You have to show up for it to show up

It all got too much so I hid.

And I needed this time to hide out.

To rest, recover and start to unpack a few things at time.

In my own pace.

I was able to uncover a lot. Make sense of a lot.

But those layers are done for now.

The next layers require me to go out there.

To be out there.

Because when I show up. They show up.

Today I stopped to clear some branches from the road.

Apart from having been in conversation with my anxiety which had been around since last night things had been ok.

Well that changed as quick as the cars were coming at me.

They weren’t my branches. But it was everyone’s safety.

No one else stopped. People barely slowed down.

Enter the rant: “are they not stopping because they think it’s mine? and I should be responsible for my own mess and mistake? WTF really has everyone lost their compassion to not help people when they did it? have we taken responsibility too far? but also can’t they see from the type of my car that it’s clearly not me? how can they just go about their lives and not stop and care? is everyone really that busy? don’t they realise I have shit to do today as well?”

Anger was back. And she didn’t come in like a long lost friend with a bottle of wine and pizza for a movie night.

She was firing. She was fuming. She was on fire.

________

I've been able to create some space and have a better conversation.

I see what she is protecting.

The little girl who is confused and hurting because others can see that things are not right and they are not helping.

She showed me two ways this showed up for me.

1) Directly from my parents who had this idea that you have to SUFFER. Things have to be HARD. You have to struggle to make it worthwhile an learning only happens if it’s hard for you. No one can help you. No one can intervene. She shows me many memories. I see little me being asked to do physical activites far beyond my physical capability. I see memories where I am asked to have a mental resilience much greater than I should at that age. Staying home from school at 11? to do the farm’s taxes. Left to care for animals and do all the feeding out on my own, age 10-12. For context at some point this is raising 20 calves at time, plus going to feed out across the road. ALL BY MYSELF. While still going to school.

2) All the people who know how shit things were at home and still never did anything. Those who knew about my father. The school. CYF. Yet they did nothing “families first”. Fuck that. That fucked us up. It lead to abuse and neglect for a second human being. Fuck you all. You let us suffer because of your own fucked up ideals about how ADULTS should have their unhealed ideals prioritised over a child’s. Because you can’t sit with the uncomfortable fucking feelings about how white men can be just as abusive as other nationalities. Because you can’t sit with the uncomfortable feelings that someone so charismatic can behave in such contradictory ways. Fuck you. You placed yourselves in positions of power and still didn’t have the fucking courage to do what needs to be done.

Oooooh, no wonder power in organisations and society gets me so bloody going!

________

So it’s been an insightful day! You have to show up for it to show up.

This would not have come up if I had stayed at home. In my safe bubble.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s important to have a safe bubble to come back to. But I do need to leave the bubble sometimes. If not to live a life but also because if I want to keep unpacking this stuff then there is only so much I can do in the bubble.