Where has this girl gone?
Bogged down in her child’s doctor visits, hospitals, therapists, school decisions, medical bills, sports decisions, medicine dispensing, oppressing heat and humidity. Anticipating issues, thwarting problems, managing anxiety, dealing with people’s reactions, keeping to a schedule, managing the needs, the needs, the needs of an always needing dependent child. Tired of the phoniness and facade of Southern Charm, men and women with overly groomed and shellacked hair, creepily clean fingernails and rigidly pressed clothes, sickly sweet, drippy and painfully slow and drawn out Southern accents, the Southern art of saying one thing and doing another, all of it.
I miss the West Coast. I miss Texas.
I miss my former self.
Frivolous me.
Ironically, Rye is doing better than he has been in years. He is doing really well. Don is doing well. His job is going great and he is really happy there.
I feel like have given my blood and oxygen to support those around me.
I need to find Frivolous Me.
I need to remember that for everything I hate about the South there is an equal part about it that I love.
I need to remember why I do the things I do.
And I need to let go.
I need to look forward and yet stay in the moment.
I need to renew my hope.
I need to be grateful for all I have.
I need to appreciate how far we’ve come.
I need to pray.
I need to trust God, the Universe, and Mother Nature.
I need to let myself be myself.
My real self.
My relaxed self.
My loving self.
My trusting self.
Frivolous Me.
I love Frivolous Me.
Where is she?
2 Comments
Boy can I relate. Recently I visited a college campus and I could feel a hint of my old self, the one that felt proud of my accomplishments, that had goals and hopes of what’s to come, when I was focused a little more on me, where I mattered. Just sharing this with my husband brought tears to my eyes.
Over the years I’ve lost this, especially since I’ve become a stay at home mom, raising a child with a mood disorder. It’s hard to feel successful at much these days, and harder to be hopeful. I’ve suffered a lot of emotional bruises over the years. I’ve just lost that old self. I miss her sometimes.
We need to get together. I am in the South, and I could make you feel SO much better, me with the no-shellac bed head, lucky if the damn clothes are CLEAN, never mind rigidly pressed, and tomato and cucumber dirt under the nails half the time. It would really make you feel better about yourself!