I haven’t written in a while. Life got in the way. Going to school full time and working full time leaves no time. Especially when I am also going through a divorce and managing a household alone. I’ve hit critical mass with my house and I’m ready to get rid of it. Things happen with an older house and that was manageable(ish) until I was alone. There are still things I can and will fix, but there’s just so much overall.

I’m tired.

This past semester, I took 5 classes – while working full time in a new role where I’m still learning, and we just did a hardware migration. Those things never go smoothly. Half of our team quit, and while we were undermanned before, we are ridiculously undermanned now. I was busy. And there was a lot of life happening with the kids and ER visits and wrecks and hurricanes and plumbing issues.

Friends told me I took too many classes. My therapist told me I took too many classes. My sponsor told me I took too many classes. But I barreled on, and I paid a high price – mentally and physically – to get straight A’s.

Was it worth it?

I got a massage the other day as a birthday present to myself because everything hurt. She told me she could feel the inflammation, and let me tell you, that massage hurt like hell! I was very sore for a couple of days, but I had better mobility. She assured me I can combat the physical by working on my diet and getting some exercise in. Which I have already started on because I am tired of hurting.

But the mental…

My therapist asked me what I still have left to prove and to whom. This is the question I don’t like answering. Because, really, what am I trying to prove? That I’m smart? That I’m self-sufficient? That I can do all the things? And to what end? To whom do I need to prove this? And the big question, why?

There is a quick and easy answer, but it is incomplete because the problem is complex. And so there is no quick and easy fix. It’s not helped with cliche or a prooftext bible verse or a pep talk. There’s not a sermon, formulaic set of steps, or special diet. (Though a good 12 Step group does help.) Mostly there is just a lot of hard and painful work involved to let shit go. And make no mistake:

It takes a lot of hard work to let things go that have been stuffed and suppressed your entire life.

It takes a lot of hard and painful work to reject as false a set of beliefs you were indoctrinated to believe were true that aren’t.

It takes a lot of hard and painful work to stop thinking you don’t measure up even when looking at tangible and obvious accomplishments.

All this to say, I think I’ve been doing the wrong work. I’ve spent my whole life working to live up to what I think others expect of me. Not what I know is expected, what I think. There is a difference.

It seems a simple thing to just let go of that rock, but here’s the thing. I didn’t pick up the rock. It was tied onto me by someone else with multiple tight knots that I can’t untie alone. Heck, I can’t even see them all. And that’s why the work is hard and painful.