She asks if I feel guilt about anything in particular.
I answer, No.
She asks me to journal. I agree. And I don’t write for days.
I feel guilt.
I don’t feel guilt about anything in particular. I feel guilt about everything. It floods me with almost every single decision that I make.
I receive the email early last week. It reads, Are you alive? Finally, this morning I return the email via phone call. Yes, I’m alive.
My friends are gracious and understanding. I value them above all else. And yet, they know they can go for days without hearing from me. They forgive me.
Today is my first day off in 10 days. I can go to my nephew’s 9th birthday BBQ. Or I can accompany the musician I work with to a gig in Annapolis. Either way, I am letting someone down.
Today, the musician needs me more; my nephew will care far more about the wii he is being gifted. But two years from now, the musician will remember the many, many gigs I was there for, and my nephew would reflect on pictures and wonder where his aunt was when he blew out his candles.
A reader of my previous blog wants to know if I have settled into a new site. I tell her, not really, because I don’t want her to read. I know this is more than a white lie.
If I stay at work late, I scold myself for not taking care of myself. If I leave early, the piles of paperwork on my desk haunt me. If I spend a morning by the pool, the laundry is ignored. If I spend the morning doing laundry, I miss hours of relaxation.
I am consumed by guilt.
You would think I am Catholic.
Unfortunately as Frederick Buechner said about anger, the meat at the banquet of guilt upon which I feast is me.
6 Comments
June 29, 2009 at 1:43 pm
You can’t do everything. That’s life. Sometimes you just have to decide what’s most important and get that done. Or lay at the pool. That works too
June 30, 2009 at 3:18 am
I can’t do everything?! Damn it. Now you tell me.
All kidding aside, maybe there is a part of me that thinks I can do everything….
June 29, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Life isn’t that linear of an equation. Sacrificing one thing at the expense of the other is not the end of the calculation. Say you clean your place instead of spending time relaxing, further suppose that the lack of real downtime contributes to higher stress levels at work. We all make choices for our own greater good and the math isn’t always that easily explained by the existence of X being the absence of Y.
June 30, 2009 at 3:17 am
Life isn’t that linear. But feelings aren’t logical.
June 29, 2009 at 9:02 pm
“Frederick Buechner”
You know you’re a dork when you see that and automatically read it as “Ferris Bueller”.
It’s one thing to recognize that you need to be selfish, and quite another to be okay with it. I’m still working on that second part myself…
June 30, 2009 at 3:21 am
I can justify acting selfishly. I still feel guilty about it.