But I Don’t Want To…

When I was writing this post, it occurred to me that the morning routine of my boarding school experience mirrors, in many ways, what happens every morning now….

It went something like this… Finally, I am asleep. Feeling warm and comfortable… safe even… and possibly loved. And then clanging and banging, doors open and slam shut… bells ringing in my ears…. and here I am, alone with people who don’t know me, who don’t like me, who want to kill my spirit… and I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to be good. I don’t want to be happy. I don’t want to be a part of it all. I don’t want to fit in. I don’t want it… any of it.  They reject me – I reject them. I wake up and I think “fuck you!” Well… not actually those words, but that same feeling of rage and resistance…

And, I have to say, that it served me well. I didn’t turn into a little robot kid, I stayed a squarish peg and never ever fit into a round hole. I maintained my sense of self. My barriers held. My life is my own. And yet, I find that still… all these years later. I wake up all too often in a state of resistance, and a feeling of dread.

“No! I don’t want to … ” is normally my first thought. I have that sinking feeling as the alarm goes off. Yes, it’s not nearly as intense as boarding school, and not nearly as miserable or as lonely and isolating, but it’s there… like a wash of gray where there could be color.

Interestingly, this seems to be true for me no matter what day it is… even when I’m on a camping trip and having fun… I wake up… a feeling of dread… “I don’t want to get out of the warm sleeping bag… I don’t want to hike down to the bathrooms… I don’t want to …”  it sets the tone for the day. Everything that happens after is an uphill climb, a downward spiral, or a dead stop.

Clearly, this survival mechanism has succeeded far too well. Yes, some days I need it, but every day? No.

And what about you? Are you stuck in a morning mode that has outlived its purpose? If you examine the morning routines that you find yourself falling into year after year, do you find that they mirror childhood experiences? And if so, how do they serve you now? What would you keep? and what would you change?