another poorly kept secret

that moment, when someone reminds you that you are not allowed to have problems
or, at the very least not handle them as poorly as you have been

and here I had been proceeding with the idea that we were all enjoyable and together if a bit sloppy, loving eachother, foibles and all. right more than wrong, clean more than...
well, you get it.

I wish there was a way to respond gracefully to such words. I wish there was a way to absorb the news of ones failings with a little more grace than apparently I employ in every other situation

but truth be told I was pretty much as bitchy about that moment as I suspect I have been about a bunch of others because as he noted, so succinctly, I am pretty much a mess all of the time these days

and you know what that means, when someone tells you something like that. it isn't that they are concerned and you are a lovely and strong person who seems to be kinda unhappy. they are letting you know that your problems have gotten so annoying and unavoidable and present that they are becoming a part of who you are. that they are an issue, and not just for you. they are letting you know that they are stepping in the mess, and everyone else is too. or they are tired of stepping around it. and neither is ideal.

don't get me wrong, I am not so in the dark about my own emotional state that I haven't picked up that I am having PROBLEMS. Anxiety, frustration, loneliness, and a little indignation and rage. And exhaustion. All true. Not the only emotions I experience, daily, but certainly ones that are making far too frequent an appearance.

and also, please, do not misunderstand: I know that these are emotions that have value, that they shouldn't have to be hidden in a veil of shame. but I also know that I would rather have them be occasional guest stars in my constellation of emotions, not regularly reoccuring cast.

which is to say: I don't think it is possible for me to embrace vulnerability enough to be okay with the idea that I careen through life the embodiment of such resolute unkempt emotions. Or more to the point: I don't want to be that person. I am not okay with it and I don't think anyone else is okay with my being that person either. I am not interesting enough to also be that annoying. But to be more specific:  I don't want to be the person who so clearly has issues and problems, who so clearly cannot handle her shit, that other people are inadvertently absorbing the static and handling them for her, or at least along with her.

I don't want to be a mess, and even though I felt like one up until that moment, some small part of me had been able to believe that the rest of the world didn't know, that I some how was not, in actuality, one.

Live and learn.

I wish I could end this with a feel good point about how you need to see the mess to begin the clean up. How you need to lay eyes on the destruction to know how big a clean up crew you'll need.

Maybe this is true and knowing is the first step. So there is that.

But I can tell you about the clean up crew, and you are looking at her, and I can tell you how much effort it is gonna take, and that is all of it, at every moment. So that is where I'll be for the next long while...over there with a shovel, digging a hole, and possibly a moat.