Management Strike

Thursday, March 18, 2010

There are stories that are scratching to get out.

I woke this morning, a bit disoriented and foggy. The places I have been in my dreams that last few nights are unfamiliar ones. Normally, my dream landscapes are wholly familiar. The last several nights?

In one, I was at my first job out of college. A place I have not dreamed about in easily 18 years. Last night? Summer camp circa 1986...playing four square (badly). Before that? My grandmothers bedroom circa 1975.

Perhaps it is part of my psyche approaching 40, pushing some of these memories to the forefront of my brain, demanding attention like petulant two year olds. Perhaps something is coming out of the fog of my life that will be entirely unexpected.

The lesson on "Not expecting" is one I have yet to master. Shit, I have yet to scratch the surface on that particular beastie. Therefore, when these unsettling dreams filter through my neural passageways, I awake waiting for the big reveal.

"something is coming", shouts the Dawn voice in my head. "Get Ready! Plan! Prepare! Anticipate!"

But, for the first time in a very long time, I don't want to.

There is a comfort in this in-between place that I currently inhabit. Not the willful deafness I have occasionally turned to my life, pretending that if I didn't acknowledge it, it simply wasn't happening. Nor is this the dreamy state of "living in my head", which has been another way for me to disconnect with the world at large and pull the comfort of my thoughts over me.

As a manager of people and situations and occurrences and utterances, a vast chunk of my energy is invested in my ability to predict and anticipate and prepare. It is an inheritance of my parents, this over vigilance, to know where their unorganized and impulsive selves may wander to next required a singular focus.

Perhaps it is the purposeful disconnect from my mother which has allowed me to let go of the tether and float downstream. Making that decision last year was incredibly hard. Coming to terms with the fact that your mother can never love you the way you need to be loved, as a child, is soul shattering. Nearly a year later, the peace in not having to manage her feels guiltily relieving.

She has called me all the names. I have been the bad daughter. I have not sought reconciliation. I require no forgiveness.

On the other side of all that tumult, my life is more peaceful now that in the previous 39 years.

I think I might be growing up.

4 Baleful Regards:

Petrat said...

We seriously need to go to Vegas and heckle the "pretty people" while wearing fabulous shoes and drinking like fish.

madge said...

There aren't many people out there who know how this feels. Or if there are, they aren't talking about it.

Thanks for talking about it.

Jennifer said...

Well written.

Anna said...

I disconnected myself from my mother about ten years ago. After the mourning period, the sense of peace and release was profound.

Thanks for talking about this.

 
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