Deficiency

I feel like I keep missing the mark.  I have this sense of inadequacy, as if I’m not quite there.  I’m not quite tall enough.  Or I’m too tall.  It’s that feeling that when people see me and they think if only she did this…..or did that….or had this…And to top it all, according to the mass media, I’m not slim enough.  At 42, why are my levels of confidence so unbalanced?

In a conversation earlier today, I said that I am very well aware that I am physically not what I was.  The discussion was based around ‘bereavement and loss’, a presentation that we are giving next week, and we had moved to the ‘loss’ aspect of it.  We talked about the loss of what had been.  I still grieve my dancer’s body and feel sadness towards my current body, but it is something that I live with.  I think that most of my friends are aware of my body grievance and their support and love helps me live with it.  But what about those people who don’t have that kind of community around them.  Those are the people that seemingly fall through the proverbial cracks.  The young girls with body dismorphia, the 40-year-old woman living with bulimia, the 30 year old single mother who had never learned how to say no.  The twenty-year-old man who was bullied by his brother.  The list is almost endless.  

This presentation is unearthing a lot of old issues for us all, that had been left simmering, a question of being unresolved.  Old demons have resurfaced, while new ones have enthusiastically appeared.  Some members of the group have found that this has triggered the grieving process for a loved one, while others have found that they reminisce about their past life or work or relationship.  I find myself asking many questions, trying to ascertain why it is I am feeling what I am feeling now and what, if anything, I can do to resolve it and move forward.  This all seems very circular to me.  My life gets over one hurdle, then reaches a plateau, before another hurdle come along.  Is this what is meant by having a normal life and living in a routine?

17/2/11