Being the Coffee ... good luck getting through this one....oh look! im still painting

Ever hit a wall? They always talk about hitting rock bottom…. Emotional and spiritual bankruptcy… I am not there… and won’t find it necessary to visit that place again… I think when one doesn’t pay attention to their emotional health… or their spirituality, that they miss all the warning signs during the rapid spiral fiery descent. I refer to these warning signs as walls… because experiencing them… and being aware that they are happening because of how you are behaving… not due to some cosmic force out to get you and taunt you (How silly do you feel when you have to own up to the fact that god doesn’t have a sick sense of humor… doesn’t hate you… or pick on you… you just have a huge ego) … feeling them is like hitting a wall… in every brutal sense your imagination can conjure up….sometimes comical …. Sometimes painful…. There are many walls…. The Stress wall (this encompasses finances, scheduling, housework all the physical things we have to do) … The Physical Health wall (This is coming from an insomniac… sleep is like a drug… it either makes me or breaks me, sometimes I don’t sleep due to the things in my life, sometimes I just don’t sleep, sometimes I don’t sleep because I have someone I really would rather spend time with than be sleeping… The I'm eating too much wall, the I'm not eating at all wall, the I'm laying on the couch and feel gross wall) The Work wall (You know this one… the I’m getting fired wall…the I can’t do anything right wall…. The what more do they want from me, I’m underappreciated, over worked, under paid, oh my god there is a huge meeting I am not prepared for… are you sure you kept that email with me approving this HUGE mistake wall….no you can’t have my first born wall)… The Children wall (This really can encompass any definition of family… or people you love….What are they doing, where are they going, are they making the right decisions, did they brush their teeth? How do I convince them they are the center of the universe, without having them act like they are the center of the universe… I can’t do enough… I micro waved dinner… again… I'm sorry I yelled, I'm sorry I cried, it’s not the end of the world that your room isn’t clean… you can wear those jeans one more time.. brush em off… are they safe? Are they safe? Are they safe? Wall)…. The Self wall (this one is my favorite, this one happens if you don’t take care of all the other walls you have just hit prior to this one…. Good times good times… This is the time in your life when you realize you aren’t taking care of yourself, you don’t know what you want and you don’t know who you are wall… and how are you ever going to be enough to feel important wall.. this without fail always always always turns into a spiritual wall… This is the I'm not capable of doing anything other than laying in this bed wall….watch out for this one… a sure fire trigger is hitting 2 or more of the above mentioned walls at once…)

The Stress wall – Everything is coming at you from all directions at once, they don’t have to be bad things… even really good events when piled on top of each other can be overwhelming. Funny enough I function best when I'm stressed. I like to be on the go, surrounded by people, feeling needed and wanted and accomplished… for a very short time… unfortunately… I always schedule myself out farther than that short time, and end up bailing out on people, double booking myself, feeling like I am letting someone down…. And here comes the wall… I'm supposed to be somewhere, someone else is calling me in an emotional crisis, how am I going to pay this bill, the laundry is building up, I have been eating like crap due to being on the run, and don’t have the energy to exercise because I haven’t even been home long enough to take off my shoes since 7 am…. And here it comes…. The texts for advice are pouring in faster than I can answer them… the requests for time together are double booked… I realize we haven’t even opened the fridge for a week… what have I been feeding my son? My son? When was the last time he got to watch fineas and pherb? And here is the wall… phone shut off… dinner made at home… front door locked… pajamas on by 5 pm… in bed by 9 with every intention of sleeping at 9. You can’t see me if I can’t see you…. And you can’t see me, because I am nowhere to be found…. Sometimes I cry uncontrollably, you will notice this is a theme with hitting walls… this is where even the slightest stub of a toe… sharp word spoken from someone… stain didn’t come out in the wash, brings on the tears… and they don’t stop… The Physical Health wall - this wall always come in form of a cold or the flu, sometimes a migraine, and of course also accompanied by the flow of unexplainable and unstoppable tears. The Work wall – this wall is always apparent in form of an I don’t care attitude, you stop focusing, stop caring, crossing the line from being afraid of being fired, to wishing they would fire you… and then there are tears. The Children wall – Okay… Honestly… I live on the wall here… my children are my world… and I love them more than anything else in my life…. And when I am afraid for them, angry at them, concerned… happy, proud… annoyed… okay, pretty much anytime other than when I'm laughing … I'm crying, gratefully… they make me laugh lots.

The Self wall – This is where this is all leading up too, you knew that from the beginning of my little speech here right? you knew that inevitably we would arrive at the part where you have to take off all your blinders, stop blaming everyone and everything around you, when you cannot be the victim any longer, and you have to own up to the fact that, yes, bad things happen to good people, but that you are not hopeless, unwanted, unloved, and, you are not horrible, you are not worthless, you deserve to have hope, be wanted, and are always loved. You cannot search beyond yourself for anything, for there is not a single need in the world that you cannot give yourself…. Loved ones, relationships, friends… are like a super boost to what you already have, they are the creamer in the coffee… tastes way better with it, but completely effective, functional and useful without it. Spirit lives within you, and helps you see what you are so obviously not looking at (For me… you guessed, it does this through tears) Maybe I relate to sadness, maybe it is palpable to me, Maybe because it is so raw and so real, that it reminds me that I too am real. There is no expectation without disappointment, There is no day that I will look in the mirror and not see at least ten things I want to change… I will always be too hard on myself, my worst enemy.. but I will always be my biggest advocate, and my own best friend…. The key to loving yourself is loving everything about you, not just the good, but the bad too…. The bad may not be the best term… but I will use it due to lack of anything better…. The bad is part of who I am… the mischievousness, the manipulative qualities, the anger, all of it… this is me, and you can’t have the caring, the playfulness, and joy without it…. So here I sit. Yes sit… not walking on my treadmill like I should be, Typing, Not working on a spreadsheet like I should be, drinking crystal light, when what I really crave is some crazy monster energy drink that will make sleep unnecessary, trying to think of ways to pretend the bad doesn’t exist, that I don’t get sick, angry, jealous… hurt… I'm so easily hurt. … and I say nothing when it happens… yes, me, who has typed this monstrous discussion of self discovery, will say nothing about how I feel unless it is what is dubbed acceptable feelings…. Because I want you to love me, because I care what you think,… because I love you… and think of you often… I know better than this… I do… no one knows better than me… and yet it happens anyways… I have given into the fear that I am too much… too much drama… too much emotion… too much to handle… I want too much, from someone else, I forgot to be the coffee. So I rob you, I rob you of what you liked about me in the first place… the fact that I'm real, that I am raw, that I feel deeply each and every emotion and cherish them…. And I am done. It will stop now… this censoring, and shielding, and not standing in my truth…. The truth is I cry… a lot, I cry when I am happy, I cry when I am sad, I cry when I am angry, or afraid… I am afraid a lot.. of everyone and everything… I get angry, and I am jealous…. I don’t know how I am supposed to be feeling, and supposed to be acting… and I have done a terrible job of trying to compensate for that… I forgot why you love me… I forgot to be myself… I'm gonna be the coffee again now…. Anyone who wants to mix is welcome.