Afterthought

I was standing in the bathroom this morning, looking into the mirror and asking myself, "Why are you putting on make-up today?"

And I didn't have an answer except, I'm on my way to work, and this is how I always do it. So many thoughts were running through my mind, I still haven't gotten a handle on them, but one that keeps rearing it's ugly little head is this feeling of sheer unimportance that pervades my life.

I have things that are essential to my life and give me a reason to go on, my beautiful daughter, my family, helping people through my job, but the flip side of that is that I feel like I am unimportant to others' lives. I don't feel like I'll be missed if I were to suddenly pass away. Sure, for a while I would be, and to my mother, brother and daughter, I would probably alwyas be missed, but to everyone else? I doubt my death would be mourned to my satisfaction.

Gawd, that sounds awful. I guess what the feeling I'm trying to convey is, I don't feel memorable. I don't feel beautiful enough to be remembered for that, or kind enough to have lingering thoughts over my good deeds. I'm not intelligent enough or an eloquent enough writer to make some lasting impression on the world.

In my everyday life, I feel like an afterthought. People tell me how much the like talking to me, but I get the distinct feeling it's because I'm a good person to talk at, to tell all the great and wonderful things in your life, without worrying about inquiring into mine.

I feel like I get dumped on a lot, and it's nobody's fault but my own for allowing it to happen. And this is not including those times when a friend is in a really difficult place and needs a shoulder to cry on and a captive audience. Those times, I am overjoyed to be the one they come to, and if my listening is helping at all, I'm happy to sit quietly for hours. But a lot of times I feel like people want to share minute details of their lives with me, completely disregarding my own. And in those times lately I've been feeling really angry. I'm mad that they want me to listen to everything they have to say, but that they don't care what I may want to talk about, and I get frustrated that I don't feel like I have the voice to speak up for myself, to express my own needs in a positive and constructive manner.

And I haven't blogged about this yet, because I wasn't really sure what this "ick" feeling was. I noticed myself getting angry at clients who vomited all their emotional bullshit onto me in intakes, and I couldn't understand why, seemingly so suddenly, this started to bother me. But when I started to notice the same feeling in my personal life, *ka-ching*!

I don't know a lot of things, but I knew this emotional shift wasn't hormonal. One of the few things that I am getting very good at is recognizing my own physical and emotional states. I'm not fabulous at naming them all yet, but processing the feelings is helping me to understand where they are originating and what I may be able to do to change them.

Of course in this case, I don't really know what to do. My first thught is to plug my ears, start humming loudly and run from the "dumpers." But wow, people think I'm crazy now, I can just see they shit-talking after I do something like that. Or I could just avoid these folks as much as possible, but that just seems so ... avoidant. I guess the most mature thing to do would be man-up, and tell them that I'm sick of them not giving a damn about me and being so self-centered that they'll talk about themselves for an entire encounter without a first-thought about my well-being.

But then I think to myself, I'm really lucky to have the option of listening. I know there are people in my life who love me and care about me, and I know that when I really need to talk, they will always be available to me, even if it's 3am and they have work the next morning. I don't think these "dumpers" are that lucky. My thought is that maybe I'm that person in their lives, the person they can always count on to be available to listen to them. Maybe they don't have anyone else close to them who will give them the time and attention that I do. Maybe these people hav eso much pent-up inside of them that they need to get it all out before they can continue with their day, and if I'm the only one who will listen, maybe I should feel lucky to fill that roll for them. Maybe instead of being angry at them I should feel sympathy.

Maybe?