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Eating crow: humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proven wrong after taking a strong position
Eat humble pie: to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error
I’m not sure either of these describes exactly how I feel, but they come close. I had a particularly, and unexpectedly, emotional day. Around noon, I learned that a friend’s sister overdosed last night. I didn’t know the sister, but this recovering alcoholic can tell you that there is something about hearing that this disease has claimed another person that shakes you at your core. I believe it was that shaken state that allowed everything to bubble up to the surface.
I can’t write list posts or tell you how to get through your first day of work or even how to make more room in your life for love. The only real thing I have to offer is a candid view of the way I live my life, and to be as achingly honest about it as possible. And I’ve been wrong. About several things.
It started innocently enough. I stopped by Old Navy on my way home from work to pick up a pair of pajama shorts since it’s become clear to me that Date #4 will not take the hint and leave behind the necessary boyfriend boxers I would prefer to sleep in. While there, I decided to be a good auntie to my cousin’s 1-year-old daughter and pick up a few cute little things. I dumped it all on the bed when I got home, changed into my new shorts (ah…) and stared at the clothes. They were so cute, so little, and I couldn’t wait to see her in them. A feeling started to come up… and I shoved it back down.
All day, I’d been shoving it back down.
The loss of my friend’s sister stirred up my still-raw emotions over the loss of my friend Maureen back in March. I shoved it back down. Date #4 not being able to spend his birthday weekend with me stirred up feelings of jealousy, resentment and fear. I shoved it back down. As I stared down at the little girl’s clothes, it stirred up emotions of something I’d lost years ago, and I shoved that down too.
But it wouldn’t stay down.
As I tried to finish going about my night (I needed to blog, get my work and running clothes ready, make some concrete business decisions…), it just wouldn’t stay down. Something wasn’t right. It’s been this way for a few months but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought it was maybe my sinuses, maybe not exercising, not having my work and life balanced just the right way or not doing the right kind of work. I searched, all the while shooing away this nagging feeling that I wasn’t working something important out. Shoved it down.
It came up. All at once.
I miss Maureen and her death has affected me. I can’t ignore that. I don’t want to feel that pain because it is so very strong. I am missing a friend, a person who totally got me, who gave to me and took from me, to whom I told “I love you” every time we said goodbye. I wasn’t dealing with those feelings, that grief. I ignored it.
What I really want when I imagine a good, fine life for myself is to own my own café, just as I envisioned it in December, an airy cozy shop full of funky vintage furniture, good coffee and an owner (me!) who knows everybody. I would be in a cool town, maybe not too big but too small. Somehow I got the notion into my head that it just wasn’t grand enough a business for a smarty-pants like me. So I shelved it, said it was best left for retirement.
The most startling realization to you, my readers, might be what else I see in this picture. As I run my own successful café, I very clearly see children running around my shop. I want children. Three years ago, I was an alcoholic who could not bring myself to bring a child into my world. That experience has been far more impacting than I ever thought, and fear has driven me in that regard.
I realize now that when it comes to the emotional things in my life, it’s going to take much longer to heal than I thought. It wouldn’t say much about my friendship with Maureen if I weren’t still moved to tears a mere five months later. I am. It wouldn’t be treating my disease with enough respect to think that the choices I made years ago because of my drinking would just go away on their own. They haven’t.
As to my business choices, I think I simply veered off course looking for something perhaps a little more glamorous, a little more grand than my simple dream of owning my own coffee shop. But now that I’m back there, it’s like a warm blanket, familiar and just right.
In some respects, I’m back where I was in December, which isn’t necessarily bad. I feel a little sheepish, a little humbled admitting that my ego inflated as I attempted to fluff myself up to meet these grand ideas. I don’t always know what I’m doing. I thought I was just putting on a brave face. When I put a brave face on, I only fool myself. And fool myself, I did.
Life is a tricky thing. I’m skeptical of anyone who says they’ve got it all figured out. Especially in these early years, as we try to form ideas of who we want to be and how we can become those people, certainly we’ll look a little foolish along the way. I guess I’m just happy to be trying.
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11 RESPONSES TO "BE SKEPTICAL OF THOSE WHO SAY THEY HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT"
I don't think it's about having it all figured out. We're all going to encounter new obstacles and challenges as our lives proceed. We can't possibly have them all figured out. The number of obstacles and challenges will be dependent on our life circumstances and how far we decide to extend ourselves outside of our comfort zone. Life is tricky is putting it mildly. Also I don't see it getting simpler or easier with the number of options available becoming larger. Personally I gravitate to and admire those people who are able to navigate through life to the best of their ability. The older I get, the more I can live in the moment and enjoy the process - whatever the process may be.
Great post. Thanks for sharing.
To me, it sounds like your much further ahead than you may have been in past months. You now know that it will take time for you to heal, which is a step forward. I applaud you for keeping steady while dealing with alcoholism, a new career, and personal loss.
The best to you and your cafe dreams.
A dose of mortality tends to bring us back to what is really important in our lives. Maybe its that kick you needed to get back on track? Good luck, Holly.
@Mark W.: I agree. This post is really not about having it figured out (BC editors change the headlines sometimes; over at my blog WorkLoveLife the headline is "Looking foolish along the way"). Really, I am more admitting that I hadn't been acknowledging my emotions, my true feelings and dealing with them.
I think that's an important part of the process - once you get through the immediate shock of an obstacle or situation, there's aftermath to deal with. I think we expect to get over it much quicker than we do. Or, at least I did.
@Matt: Thanks for the kind words. I always wonder if this growing up process is as painful for other Gen-Ys too, or if I'm just a little thicker than most. ;)
@Smith+Fritzy: I definitely think that was the catalyst for this whole thing. I hooked back up with some people who are going to help guide me through some work that should release a lot of the pain from years past. Like Mark W. said, things will crop up along the way. That's life. Learning how to live it as an adult has been tougher than I thought it would be.
Holly, loved this post, commented already at WorkLoveLife (and note to the editors here, I think the new title may have been farther from the intention of the article)
I think there's a definite lesson here. It seems like yesterday was a day that pretty much forced you to look at your goals. In doing so, with the mask already pulled away from the emotional day, you were able to see how the goal you've been working towards isn't necessarily the goal you actually want to achieve.
I think there are probably a few of us who are doing the same, and I know this is going to serve as a reminder for me to constantly ensure that I'm working towards what I really want, not what I think I want.
Thanks for sharing this great post.
Holly,
After reading your reply and looking over your post again, I now realize I left out an important aspect of overcoming hurdles. When you have a number of them to deal with in fairly rapid succession and not enough time in between them, they do overwhelm you. There is no substitute for time when it comes to sorting everything out. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your friend even though I didn't say so in my initial comment. Let us know when you open up your coffee shop!
Mark
@Adam: "The goal you’ve been working towards isn’t necessarily the goal you actually want to achieve." *Perfectly said* I suffer the malady of verbosity and that was concisely what I wanted to say!
@Mark W.: Well put. Time, and the patience to be OK with where you are as it passes, is definitely the key to not being overwhelmed. Again, well said.
@Holly: Glad I could help, I have a tendency to be a bit of a sesquipedalian myself :)
Recently I've been loving your posts Holly because they are so real. Not that all the other articles on Brazen Careerist aren't helpful, but you are brave enough to share real life. When you are transparent like that, it helps others because we can identify with what you are going through. I am getting my masters in clinical counseling and your journey excites me because it shows that people ARE willing to change and be vulnerable. Sometimes the best thing to do is to see ourselves at our weakest point and accept what we see.
Holly, I think you are really brave for putting your soul out there for all of us to read. It sounds like you had a real epiphany about what it is you really want. And as painful as epihanies are sometimes, they're awesome! "I have seen the light!"
What I hope the Gen Y-ers realize is that we are ALL still going through this stuff, I don't care how old you are or how settled you think your life is. And some us us Gen X-ers are more likely to admit it than others. I was 33 before I even came close to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up - and I'm still trying to get there 4 years later. (At this rate, I'm convinced I'll live to be 100 for sure just so I can get a full career in.) It doesn't matter when you find it, just that you DO find it. Rock on.
Holly, I think these feelings just mean you're human. I was watching an old Six Feet Under episode the other day and they talked about how sanitized death is in America. How you're not strong if you show raw emotions, how we're supposed to show restraint, and how we're expected to just get over death and move on quickly. They talk about how on a small island in Sicily, the reaction to death is visceral. At the funeral, people scream and wail and flail about, and are allowed to fully feel the pain rather than try to swallow it and move on as if nothing ever happened.
The 30th of this month will mark the two-year anniversary of the death of a dear friend of mine. It was an accidental overdose also. The loss is sometimes still enough to bring me to tears. The fact that I hadn't seen him in a few months preceding his death but we had plans to hang out the week after he died still kills me. He was my first peer to die, so maybe that's why it has affected me so much -- but maybe it was because he was just not the type of person that should happen to.
I think grief can be a life-long struggle, especially if someone was in your life for many years or someone you loved. I think it's especially normal to be grieving months or years later if you didn't properly grieve the first time-around. Sometimes when somebody dies suddenly, you're so shocked that all you can feel is numb and empty. Sometimes the tears and actually sadness come much later. I'm sorry this recent event brought back up all these memories, but maybe it will help you really deal with the raw part of it, which is a necessary part of the grieving process.
I keep a photograph of that friend and myself in a picture frame on top of my television. While it is a constant reminder of that loss, it is also my way of not forgetting him, letting him live on, and remembering to live every day like your last.
Sorry this is so long...I guess I'm just trying to say that you shouldn't feel like you have to shove it down. Let yourself feel the pain. Let yourself cry. You are human, and the best way to cope is to allow yourself to feel and to have a good cry. Bottling things up is so encouraged in our society but so unhealthy.
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?