Today has been a rough day for me, to say the very least.  This week in general has been one that has tested my patience to the inth degree. Something happened to me today that caused me to take a step back, a moment of self-reflection and compiling a persona inventory of sorts.  This “thing”, action, occurrence, for the lack of a better term, shook me to my foundation and made me question my self-worth, my ability to function in a professional capacity even.  And I know that it shouldn’t have affected me the way it did, I am stronger and better than that.  As a matter of fact I have a sign posted in my cubicle to remind me on those days when it all seems to be too much that I can do and be better.

     I have done several spiritual inventories before but this time I think it is time for a personal one.

     I don’t’ really know how to accurately describe or put into just words who I am; my definition of what I am supposed to be, how I am supposed to act or what I really want people to think about me.  I am an enigma even to myself some days; I seem to have the answers to life’s most damning and profound questions when it comes to other people but I am lost in the abyss in my own life; adrift without direction or comfort.  It’s strange in a way that I am so able to have insight and wisdom in other’s situations and circumstances but seemingly devoid of thought when it comes to my own.  It’s funny really, to be so wise and highly regarded yet so juvenile and basic in my own understanding of my own psyche.  No, that’s not completely true and I am not giving myself enough credit.  I know EXACTLY who and what I am, I delude myself in stating that I don’t.  I am driven, afraid to disappoint those who love me; I want to take care of people, to take away their pain and suffering, to help them in any way that I can, even to my own detriment.  I love God with a reckless abandonment, I pray for others and more often times than not, I don’t pray for myself; hoping, when I realize that I don’t pray for me, that someone else will have the compassion to do it for me.  Not exactly the correct sentiment to have in a society so consumed with individualism and me, me, me mentality.   

   This is an exercise to release all of those notions that I am not good enough, that I don’t work hard enough, that I somehow deserve all that has happened to me over the short course of my life.  None of those things are truths, but rather lies that the enemy whispers like a Swan’s Song in the deep recesses of my mind. I want to be desired, to be loved, to be enveloped in a love that makes everyday perfect.  But that is not what is destined for any of us; Love? Yes. To be desirable to the person that you want most in the world? Yes. To have a love that goes beyond all that you could ever wish or dream of? Yes.  A love that makes everyday perfect? Not Exactly.  So who am I?  What do I want? Who do I want?  What do I want to do?  The truth, the hardcore, unabashed truth is somewhere lurking in the shadows, beyond my grasp like so many other things in life.  But with prayer and guidance from God, I think I may just be close enough to the elusive truth to be able to grab it, like the hem of the Lord’s robes.  I am infantile in my desires, I want to be happy; no, I take that back, happy is not the word to use.  I want to have joy.  Happiness is a fleeting  notion, dependent upon circumstances, situations and tangible things.  I want to joy! I want the kind of peace and fulfillment that will not falter even if everything else around me does.  I want the knowledge and wherewithal to forge forward knowing that the joy that I have in God and His will for me is the best thing ever!  I want contentment in my soul, the peace of lying in a field of my favorite flowers with a gentle breeze perfuming the air, the sun shining the way that only He can make it shine and the blue skies of heaven resting above me.  I want that place where nothing else matters or is even a consideration except the presence of God and His whispering the secrets of life to me on the winds.  Honesty is not a luxury I have readily afforded myself in the past; I have been too consumed with everyone else and their dreams and desires to really put any thought into a self-examination.  But that time has come, it is time for me to have as reality check, a therapy session with myself as the patient.  So, here it goes

     I am sensitive, my feelings are easily hurt and I cover it all up with this caustic, sarcastic humor that everyone seems to love, or admire or respect or at times fear.  I tune out emotionally to people so that they don’t know that they have touched a part of me that this tender, raw and unhealed from the many others hurts that came before them.  I have a tendency to hold on to people/relationships/things much longer that I really should for fear of being left adrift; bumping around in the world until I am so far gone that no one even notices that I am not there.  I desperately want the approval of those who love me, nearly to a fault.  I feel like I am supposed to have the answer to everything, to be great at anything I try, to be sexy and beautiful and the best wife possible, the most magnificent lover and the best of friends.  But carrying that self-imposed burden has weighed me down and shredded my self-confidence. 

     I know, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and mentally that being all of those things is impossible.  No one walking this earth is the perfect anything, regardless of what the popular media says.  We all have flaws, microscopic, engineered flaws that make up the human creation.  So why in the world would I think I could be all of that?  Because the giver, the lover, the fixer in me wants to be everything for everyone and no one has asked me to be any of those things.  I did it to myself; it is a self-imposed mess that only I can clean up.  No one has ever put on me that they needed me to be X,Y, or Z, A, B, or F; I am the one who decided that I needed to be A-Z; feeling like I would not be complete unless I was every letter of the alphabet.  It is only now, in my self-examination that I realize that “T” is special all by itself, even without S or U; “T” has a place of its own, a place that no other letter can occupy, a space that no other letter can fill and that certain words would be just jumbled sounds and incoherent thoughts without “T”.  “T” is no better nor any less than would any other letter of the alphabet be, but the alphabet be incomplete without “T”.

     That is me, as simple and elementary as it sounds and probably is; I am “T”.  I am special just the way that God made me.  I have my own space, my own position in life that no one else can occupy or substitute me for.  In conjunction with others I can be just as powerful, desirable and effective as anyone else, but it is me that brings a special something to the group.  Yes, I have my flaws and maybe at times I cannot stand alone, but the weight that I can bear, the load that I can take upon my shoulders is greater than that of U or X, or A for that matter.  I am strong enough to carry all that is placed upon me without flinching; evenly distributing the weight so that nothing slides too heavy to one side.  And when I am feeling small, the world gets too heavy and I feel like “t”, I remember that Christ carried a “t”, the weight of our sins on his shoulders.  I am not meant to carry the world, but He can carry me.

Blessings and Happiness

T. Nicole