Object, subject

Shocking confession time: I sometimes wish that I had not managed sports in high school.

Okay, that is probably only shocking for people who knew me in high school.

I mean, it made sense at the time. I loved sports and I was not good at them. It even led to making some money, because I got paid for running the scoreboard for summer basketball and for keeping score at track meets. I lettered! (Three times for basketball and track, twice for soccer, but also for speech team once adding Student Congress earned me enough points.)

It was also something that I did without understanding why I was doing it or the effect it would have on me.

I wrote about my need to constantly be busy ten years ago. (I had not realized it was that long ago.) The Complex PTSD book used the term "busyholic" a lot, which may be why I am thinking of it now. Even having understood my desperate restlessness then, I had still not quite figured out that the real managing sweet spot - for me - was that it was taking care of other people. That made it a better fit for me.

I can't help but wonder sometimes what my life would have looked like if I could have asked myself what would be good for me? What did I want for myself and how could I make that happen?

When I think harder, that means so many changes that I don't even know that I could recognize myself. Ultimately, I think I have tended to be in the places that I needed to be, and that prevents me from getting too regretful (which makes me okay with being a manager).

But I have been where I have needed to be in a damaged and lonely state. Mainly I am sad about that, and sometimes it is anger. The anger is important, because that's when I know I don't deserve it, but I can't just hold onto it. I am not sure it would be good anyway.

Other than the concerns about the lack of support expressed yesterday, where I am stuck now is wheeling between knowing I need to care for myself, feeling all of my other responsibilities, and seeing so much need in the world that I feel like I need to take on additional responsibilities. I mean, I guess if you are pulled in enough different directions, not moving in any one of them is a likely result.

Still no answers. However, I am going to share a story and a desire.

One of the books that has been very inspiring in the realm of wholeness has been My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen. Early on she mentions a story from her grandfather - a rabbi - of the Lamed-Vov, 36 people in the world who see the suffering in the world and respond to it. "They respond to suffering, not in order to save the world, but simply because the suffering of others touches them and matters to them."

Later in the book there is a section called "The Thirty-Six", about a woman who was not suicidal but thought that death could only be a relief when there was so much pain in her life. Later things led her to see that her broken heart made a shelter for others. It disturbed me, and it felt like me.

As much as I want things to be different, I don't want to stop caring. I don't want to abandon my mother. I don't want to shut out the world.

I do want there to be room for me, where I can remember my value and respond adequately to that.

Even more - without saying that I literally believe that piece of Jewish tradition - I want there to be more than 36. I want there to be enough people who care that some of them care about me. I want there to be enough people who care that I don't have to feel responsible for all of it. I want there to be 36 million, or 360 million, or 3.6 billion people caring about the suffering in the world. Then I assume we would be working to save it, but we could do it too.

We wouldn't need to be lonely.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2010/08/club-sandwich.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-power-of-hate.html