Giants are Standing on my Shoulders

I burned my arm on my oven the other day while trying to bake a pizza that couldn’t be baked. It was friggen painful. And now it’s itching beyond belief. But it’s minor. And part of me appreciates the annoying stinging sensation. It reminds me that I’m human and for many reasons, this small burn on my arm has humbled me.

Somehow my personality screams, “I can do it! I’ll help you! Let me find out for you! I’ll be there! Depend on me!” I widen my shoulders, sit straight as a die, hold the pose and start problem solving. I’m tough. I’m strong. I’m stubborn. I can handle it. Throw it my way and I’ll forsake my own needs and step in your Crocs; walk your path for a while. Perhaps my needs are to take it all on. Maybe extreme but somehow, no matter the history lessons I have learned, I still get that Feeling that I should help because it’s what I do.

“Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.” – Sigmund Freud

So as it is, I give myself away. I’m smarter about it now and I no longer feel the responsibility that I use to attach to it. I give myself the option of choosing what I do and how much of “me” I can give. Whether you consider that “smart” or not is irrelevant because for me, it’s how I manage. I say “I can’t” when I cannot. I say “I can” when I cannot and when I can. Make sense? It’s the Feeling that I always should that’s hard to shake as well as everyone that knocks on my door or calls my phone.

I do a lot for my friends because I love my friends. They give me energy. I enjoy doing what I can for them and to let them know that I really do care. I do the same for my family. But family always brings a different level of energy. It’s the trust, I think, that is unconsciously there, that permits repercussions to surface. "If I don’t do it, then ____”, “I really should because they are family and they did ____ for me” etc.

There have been so many things brought to my doorstep as of late and I am feeling the need to help in as many areas as I can. But there is so much out of my control and my reach. There are too many mountains to move and seas to part. My love is there but all I am capable of right now is to sit back and watch things unfold no matter how much I don’t want the outcome to be what it will be. I’m reminded over and over by my husband and my past, that you cannot help those who are inept of change. It just doesn’t help shake the Feeling.

As I sit with the Feeling on my heart, I sit knowing that I am tired of being asked on my gut. I can count up to 50 phone calls within the last few weeks of a very dynamic Soap Opera playing out around me. I prefer a good sitcom but I don’t have a say. It’s not in their personalities. To dramatize everything and then when the drama is serious, the excitement is at its peak. My nature is for the calm and peaceful so I want to infuse the situation with composure and serenity. I have an idea. Let me help. Why don’t you try this instead?

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My mother is sick. I have seen it coming. She’s had a disease for years that has sometimes been managed but for the most part it hasn’t. I get frustrated with her continual procrastination of something that can be slowed if not stopped. She’s walking in the Crocs of her mother. Why, if she’s seen the results, won’t she do what it takes to prevent this if not, at least do what she can? Our personalities are so different that I have always butted heads with her ways, taking every single ounce of my energy to understand her thinking. I can write a 10 page essay on my theory but it does no good if the results remain the same. I am so unlike her that I don’t understand her but I Feel her pain in the same way.

I am so frustrated, angry and saddened by so many areas that are affecting this situation. The years of denial and neglect, the continual mismanagement of a healthy lifestyle, the absence of support for her, the genuine, innocent, ignorance she brings to it all is beyond my power.

And now the results are in and it’s not good.

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My SIL is dealing with a bedridden, high-risk pregnancy. Her husband is doing what he can to help her and their 11 month old daughter. He’s doing what he knows how and she is doing the only thing she can. Waiting for the twins to arrive safely. I want to help. My husband wants to help. My mom wants to help. But each of us have so many reasons why it is difficult. My beyond beautiful niece needs more than I or Glen can give her. She needs reassurance and consistency. With two other small children, my time gets very divided and my stress level tips the scale. Is that helpful or harmful and for who?

There's no one to blame. Babies go through stages. Pregnancies go through risks. Marriages go through trials. Husbands learn. Such is the way of life.

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Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives: Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.

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I burned my arm. It hurts. I am still here baking a pizza that won’t bake.

~sigh~ Where did my sparkly, magic wand go??