My Fairy Tale

Waiting...waiting..waiting

Everyone has a story that they tell themselves when they get out of bed every morning and before they go to sleep at night. For some lucky people their story is "my life is awesome" and "everything always goes great." Most of us over age 7 or so, do not live with a story that is so amazing. We have layers of stories that we tell ourselves to reinforce our deeper story and the older we get the more layers we layer...kind of like an onion or an ogre depending on who you ask. This tendency to layer and reinforce means that you can spend years peeling back the fears without touching on your story or, if you're like me, your mother and a book you were destined to read can point it out to you.

Let's start at the beginning. Two weeks ago on my way to work I rear ended someone and my 10 year old car fell apart, literally. Like I barely scratched the other car and my car just crumpled and fell apart, which was for the best since it was 10 years old and falling apart anyway. Not long after that I met up with my ex which resulted in a pretty disastrous encounter. While it looks like shit was hitting the fan, by the end of the following week I had more than enough money to pay my bills for the next month and get a new car--which I did on Sunday on my own with my own credit score no co-signing--and I was offered an amazing new job that would not only make me a decent living but would also bring all kinds of new experiences to me. New car and new job in hand, it looks like my life is finally coming together and one would think I am jumping for joy and filled with gratitude but instead I've been cautious, wary and haven't celebrated at all. As I was wondering about why I haven't been celebrating, the thought hit me that I do not believe that this is my life. Literally, I do not believe that my life is pretty good these days and all I could focus on was the one spot in my life that isn't good. However, the not believing that it's my life has more to do with my personal drama than me not thinking I'm worthy or anything like that.

Cinderella didn't even pick out her dress.

So what is my personal drama? Well, it was cleverly layered deep beyond the fears of abandonment, not being good enough and God knows what else. All this time I thought the abandonment issue was my core story but while reading The Celestine Prophecy I had an aha moment and realized that my core story is "I am a victim." Ever since I was a little girl I have played the victim, people were smarter than me, had more than I did, got more attention and whatever else I told myself to prove that the cards were stacked against me. My mom told me she noticed pretty early on that I was a "poor me" type when she was talking about two of my cousin's being bright girls and I said "what about me?"...I was 8 or 9. She seems to think that after the birth of my brother when I was 6, the new dynamic in the family put me in a place where I was no longer the star and to get my spot back I played "poor me." But it didn't end there.

With friends and co-workers, with getting jobs and dating and pretty much everything in my life I have played the victim. I have handed over responsibility for my life to other people and conditions, all the while blaming everyone for my life but me. He left me, she doesn't like me, my parents don't have enough money--sidenote if it weren't for my parents I would be homeless since my rent is way more than I can afford on my own--I didn't go to the right school, I didn't have the right amount of support, blah blah poor me blah blah. These stories churning around my core story like the arms of a hurricane churning around the eye do nothing but wreak havoc in my life and relationships and keep me in a place where life happens to me, instead of creating the life I want. It keeps me a damsel in distress waiting on someone to rescue me when I am perfectly capable of rescuing myself.

This is my kind of princess

This is soo not the life I want, one cloistered in a tower waiting on a savior so that my life can begin. The life I want is one that is beautiful, unfolding, full of adventure and love. A life that I co-create and can claim full ownership of. A life where I AM NOT A VICTIM! Sadly, that doesn't happen over night. You don't go to bed saying "my personal story is one of playing the victim" and wake up saying "I'm Xena warrior princess and I run this show." Life is about subtle shifts that add up to major shifts. So for now, knowing my story is enough because now that I know better I can do better. Will I slip? Hell yes, I'm a person and I have no interest in being perfect but I will progress. I can rewrite my fairy tale and will, but stories evolve one word at a time and 27 years of learning take time, and therapy, to undo. All I can do now is say I AM NOT A VICTIM!