*Jazz Hands* Mom

Y’all. I’m an ornery person. I just am. There are moments when I desperately want things…that later I just stand there holding going, “Well, what the fuck am I going to do with this now????”

Compliments and Friendship are the two biggest of those things.

Compliments….that’s the part most of you will probably understand. Whether we admit it or not…we WANT people to think highly of us. Be it that we’re pretty or we’re smart or we’re funny….whatever it is. We want people to think highly of us because we think highly of them. And yet…at the same time…someone gives us a compliment and it’s like deer in headlights. Or, as an ex told me once, I look down and to the right and laugh with an uncomfortable “thanks”. (He wasn’t wrong…I still catch myself…Every. Damn. Time. someone gives me a compliment…head goes down…pointed towards the right shoulder…hiding the eyes…wait for it…wait for it… *uncomfortable laugh*…Hahahahaa….Thanks….

Why? Because the nice things that people say to me? They’re not how I see myself. I’m not ugly…I’m not especially attractive, either. I can be “cute”, but nothing worth compliments. I’m smart. I know I am. But a compliment is like a pedestal that I’ll fall off of when I do something stupid. Funny…ok, you can call me funny whenever you want. Not everyone appreciates my particular brand of humor, but…dude…I’m hilarious. 😉

But the rest of the compliments? Because that’s not how I see me…it feels…wrong when other people say they see me in those ways…it feels like they can’t really mean it.

And, so….ooopsie…did I blow up those compliments? Mah bad….

But I do this with friendship, too. I want to be liked. I want to be loved. I want people to WANT to be around me. I also know that people never stay. And, especially when I’m facing things that I don’t know how to handle…and I can’t be the person that they originally liked because I can barely survive each day…and I become more and more ornery and miserable and hermit-like…I stand there…holding these friendships that have been handed to me…that they won’t take back…and laugh uncomfortably…as I wonder how fast I can run if I just chuck it in the air and go.

For the same reason as compliments…

When I’m struggling with something that I don’t know how to get through…I know that people don’t stay in my life…they may love me for a little while, but they will leave. Because I’m not a loveable person…ESPECIALLY when I can’t be the person taking care of everyone else and making them laugh. So…their love and friendship…handed to me…I don’t know what to do with it because it scares me. Now…instead of blowing it up, like the compliments…I feel like it’s a bomb in my hands. I’m going to begin to trust it…I’m going to hold onto it…and then…when it blows up…it’s going to hurt that much more because I was holding on.

Now…while I don’t particularly love my face…I don’t really want it being blown off, either.

Basically, the more I think about it as I write…I want to deserve these things. I want to be deserving of compliments. I want to be these things that other people say they see in me. I want to be deserving of love and friendship. I want to be someone worth sticking around for.

But until I believe that I DO deserve them and can have them?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes each of us special. I’ll start with the Why.

I…could not tell you what makes me special. I can tell you what I feel makes me weird. I can tell you what I feel makes me annoying…too much…not enough…all the other things that I tell myself on a daily basis. But, special? Nah. Heck, a few years ago I had to write a paper for school about what makes me special…I asked my boyfriend at the time and his response was, “Honestly? Nothing. You’re not special.” Oh…ok….

BUT I HAVE THESE FRIENDS who, for some reason, see something special in me. No matter how much I say, “Hey, I’ll understand if you go away…” or “Seriously, no one is cute enough to make up for THIS personality…”…they just laugh and say they’re not going anywhere. They see SOMETHING special in me.

(Or I’m just a trainwreck they can’t look away from. #TomatoNobodySaysTomahto 🤷‍♀️)

So, that’s the why. But it got me thinking…what do other people think makes THEM special? Guess what…

Most people cracked a joke or said nothing made them special.

And every one of them was wrong.

Every person in my life is special. Not just to me, but…there is something TRULY special about them. Their loyalty…their selflessness…their intellect…their humor…their strength…

Every single person that I love, I can tell them EXACTLY what I see that makes them special.

But somewhere along the way they were convinced that they aren’t special. That what makes them different makes them weird.

So I will always remind them.

And, I bet if you look around, your loved ones have forgotten what makes them special, too. So I’m challenging all of you to make sure you point these things out every chance you get.

Because it’s a lot easier for people to understand why you love them enough to stick around when they understand why you’d want to.

A number of years ago, some online friends and I were playing a game. “What’s a phrase you would use to describe me.” Someone came along and said, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”. I had no idea what he meant, but for some damn reason I respected his opinion enough to go look it up. And…I. Was. Pissed.

What is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? It’s a movie trope. The exact terms used to describe her are: “the MPDG exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures” and “has no discernible inner life and usually exists only to provide the protagonist some important life lessons.”

What. The. Fuck?

The examples given were Jess (New Girl) or basically any Zooey Deschanel character…Ruby Sparks…any other QUIRKY female film character. Apparently being quirky means you have no point to your existence?

Seriously, this bothered me for A LONG ASS TIME.

But why? Why did it bother me so much? First of all, I get compared to Zooey Deschanel characters A LOT. lol Secondly…dude…sometimes I WISH I had less of a discernible inner life. Lol

But, mostly…it hurt because I could see how he got there.

I had a therapist once who begged me to get a Masters in Psychology. “You have this ability…to understand people…their motives…who they can be…that is beyond anything I’ve seen. It’s HORRIBLE for you because it makes it very hard for you to get angry, because you can understand the why of their view and actions. But it’s great for the people around you.”

That trait of mine…is the base root of my relationship issues. That was my real epiphany this morning.

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend about an ex the other day. About who they have decided to be. And I was thinking, “I’ll always love that person because he mattered to me once and because I know who he is deep down…but, MAN, I don’t like him.”

That’s when it hit me. I can say that about pretty much everyone I’ve ever dated. I love them for who they are inside, but I sincerely dislike who they choose to be.

This led me back to the MPDG trope.

In many past relationships, I’ve lost myself. I gave up things that mattered to me to support the things that mattered to them. I lost things and people I loved as I tried to be there for my person.

I forgot to keep being my own person.

Then I went the opposite direction. I remember a couple of summers ago. I had gone out with someone a few times. I was stressed about things I needed to do. He told me, “Ok. We need to sit down together and refigure your priorities.” The. FUCK. We. Do! My priorities are just fine, but you just became not one! (You guys know me…I always go to the extreme…lol)

I kind of became a Manic Pixie Fuck Off Girl.

But, even on both ends of the extreme, I always have had my own thoughts…my own wishes…my own dreams.

I’m Quirky as hell, but I am most definitely not here only for the benefit of helping someone become their best self.

If I help them find their best self in the process of being my own best self, bonus.

But no one will ever again say to me that I make a great partner because I’m “so easy to be with”, “malleable” or “too nice”.

I’ll be the Manic Pixie I Hope We Fit In Each Other’s Worlds Girl.

It’s funny. I had part of this blog planned out before I saw that memory from two years ago. Now it’s going to be a mix of all my thoughts. Weird, right? Sheri posting a jumble of thoughts? Whodathunkit?

So…a few years ago…I found myself. I didn’t do a lot of peopling…because I tend not to fit…but I had come to peace with that and had honestly really started to be happy with who I was. I had what I called “the weirdest self confidence in the world…I love me…I just don’t expect that anyone else will.” 🤷‍♀️

But…over the past almost 2 years, I lost that somewhere. I started trying to fit.

I started putting myself around round holes…and, me being oval, kept trying to JAM myself into those round holes to show that I could fit just as well as the circles…but I’m not a circle. I just kept battering myself…but it just couldn’t work.

This weekend I spent approximately 17 hours in a car. I’m a firm believer that you can solve world peace on a road trip…or you can work yourself up into starting WWIII…it could go either way. 🤷‍♀️😂

Today I pretty much hit WWIII…AND World Peace.

First…I got really freaking mad about feeling like I don’t fit. Mostly at myself…with lots of, “it’s not supposed to be this HARD!!!”s thrown in. Then at people who make me feel…less than…for being an oval.

But something also occurred to me.

Grace. We all deserve some grace.

It is not my fault that I don’t fit. It’s not theirs either.

You see…when most people were learning how to “fit in”…I was being hidden. I wasn’t allowed to have friends really…we didn’t even have a phone. We were on the run and being popular wasn’t good for that. So…I was by myself a lot.

When people were learning how to socialize away from their parents…I had just been found not long before that…and I didn’t even know who I was and knew everyone else saw me as the weird kidnapped girl who was too shy to speak.

When people were learning how to interact with the opposite sex…I was struggling with my past and present…and being consistently told that I wasn’t worthy of any form of attention or love…

When people were getting married and making healthy forever choices, I was finally escaping abuse and trying to learn who I was.

And all I learned was that who I was…was really weird…and didn’t fit.

It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t fit.

It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t let me fit.

Just as now…it’s not my fault that I don’t fit.

It isn’t (always) their fault that they look at me like I’m a science experiment rather than a person.

But…that girl…who said that to that guy 2 years ago…man, she didn’t give a flying fuck if she fit. She was awesome and anyone would be lucky to know her.

I’m going to find her again. No matter what it takes.

I’m finding my way back to grace.

Y’all. I can’t. This kid of mine.

Right now I am sitting in a hotel room waiting to go back to Mayo tomorrow. I should be freaking out…and I’ve had my moments…but, for the most part…this kid has had me cracking the hell up all day.

Turning a sassy moment of “Oh well…” at one of my requests to, “No…I said enchante, mademoiselle…”

Asking, “What can I do for you to get this hoodie I want?!?! I’m not getting it, am I?” “Not with that attitude…” “Well I’ve tried every attitude in the book!!!”

Repeating every Instagram post another teenager makes with a mocking, “Hashtag, save the turtles!!”

Telling me it’s so cringy that she used to love Taylor Swift…as she then turns on Taymor Swift for an hour….

Lamenting for an hour that her face is assymetrical and how it’s all my fault…

A million little things. A million random thoughts. A million laughs given to me by this one maniac in the last 15 years. All add up to one reason that I’ll willingly keep going through all this heart stuff…

So that I can be blessed with a million more moments as the mother of this child of mine.

And, as she reads this, I will be ordering that dang hoodie. Because little does she know that all I need from her is to have her know that she is my everything. Even with THIS attitude. And she makes my world a world worth fighting for.

Blog Preface: There’s a point to this. I swear.

A long time ago…in what feels like another life…my world fell apart. I was 10 years old…and I had just found out…in a wave of blue lights…that I had been kidnapped. My name wasn’t my name. My daddy wasn’t my dad. Nothing was real other than my brother. Everything fell apart…but the strangest thing happened…all of these grownups around me…they all kept telling me that I must be “so happy that the ordeal is over”. I mean…thanks? But I didn’t know I even HAD an ordeal until that moment. But yay for it being over? Let’s just ignore the trauma and identity crisis. Let’s forget the fear and confusion.

That was the first time I understood that I had to be strong for other people. It would hurt them too much if I wasn’t ok.

As an adult, I have fought against that mindset in regards to missing kids. I’ve battled the fact that missing children’s services are geared to finding the child…but leave just as the child is more lost than ever. The services are for the grieving parents, not the strong “lucky” children.

You’re too strong to let this break you.

No.

Just no.

That is the worst message we can give anyone.

When an individual who is hurting hears, “You’re too strong to let this break you”…what their shattered heart hears is, “Please don’t talk to me about your pain. I need to know you’re ok.”

What they hear is that no one is listening and they need to leave the tears and fears inside, and show a strong face to the world.

Here’s the thing.

I don’t know a single TRULY strong person who isn’t also vulnerable and real. I know people who put on a solid brave face…who hide their pain…but it’s still there.

The truly strong are the ones who can admit the pain…feel the suck…acknowledge the hurt…and get it out so that they can heal.

You can walk on a broken leg…it’s possible…but it will set wrong…and it will hurt for years to come. That leg only heals when you admit it’s broken and allow someone to help you heal.

So…that’s where I am right now.

You guys…this heart shit SUCKS. I feel lost…I feel invisible…and I feel like many just want me to “be ok”.

You’re too strong to let this break you.

No. I’m not. I’m too strong to NOT let this break me.

I will break. I will crumble. And, like I always do, I will rise from that in the end and make the world my bitch again.

So…when someone cries…don’t push their pain aside with well meant “You’re too strong for this!” messages.

Instead…

Stop…and listen.

Listen until they find their strength.

I had to laugh today. For probably the 100th time since this whole heart thing started….I stood up quickly…I got dizzy…I sat down even more quickly…and a coworker asked, “Aren’t you not supposed to do that?”.

Yes. You are correct. I am not supposed to do that. Bad, Sheri. Bad. *smacks own hand with ruler*

Here’s the thing. For 42 years (give or take a year where I learned to walk), I stood up as fast as I wanted to.

For 42 years, even with Lyme, I made decisions based on how I was feeling in that moment…not necessarily based on how I might feel an hour into it.

For 42 years…I knew how to breathe normally…I knew what my body was capable of…I knew what I could and could not do without hurting myself.

For 42 years…I was me.

Then…one day…that changed. Not even slowly as life tends to do, but it changed in what felt like the snap of a finger.

I had to learn…literally…how to stand up without falling down all over again.

I had to learn to think about activities and such in terms of what I might feel like later, even if I feel wonderful in the moment.

I had to learn what would take my breathe away…and what would help me find my breathe when I lost it.

I had to learn…to be someone who is less spontaneous…who’s plans are more thought out…and who considers the consequences of absolutely every little thing she does.

If you know me well…that last paragraph…yeah…

I had to learn how to be a new me.

Sometimes I fail at this and do something ridiculously stupid. I stand up too fast. I move too quickly. I race off before remembering that I shouldn’t do that. I make plans that aren’t in the best interest of my health. I overdo it and I push too hard.

And, Lord trust me, I laugh at myself when I do. Because one thing I HAVE learned fairly quickly is to have a little patience with my own learning curve.

We don’t unlearn 42 years in the matter of months.

So…it’s an adjustment.

I’m adjusting to my new normal and to a new way of life.

At the same time I’m learning who this new me is going to be.

And I am ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY REFUSING to make any plans for the future until I know who I’m going to be and what that future holds.

So, it may get a little messy sometimes. I may need help getting up sometimes…both physically and emotionally…

But I have a feeling that, if you can just excuse the mess of the adjustments that are in progress, we’re all going to see a pretty cool finished project at the end of the adjustments.

I’m pondering two statements that I have made in the past couple of days.

I don’t add any value.

I’m afraid I’m going to lose my friends.

Both of these were in regards to taking a step back from the fitness portion of my life.

Both are…legitimate fears…while simultaneously…completely asinine.

I’m going to address the second first. The friends that I’ve already lost since all of this started…they didn’t run until I pulled inwards. They never told me that I have nothing to offer and I was worthless to them…but I was afraid that they would have no use for me if I couldn’t do the things we’d always done…so I pulled in…and they eventually gave up. THAT is why I’m afraid I will lose people.

When I feel like I have nothing to offer I remove myself from the equation before I can be removed. Because I legitimately do not know why anyone would want to be around me if I have nothing to offer other than…me.

When I said that I don’t add any value…same thing. If I can’t do the things I’ve done…if I can’t shoulder the world and take care of everyone and everything…then what value is there to anyone to have me around?

And that’s what I’m struggling with.

I feel so disconnected from the world sometimes because I know that I’m different. I know that I’m easy to walk away from. I find connection through shared experiences, beliefs, and interests.

And when I lose the ability to be a part of that…

When I feel like I have nothing to offer…

I feel useless to my people…and, quite often, I hurt them because I’m believing that they can’t love me anymore so I pull in.

I need to learn how to show people I still love them even when I’m afraid that they can no longer love me.

Because, no matter what, love is something I can offer and is value added.

This was in my memories this morning at a rather ironic moment in time. I’ve been railing against God’s plan and begging Him to let MY will be done…to let me have the path that I want to follow instead of the one that He has for me. For someone who has so much faith, I’ve been refusing to have faith that He knows what’s better for me than I do.

So…the more I kept pushing to keep the life I’m used to, the more He pushed to show me why I can’t. Culminating in me seriously pushing my heart way too far yesterday morning and chest pains that almost sent me to the hospital. Ok, God. I hear you. I’m going to kill myself if I don’t listen. Soooo…I decided to take a step back (for now) from my beloved FiA. No more runs with my friends. One beatdown per week (because my AO is my baby). No putting myself into situations where my stubborn ass won’t slow down.

Because that’s the heart of it all…I don’t know how to NOT push and slow down…and I’m afraid of what I will lose if I do. Will I lose friends? Will I lose respect? Will I lose self love? I don’t know. And that terrifies me. But, God needs me to slow down…and He needs me to take those risks and have faith in His path. So…I’m trying. In ways that terrify me. And in the biggest way that I feel like I could lose almost everything I love about my life.

Ok, God. Your will be done. Let’s see what you’ve had in mind.

Blog Preface: If you’re wondering why I’m comparing myself to a cell phone, go back one blog.

Blog Preface Part Duh: I have the cardiologist’s permission to do these things. Carefully. So no yelling at the cell phone.

Today I did my first “long” run for a new half marathon training program. The first time that I have set realistic goals for finishing a race with a faulty power source.

So…I did my little 10 minute warmup of walking. Then 2 miles of run/walk (as per good ol’ Coach Jeff’s instructions)…which was an entirely humbling experience. Where I used to knock out 2 miles EASILY in under 18 minutes…today…not so much. Instead it was approximately 24 minutes…where I watched my heart rate instead of my time…and tried to stay off the 🎵Highway to the danger zone🎵…

It was a little painful to see my time…but I did it.

And then during cool down, I started to think.

Sheri v8.8. We talked about this. Reinventing myself. Upgrading my features. Streamlining my capabilities. Finding my target market who will feel lucky to own the cell phone that is me…

Sheri v8.8 is still a little hung up on losing some of her old features.

Sheri v8.8 looks at 12 minute miles and thinks, “No one is going to be impressed with my performance and speed. Watch out Best Buy, here come the returns…”.

But then I started thinking. Last year I did things that I never thought would be possible. Even in all my stubborn glory, NEVER thought possible. I ran more half marathons than I can count. I ran one of them with bleach poisoning and still had my record time of just minutes over 2 hours. I medaled in my age range in a 5k. I made full grown, fit men consider me a real competitor …someone to keep up with (mileage wise, not speed. Lol).

Sheri v8.8 can’t do those things.

But Sheri v7.9…she’d be over the moon to know that any version of Sheri got to do those things even once. I did things other people may never do. I did them well. And it’s ok that I can’t do them now.

So…as I was thinking all of these things…I was thinking more on the cell phone analogy.

I’m a little like an Android…in that if you trust me too much I’ll wind up saying the wrong thing because my autocorrect ducking sucks…but NO version of me has ever (literally) caught fire. I’m a little bit like an iPhone….in that my internal Siri thinks you want my input even when you really never asked for it…but I won’t shatter just because you looked at me wrong.. But, mostly…

I’m A LOT like a Nokia. You can drop me. You can shake me. You can put me in the back of the closet for 5 years and forget I exist (but please don’t). You can probably even toss me in the toilet and flush (…also, please don’t…).

I’m still going to work.

I will not break.

I will still fit in your pocket and make it look like you’re happy to see the world.

I mean…ummmmmm…

Yup. I’m a Nokia and proud of it.