Gremlins

You'd say the word "gremlins" around my daughter and she used to about blow a gasket; now she gives you the stink eye. One family movie night several years ago, my girlfriend & I tried watching this movie with our kids...let's just say it didn't go over well...at least not with my girl. From then on just saying the word was a way to antagonize her to the "nth" degree. Just ask my boy. He did this with the finesse only an older brother could provide. Gremlins was also a verb used by a life coach I once worked with to describe the lovely things in our life that hold us back, bring us down, keep us from our potential and pretty much what we allow to trip us up.

This week I have been facing a GREMLIN...100 feet tall, furry with bulging eyes and pointed teeth. His talons are inches long and the crevise like scars left on my psyche don't seem to fully heal. I have held this creature in the little box on the imaginary shelf in my closet for most of my life. Sometimes the little bugger gets out. Then he torments me to some varying degree of maliciousness and quietly sneaks back to his box to await another vernerable time in my life. Yeah, well, this is it. The opportunity has arisen and GREMLIN, A+, number one is out for blood this time.

I have a fear, a fear I have had all of my life. This fear, I have allowed to become a thin lining that underlies all that I do, think and feel. I don't like it. In fact, I f*&%ing hate it. Mostly because what I have allowed it to do or better said, keep me from doing in life. My fear is not being good enough. Not being a good enough daughter or student in my younger years. Not being a good enough teacher. Certainly not being a good enough wife. I have a failed marriage to prove that one. Let's talk about being a mom...I haven't done a good enough job raising my kids or they wouldn't sleep late or use sarcasm. Certainly, not a good one of those. Oh and relationships. Yeah, I suck at those too. I am not thin enough, quiet enough, slutty enough or beautiful enough to keep one of those going. Yeah, not good enough has been a big ol part of my life.

This week it has been that I am applying to graduate school (probably won't do well enough on the GRE to get in). I have started a business that I certainly can't handle because people buy from me because they feel sorry for me instead of like a really, great product. (Someone actually said that to me...) No matter that if I work this business I will be able to pay my bills and stand on my own two feet without help from others. Is there a chance that my budding relationship will fail with my biological father and his family because I am not good enough? Was I not good enough to relationship with all these years? How about the program I teach in...have I not tried hard enough to make it the best I can for kids? All these things came to a crashing, screeching, barrier based head this week. I came home from school with a whopper of a panic attack on Monday. Tuesday night I cried my eyes out to a friend who called to see what was up. Wednesday, I lost it a bit in front of my teaching partner. Thursday, I became a stoic wall in a meeting and today, I let it rest for a bit. Kinda wondering what tomorrow will be when I shop for my trip. Reality is sinking in folks. This IS my current situation. What in the world am I going to do from here?

When the gremlin gets out of the box things can get wild. They haven't gotten this wild for a while. Perhaps I need to hall my hiney back to the counselor. Perhaps. For now, I think my choice is to sit with the gremlin, let me feel him out, push through this hard time and then flip the f*#$er off.

That should send him on his way.