I’m Calling it a Win

Yesterday I was riding high, until I got dropped on my ass. First, the “good” parts —  In the morning, I’d been asked to speak at a meeting and afterwards I got all kinds of compliments and thank you’s and praise for … who knows what I said — “don’t drink, don’t kill yourself, keep coming back,” but apparently people liked it (Evie inner critic sez: the etiquette is to compliment people when they speak no matter how incomprehensible they are, plus listeners could see how pitifully desperate for praise you are and took mercy).

So that was a plus experience for my ego, even though with Evie’s lens in the background a load of praise and thank you’s didn’t dent the deeper issue.  But it felt surface good, while it lasted.  And surface good feels good.

Then I went to get my hair done, so I can look on the outside more the way I want to feel on the inside — happy, fluffy, blonde, playful, sexy even.  (Evie inner critic sez: Your look is actually verging on crazy-old-lady-grasping-for-lost-youth with that aspiring blonde bimbo mane, but your grey isn’t pretty enough to grow in and own the cool crone chic look.  Your husband likes the blonde, cling to that.  It probably reminds him of when you were actually young and fun, that one week you snookered him in 2003).

At the hairdresser, I wound up chatting with another hair client, Honey Shag.  She was worried about her teenage daughter, Lucia Lune, who’d been labeled with a bunch of mood disorder things and was juggling a bunch of meds but basically sounded like a … well, a lot like a lot of people I know (including myself) who are essentially okay but maybe extra moody or creative or don’t really flourish and thrive in corporate-y or traditional settings.

So I asked the mom how her kid was doing with the non-medication aspects of mood management, like breakfast — and yeah, turns out Lucia Lune’s basic human needs — sleep, food, outdoor time, supportive social connections, outlets for self-expression, purpose, that  stuff, was not super fired-up.  Honey Shag mom is acting like I’m a genius, like I invented breakfast, and I’m feeling amazing in her reflection.  Even Evie was impressed with how knowledgable and helpful I can be.

So Honey Shag finishes up getting her blow out and asks for my digits so her daughter can call me.  I give them to her, along with a hug, feeling like I’m the star of the salon, even though the likelihood of her or her kid calling me ever is maybe zero.

Then I go home all blonde-d up, Platinum Bunny, and do some actual stepwork work with one of my peeps, who’s rocking it.  I know I need to take no credit but it can be hard not to when the smile of another starts coming as the default.  It’s like a drug watching people’s baseline well-being shift from zero to sometimes okay to pretty good most of the time as they do the deal.  (Evie: You are a bad, bad person for even saying that you might take some credit for their progress.  It is all them, their work, their willingness, the Universe.  You are a mouthpiece, a random conduit, for passing on the tips you received, and you better work on your damn humility you piece of crap, or else.)

So then I do kid school pick up, snack, appreciative inquiry, conscious parenting, unconditional love type things involving the provision of tortellini and fizzy water.  Then another drop off, this time to sport, rockstar mom-ing, and I’m feeling good.  The dishes are mostly clean, my kid is alive and fed, and my hair looks phresh (Evie: Even though it is full on 90’s-hair-don’t-care you old bat).

I bamboozle a crew into joining for my latest passion — daytime outdoor dancing with an opening act of park yoga with beloved Eddie — and get going.  I am aware that I’m tired, I actually didn’t eat lunch, and I could easily shift to chips n tv in bed.  I’m low on the basics, been outputting all day.  But it still feels like I’m winning and I’m  ready to ride.

So I override that “bed could work” thought with, what sounds like the voice of G-d or reason but maybe is Evie: “It’s good to rally even when I’m tired, I’ll get energy from doing more, and Wednesday dance is awesome,”  and so I go.

Yoga rocks, dancing is fun, I have a couple of friends there so I don’t feel too lonely just normal lonely-in-a-crowd lonely which does tend to happen more when I’m hungry or tired or on my moon, but it’s all good, fun level still exceeding anxiety level, just. 

The cool kids are all around being groovy doing this contact improv stuff that seems kind of like swing dancing but with more actual climbing on each other, like friendly wrestling or puppy play for two-leggeds.  One of the cool kids, a strong dude, takes my hand to guide me into some kind of dance move.  I panic but am also very excited.  I am a goddess of the highest order.  My Valkyrie wings unfurl.  I am on the verge of being a cool kid.

The sun was out, the music was pumping, my hair was fluffy, and I went for it — I lept onto this guy’s back and went for a very awkward three-second lopsided piggy back ride, (not a move) and then something happened and I was on the ground, on my butt, not in an elegant, lithe way.  In a Evie-vindicating confirmation of my essential loser-ness, repugnancy, and stink.

My insides crumpled, G-d, or maybe Evie said, “You are an asshole.”  But I got up, and on the outside kept dancing.  Inside the shame burned hot hot.  It felt  overwhelming. I remembered being dropped in the ocean to learn how to swim and getting crashed on the bottom of the sea. 

I remembered being thrown off a horse who balked at a jump and the cold sweat, tears, and snot on my face acting like rubber cement for the dirt and wood chips in the cold Canadian Winter.  How close that hoof felt to my head and how ashamed I was, covered in dirty evidence of failure, in front of all the horsey girls whose horses glided them gently through the course like loving unicorns.  Their horses liked them better than my horse liked me. And why not?  The horse knew I didn’t belong there.  I cleaned up alone in the barn and never went back.

And now these new people know, really know, I don’t belong here.  And I liked them, I really liked them, the contact improvers and the ecstatic dancers and the yoga freaks and the sensual acrobats and all the people who — when I’m up — I know are just like me wanting to give and receive love, wanting to enjoy being alive, together, in this hodgepodge community of bodies, but when I’m down are nothing like me, and definitely would be better off without me.

The tears came into my eyeballs.  I left the dance floor/field.  I took a time out.  I sought out safe known humans on the periphery. The tears came out.  Real ones.  A lifetime of just wanting to be normal, to be part of a tribe, to feel not like a disgusting pariah welled up.  I wasn’t a beloved being winged goddess anymore, not even a person.  I was disgusting.  The emotion was strong.

And then I dried my face, got back on the dance floor, moved around a bit while still feeling jangled.  When the dance officially ended I received a hug from a friend, and called my husband who was sweet and connected and amazing.  I picked up my kid from his grandma’s house, took him home, and we did bedtime.

The feeling like shit to getting it together and feeling grateful to be me time was maybe 20-25 mins.  This morning I’m still processing but it’s intellectualized, trying to learn the lesson, not stirring the pot of self-loathing stew.  I’m over it.

So I’m thinking that’s relatively buoyant.  I’d rather be me, and go for it, expand my edges, and land on my butt from time to time, than spend my life trying to avoid the pain of feeling like a screw up.  I’m calling it a win.  I’m gonna keep going.

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