The Bag Lady

I know I have not posted in a while and I apologize. I have a lot going on right now and some things are just too personal to put in a weblog. I am also one of those people who has to analyze everything--and I do mean everything. I also have to put it all together in my head before I can put it down on paper be it electronic or wood-based.

Hubby doesn't understand why I can't just talk about things to work through them. I have given it a lot of thought and I think it's because my Dad is an attorney. Growing up, whenever my brother or I had an issue we wanted to discuss we had to present our case so-to-speak. He would then point out the flawed logic or loopholes in our arguments. So, you had to make sure you had all your “ducks in a row” and the evidence to back up your position. You could not waver; you had to "say what you mean and mean what you say” or you would wind up back at square one.

I don’t know if it was a right or wrong way to go about raising kids but it has influenced my way of thinking today. I have to carefully look at a situation from all sides before I can act on it. I have a hard time talking about an issue because I feel like I will be judged if my opinion is not thoroughly formulated and I will look like a fool. As a result of my own self-imposed restraints I internalize a lot of the junk most people let go.

I am the bag lady—you know the one you see pushing her grocery cart up the sidewalk—who has collected little bits and pieces of, well, junk and traverses the city with it all in tow. I am an emotional bag lady. I carry around every thought, emotion, or feeling I have, events in my life I would like to forget, actions I have taken, and I place them in boxes. I label them, and put them on a shelf because I never know when I might need one later. Something I see today will trigger a memory from five years ago and I might need to go back, pull down that box, rifle through the contents and see how they affect where I am today.

Sometimes I am amazed at the quantity of boxes I have in my emotional closet. I would like to divest myself of rather a lot of them but I cannot. You see, instead of dealing with whatever the issue was, I chose to box it up and store it away. I thought by shutting the closet door I would achieve the “closure” I needed. I was rather mistaken. Consequently, I have an entire closet full of issues I never wrestled with. I need to give up these ghosts in order to move on with my life.

I went to the Doctor on Tuesday; he gave me some Zoloft. Today I found out that the secondary health insurance I carry covers 20 “mental health” visits a year. So, perhaps at the beginning of May, after about a month of the Zoloft and hopefully two visits to a psychologist I should be able update you on the progress of my spring closet cleaning.