Background information: I screwed up my back this year, and have spent the last 3 months learning that I am a big fat liar.
This is not about confronting the reality of aging or mortality. I watched a guy die a couple of years ago, so I’m clear on that stuff.
This is about the brochure on me, that I produced myself and believed to be true; and the engineering report on me, that has been lurking in my torso, waiting for the audit.
What the attractive brochure says is that I am a relaxed and joyful person, unmotivated by fear, in good physical and psychological shape, at peace with my life. I’m easy and fun! I would travel with this person!
What the audit revealed (in this case the audit team is an uncommunicative doctor, three frustrated physical therapists, and one extremely patient massage therapist) is that am a fearful, stress-consumed mess who can’t even breathe correctly. Who the hell can’t breathe? Get this: before I can even think about starting yoga, I need to spent time every day relearning to breathe. This does stress me out, because a) I thought I had that skill pretty much down; and b) now I have to squeeze it into my schedule.
I am holding so much stress in my muscles, and so irrationally protective of my body, that I go into spasm constantly. I am, no joke, spastic. (You shut up, husband and children. I can hear you.)
So now I have all this new stuff to deal with:
- What am so stressed about? My big worry on this is that much like a massage flushes impurities, exploring why I’ve been lying to myself about stress is going to flush my sins. That makes me so trepidatious I’m thinking, “DON’T drink plenty of water, just reabsorb the poison. It was fine where it was.”
- How am going to deal with this frightened, high-strung trainwreck who has oozed out of my walls. She doesn’t sound like someone I’d eat lunch with, much less share a kitchen with, and let sleep with my husband. I already don’t like her.
- Relearn to breathe. Holy crap, there is no way that’s going to burn off the nachos. I feel like that should be something I could quite literally do in my sleep.
So, if you have made plans with Brochure Me, I will do my best to live up to the marketing. But for god’s sake, do not ask to meet Audit Me. I am still trying to shove her back in the crawlspace.