When You Just Can’t

When you just can’t, it’s okay.

Maybe you’ve been struggling with something so hard for so long you just can’t struggle anymore.

Or you’ve been smiling as hard and long as you could endure when you’ve had no motivation to smile, no kind word, no soft gesture; nothing that would cause you to smile. And now, you just can’t smile, no matter what.

There might be that brain worm rolling around in your head making you doubt everything about yourself. Making you doubt who you are or what your purpose might be, just undermining everything you’ve worked so very hard to have or achieve.

Or it’s the echo of long ago abuse that keeps popping up, when you are tired or sad or challenged. That suffocation you feel in your throat and the fear you feel in your heart when you get plunged back into a day so long ago that made you feel lonely,

heartbroken and terrorized; that suffocation that makes you feel like you might drown even though the nearest water is miles away and you know your feet are on dry land.

Then it might be that conversation that encapsulates everything you already know about your relationship. A relationship that you have felt is not rock solid but tenuous upon another’s mood or fortune, even dependent on a slight that they experienced in the course of a day that has nothing to do with you. And the thought streaks through your head “this isn’t working.” And that thought is there because in actual fact it isn’t working.

Or it’s the slap of bad news that hits you when you least see it coming. Your loved one has suddenly died. You get served with divorce papers. The bank sends you a foreclosure notice because your spouse has not been paying the mortgage even though you gave them the money to do so.

Maybe it’s the “best friend” who declares she will never speak to you again because she doesn’t agree with your politics or your choice of partner or your social stance. That friend that you spent decades loving and building up and defending from the criticism of others. The one you gave all your loyalty to and at the first disagreement tells you “My friends can’t believe we are friends.”

It could be your child who’s decided to paint you as an “evil” villain because she’s had a fight with her boyfriend and won’t take responsibility for her own behavior but instead blames you for how she behaves because she’s so dependent and terrified of losing said boyfriend she has to have a convenient villain to blame her irrationality upon. And that villain is you.

It could be your boss or the woman at the grocery check out or a mom at PTA that makes you feel like the largest piece of shit loser that ever walked the planet with a sigh, or a look or even a word. People who, in the grand scheme of life, have nothing to actually do with your life, they just get their rocks off being superior or nasty or unkind.

But you take that hit personally and now your whole damn day is ruined as you contemplate what you should have said to wound them equally as they have wounded you.

There was a play, I believe it was during the Restoration Period, called “Woman Killed With Kindness.” It was about a man who found out his wife had an affair and he determined he would be as nice as he could be to her. He waited on her every whim, let her know how much he loved her all day long and treated her like a princess. It had the affect he wanted, she felt so guilty about cheating on him she wasted away. That was his vengeance she so richly deserved.

I would like to have the patience of that husband and just kill my enemies and detractors with kindness. But I don’t have that in me. I just cut people off, never speak to them again and then suffer the loss of their companionship with stoicism.

I am a Stoic above all else.

But even with my Herculean backbone, I suffer. I cry, I get depressed, I have imaginary conversations with my transgressor in which I tell them how very hurt, angry and upset I am. I mean I lay into them good.

And then I remember, these are conversations with myself and they are going nowhere. Because it does me no good to validate their already awful opinion of me by burning them to the ground. And that is frustrating by itself.

So I retreat. I withdraw into myself and figure out what the best way forward is for self-healing, knowing full well the farther I move down that path the less I will care. I do pretty good for a while and then I just can’t.

The hurt, the anger, the incredulousness of the situation slam me right in the face and the pity party starts all over again. It’s a process, not unlike the five stages of dying. Getting to acceptance is a struggle and usually will entail a couple full days in bed sleeping it off. Because I just can’t. I can’t deal with the pain of the emotional and moral struggle waging a full blown four alarm fire in my heart and soul.

And that’s okay, because I can’t. Nor should I be forced to. I am as wounded as if you physically attacked me and I need time for those wounds to heal.

So give yourself grace if you just can’t. It’s okay to feel hurt, wounded or betrayed. It’s okay to cry, to yell, to rant and scream. It’s okay to sleep all day and eat a pint of ice cream. Maybe even for two days in a row. Or a week.

Know when you can’t and respect that. Your body and mind are preparing you for your next challenge, which is inevitable, as long as you’re breathing.