To Want is Willful

This post is obviously going to contain first-world problems.  I have food, shelter, and a basic support group.  In fact, I can say, I have always had all of those things.  I have three parents who have worked extremely hard, so that I can say that.

I have worked quite a bit with people who don’t have these things, the mentally ill and the felonious mostly, and so I see what happens when the most basic necessities are stripped away.  I say all of these things before starting, because I realize, that which I WANT, is just that.  I don’t need these things in order to sustain my life.  I personally have to keep that in mind.

There are four key things that I am wanting, am searching for right now.  I want to lose weight in a normal, healthy way.  I don’t know what that looks like, for me.  I want to figure it out and make whatever work.  I don’t want to give in to temptation over and over, and, I do not want to struggle.  Asking to not have to struggle, is similar to asking for a test.  Fine.  Test me, but help me figure it out.

I want to maintain my currently mental health stability, damn whatever drugs they have to put me on, whatever therapies I have to participate in, whatever hospitals I have to be in, whatever information I have to share.  I will do what it takes.  And I mean I will do EVERYTHING it takes.

This seems small, but I fervently want to get better from this flu that has plagued me for the past week.  People drop things off, but they don’t stay (and I don’t blame them).  I’ve seen the doctor twice, been diagnosed with three separate conditions.  Two will go away with antibiotics and one will go away with time.  Other people should be so blessed, because I don’t know what I did to deserve that grace.

Yet I complain about the things I want.

The fourth thing I want, is to be able to calm down, to take a deep breath, to not let excitement and the possibilities overwhelm me.  Sometimes I get so excited about something, I let all reason and logic and boundaries go to the wayside.  I want to not do that.  I want to just revel in the excitement of a new thing, without freaking out.  I don’t want to push people away, I want to pull them in.  I really feel like I must get a hold of myself.  I feel totally out of control with excitement.

If I was asking my Aunt Pat G. for advice, possibly the most Catholic person on the planet, she would tell me to pray.  She would tell me to find friends and ask them to pray.  Aunt Pat G. has partially recovered from cancer more than three times.  Of course, she has had excellent medical care, but her church, her faith, and her love for God are completely unbelievable.

My faith has all but gone away.  I’ve lapsed in going to Mass with Glo and my faith has faltered.  Why don’t I pray to God on some of these things?  Better yet, why don’t I meditate on some of these things?  There doesn’t have to be a specific God, a church where there are specific rules, a congregation that lifts each other up.

For years I have operated on the assumption that my faith would come on its own time.  I mean, that’s what my dad practically said, and he was in the seminary.  Here and then, sometimes, I would go to Mass.  But I didn’t feel God there.  In fact, I haven’t felt God anywhere in a really long time.

I don’t feel right asking God for any of my wants.  I don’t have a problem with saying a prayer for a friend or lighting a candle for an ailing family member.  I go through the routines, but I don’t find Him there.  And I start to wonder if it’s all this “wanting” and all of this desire to control outcomes that has left me so far away.

My faith has never been strong, but I have always wanted it to be.  I have always been jealous of Glo and Aunt Pat G. who seem to be able to access theirs so easily — who seem to have no doubt.  What do I need to do to get to a point where I can, not necessarily go to Mass, not necessarily pray, but to do the most important thing — GIVE IN.  Stop fighting everything so hard.  In DBT it’s called willingness.  I can handle that.  I can work toward willingness easier than I can trying to find “God.”

So, on the wants I mentioned before, while I’d still really like for them to happen, I understand it comes in time and letting go.  I will have to remind myself every 10 seconds to let go, but I know it will work.  I’ve seen it work years before in my own life.  That Rosa, so stubborn.

Just let go.

I Covet No More

The Daily Prompt today is:  We all get jealous from time to time — what wakes the green-eyed monster for you?

covet:

to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably

I love words.  I love to say words, type words, read words, and I especially like to spell words.  When I read the daily prompt, it refers to jealousy.  I immediately broke that down to covet.  One of my favorite words.  Coveting leads to jealousy, coveting could really be called jealousy.  

If we think of the phrase “what belongs” in the above definition, and made “what” into something that could be material or immaterial, it clearly leads that there can be no jealousy without coveting.  At least that’s how I see it, and how I’ll use the words for the remainder of the post.

I’m not an especially jealous person.  I don’t really care when DSB flirts with the nurses at wound care clinic, I don’t find myself checking out other people’s expensive belongings with a little green in my eyes, and I don’t GENERALLY envy other people their material possessions (or, immaterial things, like grace, charm, social status, looks, body type, what have you).  I don’t even envy or covet other people’s good mental health.

I’ve brought this up before, and I’ll bring it up again.  What I have coveted for so long, what has made me so jealous is young (and older) people getting married and having babies.  I have so badly wanted those things.  In keeping with the post, I would say I have  COVETED those things.

For someone who cannot have those things, this makes the coveting of such all the more painful.  I see it.  I want it.  I know I can’t ever have it.  I still want it but it will never happen.  Really and truly, under no circumstances can it happen.  It just wasn’t meant to be.

Telling yourself, as you’re holding a newborn baby or sitting at a wedding, that you can’t have these things, destroys a part of you.  That jealousy and envy and coveting eats you alive, when you’re right there in the thick of it.  I used to spend hours and hours crying as I looked at Facebook of pictures of babies and of my friends’ weddings.

I had several bad moments when my sister was pregnant, that I was just so outrageously jealous, I couldn’t stand myself.  I would have killed to be in her shoes, to be doing what she was doing.  It tore me to pieces.  My sister having a baby solidified things for me:  I would never be doing that.

I’ve come a long way since then, and what I would say now is that I don’t covet having a baby, per-say.  I covet TIME with my nephew.  I covet daily photos and videos and chats with my sister.  I am fulfilling my now (mostly) silenced desire to have my own child, by living vicariously through my sister.  I am Auntie Rose and I have never been more proud or awestruck as when I am in that little guy’s presence.

As for the other part.  The marriage part.  I think it might not be all its cracked up to be.  I can’t marry DSB, and don’t think I would even if I could.  If I were to find another guy and he wanted to get married, I don’t know if I would want to (or if I even could).  It’s complicated, but at the same time it’s not.

Am I jealous of love?  Like the real love I see between my parents, or the real love I see between my dad and his wife?  I wouldn’t say jealousy is the right word.  And I know I don’t covet it.  It might be nice someday, but I don’t know that those kind of loves come around for everyone.

And so there is no more jealousy, no more coveting about marriage and having babies.  I’ll be Auntie Rose, but I sure won’t be having any babies, and I think I’ve come to a place where I’m finally good with that.  Maybe my sister will have a few more and I can move in next door and play “the fun babysitter.”  😀