If I had forever

If I had forever, I’d never be able to fix it all. People love to tell me to stop trying so hard, that it’s not mine to fix. Actually, what keeps happening is I sit and observe and try to make sense, and then I carry my neatly tied bundle to the other person’s porch, and say, “Hey. Here is a thing I think we could approach differently.”

“That’s not a problem,” says the other with a slam of the door, leaving me dumbstruck, slapped, smarting. I sink back into the familiar refrain, “That’s right. I forgot. I’m crazy. Maybe not outright insane, but I’m too much. That has yet again been made clear.”

Everyone else is doing some choreographed line dance (I dated myself by wanting to use the Electric Slide as an example), and I don’t know the steps. Or if I do, I don’t like them. Here I go with another dancing metaphor. Sick of my own voice.

My own frustration-induced isolation. I don’t know where to put the boundaries so I put them at the far edge of the field with a sign on the gate: “No one gets in until you’re perfect.” And I stand guard too, just in case. But when they approach with their kind smiles, I waver. I forget. I let them in anyway. And then have to retreat to the super tiny shelter I threw together in haste – the one just for me. I made sure to allow no space for anyone or anything extra. Resenting being locked in a closet even though I’m the only one with the key.

I’ve had it with everyone today. And everything. Can you tell? The sound of the garage door opening and closing and shaking the house over and over, my nerves jumping each time. It all feels so out of control. It is so out of control. And it’s not my fault, but it is my responsibility, which is super annoying.

I can’t change them. I can only change me. And I can’t seem to change me, either. So what else is left?