When acting "as if" is no longer enough

Back in my Recovery Phase (yes, it was a phase) one of the things they told newbies was to act "as if"--and eventually it would start to actually be. You wouldn't be acting any more...

Sometimes that doesn't work.

On a lot of levels and with a lot of things in my life I feel like I've been acting "as if" for a long time. And it's not getting thru to me if "it" actually "is."

There's a big difference between acting "as if" and "making do with what you have." "Making do" is when you're stuck, and there's really no way to get out, or you feel like "it is what it is"--that the devil you know is better than the one you don't...

I keep bringing up all these sayings/cliches because we say these things to ourselves, IMO, as some sort of way of hypnotizing ourselves. If they've been said so many times, they must be true and therefore they must be either right or at least o.k. folksy common sense life philosophies.

But maybe sometimes they're not right.

I make do and act as if because I feel there's no way out of some things in my life. To get out, or to change things, I have to make some very serious moves--some that will be very, very painful, while others will require a serious and non-defeatist self-assessment.

For the longest time, I've had a difficult time understanding if I've accomplished anything. Steady Eddie, while quite steady, never says anything like "that's great!" or "wow! I'm really proud of you." Usually I hear "what's that about?" or some other pithy and apathetic question. Not even a "that's cool."

I don't understand it. supposedly he cares. but I think he just likes having the company. And I don't demand too much, either, I guess.

I'm used to "making do" with very little. That's how I grew up. I could be at the top of my class and everybody else's life at home was more important or better than mine. There was always some kind of drama and it was always my father or my sister who were the center stage.

There was no room on that stage for me. I didn't count. They were the ones in the family that counted the most.

I've heard that when you don't have things reflected back to you, that it's hard to understand who you are. I know that to be true for me.

And when good things are reflected back, I think the person reflecting the good things is full of shit and only saying those things for some other reason.

I have a hard time with trust, I guess.

I was once accused of being a "bad friend" because I didn't gush with enthusiasm over a friend's acceptance into a workshop. It wasn't being a "bad friend"--it was not really knowing what to say or how to say it.

Although with other friends it's been o.k.

In an email to another friend who was recently out here from San Fran, I mentioned how it was important for me to have spent some time with her and her family, and that I missed them. She was the person who organized a group of friends to come over after my mom died.

I'm very used to disappearing from people's lives. It's that sense of "I don't count. No one will miss me." It's so deep inside that I just do not know how to get rid of it. It's the kind of feeling that, I know, creates some sort of bottomless pit that is never filled with enough appreciation or enough love or enough success or enough anything.

When there's that much of a bottomless pit, people tend to go away. It can be exhausting to try to fill it.

I know. I used to feel that way with my parents, who, no matter what I did, it was never enough.

I remember how my mom used to spend so much time talking about dead people and spinning wild fairy stories of how I could marry JFK Jr. or a prince. Dad never talked about much when I was a kid, and talked a lot about me getting out of the house once I hit my early teens.

So now, I make do with Steady Eddies particular level of apathy, I think, because it's a familiar apathy.

But in reality, I'm sick of it. I want someone to love me and appreciate me and be excited for me that I'm moderating two panels at a huge conference in Las Vegas in mid-September. Not someone who has no idea what the conference is about and no initiative to go and look it up and find out and actually be proud of me and happy for me.

I really want to scream right now. Or throw something.

And I understand more why I opened the door to Lucky Bastard. He has, on occasion, at least tried to understand what I do, to be supportive, to be a little cheering section along with being pretty darned selfish in other ways. And it's been genuine. It meant something to him to have a mistress who wasn't just sitting around like a lump, but who was also accomplished in her own ways. (but I think he's moved on--for his own reasons. I'll never know that's for sure.)

I always think that Steady Eddie's in some way very broken. And there's nothing I can do to fix that. No matter how fast I dance or how much I achieve or how much I lose weight or how much I change my hair or spend his money.

When I act "as if" or "make do" I also hide me. I don't own my feelings about things, or my opinions, or anything because I don't count.

I just can't do that anymore. I'm too old for that game, and don't want to spend the rest of my life feeling like a hollow shell that can never be filled.

Things have got to change here. But can I make them change?? Can I feel that I've accomplished something, that I'm enough, even if I'm not the founder of a company or a Harvard gradschool smart-ass.

It won't happen by magic nor osmosis. I have to make it happen. but can I?

I don't know.