A story I'm telling myself is ...

It's time for a new narrative about my life

Today I feel like a failure again. I asked a friend what she does when a toxic narrative starts looping. She said she journals, stream of consciousness, without judgement.

I’m telling myself a story, over and over, that I am all washed up. Finished. Burnt. I’m separated from my long-time marriage, and I’m struggling to be alone. When I reach to dating for support and comfort, it slips through my fingers like water. There’s no real intimacy there. It’s just one illusion after another. Each time, running through my fingers, disappearing when I go to engage.

A story I’m telling myself is that I am destined to be struggling. All my life I’ve struggled, striving for that better version of me. And that better version always seems to be around the corner. An illusion too?

Be like the bird who

Feels the branch give way beneath him

Yet sings

Knowing he hath wings

This used to be up in my mom’s kitchen, among many other proverbs and sayings. It had a picture of a bird on it, ready to take flight. She used to say a good way to get to know her was to read the quotes on her cupboards.

This one has been ringing in my head for the past few weeks. It’s very much how I feel. I feel that branch giving way beneath me. The things I thought were supports in my life — my marriage, my work, my family — they’re a lot less solid than I thought.

My 20-year meditation practice has been shifting too. And that feels like the ground shaking beneath my feet. I don’t want to try to sit through panic attacks any more. I’ve desperately needed to feel comfortable and settled in my body.

Am I heading for rock bottom? Am I permanently overwhelmed by all this change?

Despite all the support systems I’ve put in place for myself, I feel like I don’t trust myself. At all. I’m suspicious that what seems like intuition is actually justification, or an elaborate way of hiding from real life. Who I think I am might actually be a performance, carefully crafted to be able to fly under the radar. Because when I show how deep my feelings really go, it’s always too much.

I spoke with an ADHD coach in my network over the weekend, and I said something that keeps coming back to me. I said the energy required for my masking takes away from the energy I need to be myself. It’s one or the other. I don’t have the energy for both.

My mask is the branch. It helped me get this far, but it was never a place to stay. In order to fly, I think I may have to let it go.