reasons but it has given me a chance to challenge what and who I have deemed important in my life. I have had a chance to evaluate where my energy goes and to make some decisions about that.
Last March, when I was told to go home and not come to work, not to send my children to school, and to stay home, I sighed a huge sigh of relief. I had been burning the candle at all ends and I was exhausted. Being told to stay home and do nothing was a permission slip I didn’t know how badly I needed until I got it.
I had been working full time, taking two online graduate degree classes, parenting two children at home and one away at college, and really working hard at creating the kind of relationship I wanted with my husband. I said yes to every meeting, opportunity and extra thing with work because I had been out of the workforce for a long time and didn’t think I could say no because the new person has to say yes to be liked. My kids were in sports and our time was spent doing that most weekends and many week nights. My plate was full and everytime I took a bite, another mound of food was plopped down on my plate. I just kept eating because I was afraid to say that I wasn’t hungry. How do you take a sledgehammer to the life you actively worked to create but is killing you?
Well I didn’t have to. The global pandemic did it for me. Sports, work, school, socializing, and even leaving my house were no longer on the table. I couldn’t do any of it. All of the things that were keeping me busy and demanding my time and attention were gone. Aside from the absolute fear of getting corona virus, I was so relieved. I was excited to be able to think straight enough to finish my two projects for my grad school classes. I could cook a meal for my family and have time to sit down and enjoy it instead of grabbing food before or after practices. I could clean my house, read a book, and finally be free of all the distractions that kept me from having the relationships I wanted with the people in my house.
I realized how many pieces of me I had given away to things outside of me. So much energy going out and not a lot coming back in. I know that was the case because I was so tired and so relieved when it all stopped. I realized that I had a chance to think about it all and gather up my pieces.
I started with the easy stuff, like gathering up the time I had spent driving to and from work and to and from practices and I used it to do things like read or knit or paint or write. I gathered up my energy that was being consumed by a full time teaching job and while I wasn’t doing it, I thought about how I could do it better and smarter. I gave myself permission to imagine teaching in entirely different ways. I imagined teaching my students in a wide open space under a tent or in park or forest. What would I teach them? What content could be thrown away and replaced with real life experience? What have to’s and must do’s are just a waste of time and how could I teach if I didn’t have those restrictions on my time and energy. I remembered that I teach because I love knowing that I am inspiring young people to think for themselves, to solve problems, and how to be a person in a world of other people. To be kind, compassionate, passionate, and regulated. I began to get excited about the things we could do differently if all of our expectations were removed.
For so long, I had allowed the excuse of being busy and distracted to accept less than I wanted in relationships. We were all too busy to put in the effort required. We were too busy to connect, too busy to make the time and effort, too busy to change. When the world stopped, instead of taking advantage of all of this time to connect, to make time, to put in effort and to change, we didn’t. It made me beyond sad to know that the external excuses were a mask for internal unhappiness and inability to grow and change together. I was unable to fully process this truth for a few months but was glad to have the clarity. So much of my energy and so many of my pieces were wrapped up in that aspect of my life that I almost didn’t know who I was without it. When I started gathering them up one at a time, it all felt awful. It felt like taking apart something I thought was going to be so beautiful but just didn’t work. There would be no perfect puzzle, no complete picture. Just my pieces that were no longer needed and I didn’t know what to do with them. In fact I felt like many of those pieces were going to be left there on the floor because they were not who I wanted to be, not who I was going to be.
While I continue to be grateful for the pause and the chance to reevaluate my life, I would like for this pandemic to be over. It is beyond my comprehension that over 500,000 people have died so far and we are not finished. I am also beyond grateful that I did not lose anyone close to me as of now. The grief I feel for those I didn’t even know is heavy enough.
As I continue on in this new year I am learning so much about my pieces. There are happy, loving pieces like in the picture above. And there are sad, lonely, grief-stricken and exhausted pieces of me as pictured below. I can feel both at the same time and it is hard. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that it serves me well to be very protective of my pieces. They are me. They are who I am. If I give them all away, I am not whole. I’m beginning to see that I don’t need to give anything away at all, in fact I shouldn’t give my pieces away. I should keep them and keep building my picture of what Carie looks like whole. I can show my pieces to others and let them experience me whole (or as whole as I am at this point) but not give anything away. What does that mean?? I’m struggling to understand it myself but I have some ideas.
Me feeling sad, sad, lonely, grief-stricken and exhausted .
What if I got the wrong message in life and that no one is meant to give themselves away at all? I have been trying to come to grips with the idea that I only need to allow people to see my pieces, not have them. That they can get a glimpse and decide what they think of me in pieces, but also as a whole whose pieces fit together. For example, I might want you to think that I am a hard worker, so in the past, I would have given you my hard worker piece, and hid away the piece of me that gets tired, needs a break, needs help, and just isn’t going to do certain things because I am lazy. Well if I only show you that one piece of me and hide the other, you will think I’m a great employee or great worker, but my part that I’m hiding is going to get sick of being forced to hide. I will burn out because I’m not allowed to be all pieces of me, just the one I show you or give you that shows you I’m a hard worker. I will spend my time out of your sight unable to get dressed, letting my house be a mess, light bulbs will go unchanged, and mundane tasks go undone because I only have the energy to put into the piece you can see. My hidden part rages when you aren’t looking or can’t see.
This year I have tried to be real and whole. I have said no at work. I have asked for help. I have allowed more of my whole picture to be seen so that I don’t have to hide that part of me that cannot attend not one more meeting at the end of a hard week. I don’t have to hide that I love to work hard but I also need to rest and recharge and sometimes only put in half effort. I feel better, like I can be all of me and not be ashamed of the part of me that just doesn’t have it in me to give 100% to my job every single day. I feel like I can imagine somethings that are new and different and not put so much energy in things that I don’t believe are worth my energy and effort.
Another example is with people that I love. I am learning that I do not have to give to them only the pieces that they like and hide the other parts. For example, my kids love fun and responsible mom who does everything for them, keeps their lunches packed, does all the cleaning, and still has time and energy to plan fun trips or adventures. I would hide the part of me that could hardly keep up, didn’t care if they ate snack cakes for lunch as long as I didn’t have to pack it, and the one that was too tired to adventure and plan. This led to unrealistic expectations from my kids about me. I could not live up to it forever and I am now not living that way. I took back the perfect mom piece and transformed it with a real mom piece. She works full time and needs them to pack their own lunches. She sometimes spends hours in front of a television on a beautiful Saturday morning because it has been a long, draining week and she needs to rest instead of plan an adventure. She also dances in the kitchen when she does the dishes and cooks because that fills up her cup and she doesn’t want to hide her joy from her kids. I’m no longer giving away a shiny piece of me for my kids to consume without ever seeing my rusty pieces too. Now they are seeing two pieces of my large puzzle that all have their place. Everyone likes shiny pieces, but they aren’t real. Trying to be a perfect mom is not sustainable and in reality, it isn’t the truth. Why would I hide my imperfect parts from my own children? They need to see all of me so that they know it is okay to be shiny and rusty and that it gives the whole picture depth and dimension.
I feel like I’ve went down a deep existential rabbit hole with this one, but it is where my mind and thoughts have been. It feels bad to give away your shiny pieces and hide your rusty or imperfect pieces. It will destroy you. It is also lying to others when you only show your best pieces and and not let them know the entire you. I am getting very particular about who gets to see my puzzle. I have started showing pieces that are shiny but attached to rusty and imperfect pieces to people and in all honesty, many don’t like it. They prefered my offering of shiny attached to nothing pieces that weren’t really me. So my audience is shrinking but my puzzle is growing. I put a lot of time into learning my pieces and what I want them to look like and how I want them to fit together so that I can love and appreciate the beautiful creation of me. It won’t be for everyone, but I don’t want to be for everyone if I can’t be all of me.