Is it better to live with your head in the clouds or your feet firmly planted on the ground? I myself need a balance of the two.
Lately I feel like I have had too much ground and not enough clouds. In fact, in the span of 24 hours I feel like I have hit the ground from a very high altitude. Yesterday I woke up in a mixed state and on general assessment thought I was good. On second assessment I reached out to a friend. I expressed myself, got feedback and pep talk and felt really positive.
I had a plan. I was going to do what I had been doing for the past month and wait until the overall assessment on the 13th and go from there. Easy peasy, right? wrong. 16 hours in I made the wrong move, said the wrong thing and triggered an avalanche.
It took some cool down time, but 20 hours in I had dug out two of the three of my cohorts out of the snow and was able to not be buried under the weight of that metaphorical snow. In the light of day I really don't know how to do recovery on the third party.
The elephant in the room is the third party which is the issue. It is my issue but touches all of us from our own places. Place anyone other than the elephant in the situation (any situation) and the response from my mates would be different, but because the elephant is the elephant the elephant is being brutalized and I am the one doing it, which is in fact only a smidgen true.
My 50 years of experience with this elephant means nothing comparatively. Mother doesn't know best in the eyes of the lambs. Mother is just being a hater. Forget that Mother is concerned that the elephants behaviour is borderline and the wolves, dressed in sheep clothing as they graze around the elephant, lie in wait for their moment to swoop in and bleed him dry.
For me it is hard to watch the elephant being set up. The elephant and the lambs are all important to me. The elephant expects nothing until he has an itch on the back and cant find a branch. He hold those wolves up on a pedestal. He gives his time and energy to those wolves and I have seen the outcome of this before. I don't have to divert my eyes because the kill won't be in front of me, but in the end the elephant will be blindsided and call on me to be sympathetic and fill the void.
I could behave as the elephant has taught me. To walk away from those things which are not easy or which require time and attention, love and nurturing. Afterall, you live what you learn, although the elephant was not taught that from his own parents, but that is what he taught his children. His children in turn thought that behaviour was normal, as it was also reinforced by the elephants wife, who also selectively picked and chose her obligations to suit herself and not that of the whole unit.
Life was always fun when the circus came to town. The tent went up, the stage set, bells, whistles, clowns and theater. I was fooled and thought the circus was the life and didn't realize that it was all just one giant show and you two can step right up, get your ticket and have a ball. Life is just one big game right?
Not to me, anymore, as my feet have been planted on the ground. When the lambs were little and the circus came to town I had to review the contract and set rules and limits on the content of the show. My lambs could go to the circus for the experience but the performances needed to be scaled back because I didn't want them exposed to the dark side of the circus, metaphorically, as I was.
Maybe I should have let them buy the ticket and take the ride when they were younger. Now the lambs are grown and the elephant ages and I do too. The lambs look at the elephant as cute and nice and able. I see the whole elephant. Well, the parts that he lets me see on occasion, but not too often because the elephant knows that I will see him how he is. I think he fears that. The elephant likes it when I have my head in the clouds way better than when my feet are on the ground.
The elephant also likes the company of the lambs. They don't see the whole picture. They see what he shows them. He shows them a different picture than the one he shows me. They hear complete sentences, detailed conversations. They don't get none of your business when you ask how their day was.
It is difficult for me in this role and no matter what I do I see the whole elephant. The more I see what that elephant is doing the less I care (?) or rather the less I WANT to care. It is a battle within myself. It is not a thing I take lightly. Whether I am biting my tongue until it bleeds or sitting on the end of a phone listening to empty air instead of words their is no middle ground.
I know I am different from the elephant and his wife. They had the ability to not care about not caring. I care too much. I have caring children who also care enough, not too much, but just the right amount, except when it comes to their understanding about the new and unwelcome dynamics between me and the elephant (and his long departed wife; not dead, just in the wind).
Regardless of how the elephant or his long gone wife behaved in the past to me or to them, now that the elephants are aging it seems as if age gives a pass for past indiscretions, I am not old enough to get such considerations, and while they do, it is always pointed out that one day I will also have odder behaviours than I do now. I say possibly, but not probably....probably will if they continue to wear me down with the inability to try to be concerned about the elephants behaviour (even though he is an adult and it is none of my business). No doubt, when they look at me they already think I am demented. The elephant has been demented all my life, so the odder behaviour should be overlooked instead of examined? Sure thing boss. I am sure these lambs will send me to slaughter the first signs I may display as I am also a female which is a shot against me also. Makes me sound crazy and feel crazy when it is crazy, straight up.
Last year I went to an event and sat with a stranger and had my tarot cards read. Two takeaways from that were that I was surrounded by the beat of a drum. At that time we were in a death watch time, just days away as it turned out and I stated that they were death drums, and the second was about yelling. Yelling is an interesting subject for me, as I used to have sudden emotional outbursts, kinda like I do a facebook rant when I am LIVE and out of control. (or feeling very strongly about something as passion has two sides like everything else).
I have always been pretty quiet and mellow in general. A listener. An Advisor. A comforter. I have not always had it easy growing up, but I had all the comforts of a home and food and clothes until 7th grade, a couple of presents at Christmas until a teenager and a cake and dinner on my birthday until I was 16. As long as you were walking the path of the rules you were good. Step out of line and the elephant mom gets involved and trouble with a capital T.
I only got vocal or riled when I got overloaded with bullshit that I would take until I couldn't and then explode and then everything was all good once again. Not very healthy I know. I can recommend D.B.T. and mindfulness, both great tools. So I had periods of time when yelling seemed like a regular,but only to shed that excess emotion. By the point I had gotten the reading I was not a yeller. Not externally. Inside my head I was and I think that is what he picked up on. It was from two years of not responding to that elephant and the ridiculous things that came out of his mouth and the obvious misleading information to me as confirmed randomly from conversations with one of the lambs.
Or maybe he was just having a premonition of what was to come the next evening, I don't know. That is another story which I am not going to share right here and now, as that is down another rabbit hole and this Alice is too tired for that trip today despite it being 9:30 in the morning.
I just want to live my days with the lambs and the elephant in calmness and drama free and not be the cause of drama without having to ignore the elephant in order not to be reactive to the elephant or cause the lambs to crucify me and feed me to the wolves. I am tired of those wolves and tired of the drama the elephant causes by his behaviour. I struggle to not care. If that is a crime I am guilty but I do wish at times I could just hit the highway and run away from the elephant but that is using the taught behaviour which is what is also conflicting. Good old do as I say not as I do. That doesn't work for me. I have always taught by example and what kind of example would I be then???
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