Give Your Bald Spot 20 Years

"Not everything that weighs you down is yours to carry."

This according to google is by Juansen Dizon, but I heard it first at spin class today. I climbed up an imaginary hill in my mind (the hardest and steepest kind) and while I was sopping sweat she screamed this over the blasting music. Later one of my favorite Insta-mommies posted it. This is clearly the quote of the day, week, my life???

But why the heck does it feel like those weights are mine to carry? I don't know about anyone else but sometimes you carry things and you just can't shake them, you can't drop them, they are lead weights on your ankles but they're YOUR lead weights. Someone needs you and they put this on you so you can't drop them...

But you need you and I need me.

This is something I have been trying to work on and it is slow and feels dumb often but if everyone is always telling me "take care of yourself so you can better take care of others" it's probably true. Those people are wise and I want to be happy so I need to learn to drop those damn weights. I need to let them sink to the bottom of the sea and NEVER I mean NEVER let them resurface.

During my therapy session today, yes there was thick crying and dampness of soggy tissue but I also left with a tiny tool to keep with me until I go next. I'm supposed to catch myself telling myself, well not telling, but more lying about how I'm "not deserving". I probably would not have pegged this but the professional got that from my stories and it kind of sounded a little too true when she said it.

If I think about it I maybe don't want to change my feeling of not deserving. Crazy right, but maybe because it means I can work myself into a panic and hair-loss-central-station and that's what I'm used to. We don't like to change the things we feel comfortable with because that's the story we made up for ourselves and it's our "identity". I don't want to change my identity because for one as I said it's, comfortable and two most days I like what I see in the mirror. Letting go on my ankle weights and rising to the surface... I don't know who I will be in the open air, and that sh*t is scary.

If I let go of my crazy mom 2.0 role with my siblings... I will be a regular sister who doesn't have a say in their lives and isn't needed during the middle of the night and isn't accidentally called mom. What is a regular sister?

I carry my sibling's safety and wellbeing.

If I let go of my "wife" relationship (at least what others have called it) that has emerged with my dad what will happen? If I don't check to make sure he has friends and work isn't too depressing, and he is generally happy...then will he even care about me? What use am I JUST as a daughter if he doesn't need me?

I carry my dad's happiness.

I could go on more about my personal life and all the weights that I shouldn't carry and still do but I don't think I need to illustrate anymore, you get the idea. Many of us have weight that we carry and it'll give us bald-freaking-spots and make us miserable. I'm not at my happy and therefore useful or productive potential yet, butI'd like to achieve it. If we don't act our bald spots may take 20 years to regrow...and by that point it may be too late.

Moral: Don't give a bald spot the time of day, 20 years is a long time to regrow that hair. Start today and take tiny, baby steps towards dropping the ankle weights, carrying sh*t doesn't help.