Power

God knows I don't want to become the standard loud, unattractively opinionated woman in her 40s talking about power, but...is that it?

Is that what this--my mid-life crisis with religion, relationships and work--is about? Power?

Power--my current definition? The ability, the strength, to really live life fully realizing it's full of pain. I need to feel empowered and to do that I need to express myself about it--maybe that's my base need--expression, and beyond that, I need to be heard. I can write or talk myself blue in the face, but it goes only so far unless someone hears it and kind of gets it.

And maybe that's the empowering part, the part that says I'm at least half-right. That's the part that soothes the rash, dulls the ache and tends the sucking chest wound of need I apparently have. So yes, I want someone to see it, hear it, get it. Why would I want anyone to know my need? Why would I write about it here? Isn't it kind of stupid to be so vulnerable? Shouldn't I put a band-aid on that wound--cover it up for God's sake?

It's not that I think anyone can fix it--that's for sure. It's just truth, me being honest about where I'm at. Maybe someone else will admit it, that they feel it too, the pain, the shit of it all, then I can settle down, feel it and know I'm not crazy looking at all these people who say life is phenomenal all the time. I need to take life in, process it, not just endure it but allow myself to be thrown--yes, thrown--by pain as well as by joy.

Why do we think we're powerful or "smart" when we know what to expect and then are prepared, having adjusted our expectations? Is that kind of control "power?" We assume it's better to be prepared, to not get thrown, than to go through a painful experience. We try not to let anything get to us, we brace ourselves and think ahead, preparing for every possible disappointment, settling for the lowest denomination of feeling so the pain won't affect us. And we do it alone. That's being "smart." Well what if that's an illusion? What if we're actually more empowered when we feel, reel and let ourselves get hurt by life? Of course we're battered, but we promise to get back up, as hard as that is, and to keep living. At least we'll know what it feels like, this life.

So I'd rather not be so clever, or alone. I'd rather get rolled, taken advantage of and worse, disappointed, and other people will know it. Yes, I'll feel low, but there, knowing, learning, feeling the real truth, I know I'll have more real knowledge and, maybe power, than when I'm smartly steeling myself--not feeling, not learning anything except that I was right, yet again, to expect things to be so hard.