How I Feel

One of my favorite songs has two lines in it that I love:

Drowning in somebody's wake
Smiling for somebody's sake

I feel like this a lot. Rather than just living my own life and feeling my own feelings, I feel like I am always following other people and being affected by the waves that their boat makes. When will I ever get out of the water, and get to drive my own boat? (I apologize to the author of this song; I am sure it was never intended to lead to such a goofy metaphor!) Also, I always feel that I am smiling for the sake of someone else. Put on a happy face. I feel like I let other people control my emotions way too much. The thing I hate about myself, is that I realize all of these things (or I have been helped to realize them through many hours of therapy) yet I still don't change.

I saw a sign at a burrito chain restaraunt last night:

A burrito is like life: a well-contained mess.

I am sure that this sign was meant to be clever and humorous, but it almost made me burst into tears. Right there at the salsa bar. I feel like an overstuffed burrito, all neat and deceptively tidy, but inside, a big gooey mess, a hodgepodge of too much stuff, and the slightest thing, the next little problem that comes along, will open my wrapper and all of my crap will come out for everyone to see. I have done a pretty good job my entire life of containing my mess. But my doctor withdrew me from some medicine I have been on for two years a few weeks ago, and even though he weaned me off while putting me onto other meds, it really threw me off. We went for an ill-timed counseling session with our pastor. We sat there for over 2 hours while I cried and snotted all over the place, and I was actually honest for once. And I was angry and I let it show. In front of someone that I normally go to great lengths to act normal in front of. Nobody wants their pastor to think bad things about them.

I feel like two people. The public Jamie who seems very sweet and together and kind. You could probably come up and stomp on my foot and I would tell you that I was sorry for my foot being in your way. And then there is the inner Jamie who has spent the past 20 years just trying to keep it together. The only person who has been allowed to really see the inner Jamie is Dave. (Gosh, that sounded dirty. And unfortunately, not true.) My therapist always asked me, Who in your life are you ever really honest with? When do you ever get real? And my answer was always, Dave. Because before Dave, I was considerably crazier. I think now that I have Dave there is somewhere for all the crazy to go, so it doesn't build up as much.

Poor Dave. Poor, poor Dave.