Confirmed Hypocrite
The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite!
Tennessee Williams
I love helping people find their true passions. I love watching the journey of a person who’s trying to figure out the perfect blend of their passion into their everyday lives. I even teach an entire unit on it in the course I teach. It’s both cliché and overreaching to constantly bombard people with the idea that they must love what they do. Wrong. You must pay your bills, but you also must stay sane doing it. Sometimes, we all need a little dose of reality. So here it is. You can try to find your “true calling,” you can bust your butt to merge what you are good at and passionate about into a lucrative, satisfying nine to five. However, chances are that won’t happen. What can happen, what you should do, is always, always, always make sure you are incorporating the thing you love into your life. That is what I teach my staff and students.
The problem is, somewhere along the line, 2017 to be exact, I became a hypocrite. A big, smelly, muffin-top having hypocrite. I was preaching self-care, learn to say no, hold on to your passions left and right. All the while I was dying inside and getting wider by the month. My calling is helping people thrive, but my passion is writing. I had stopped writing. I love nonprofits and helping students in the community, developing young minds. Nope, wasn’t doing that either. I was too busy… Okay, raising my son, trying to curb his burgeoning behavior issues. I think I get a tiny pass on that one. Here’s one I don’t get a pass on. Talking to people about their mental health and relationships, using my degrees and insights to help them resolve their issues and get better, when all the while I was depressed, hating the lack of communication in my marriage, and developing some very uncharacteristic self-esteem issues.
Hypocrite.
Hypocrite
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelingshypocrite
adjective
Pot calling kettle.
Big ole glass house.
2017 was tough for me. I had contemplated divorce to the point where I hadn’t called a lawyer, but there was a solid plan in my head for how we’d split the assets and co-parent. I’d also fell into depression. Last year marked the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death and I’d also lost one of my mentors to colon cancer. I was grieving hard and very lonely.
Okay, more confessions from the hypocrite. I am one of those people who do not ask for help. I do not ask for help, I do not vent to friends, and I do not walk around sighing repeatedly throughout the day like Eeyore, hoping someone will notice and make me feel better. Seriously, I know someone who does this.
My way of coping is to stuff everything down deep during the day and until, low and behold, I really am okay. My smile is genuine, my step is light. I am in control. Then at night, I’m exhausted, snappish, and sometimes weepy. I say no to every social invitation because I am too lethargic and agitated to be comfortable around people. And usually, since we are 100% honest on this page, I argue with my husband a lot. Why him? I’m the boss; I can’t snap on my team, the students, staff, or parents. I’m a mom. The kid is only 3; Alex doesn’t deserve the worst of me. And frankly, nine times out of ten, my husband was probably doing something annoying that I completely blew out of proportion.
Right now, I am on an Anti-Hypocrite Program (AHP). It’s one I created myself, and it’s really quite simple. I speak my truth. If I’m sad or disappointed, I say it. If I’m running on empty, I say so, and then take a nap. I do not take my crappy life out on my husband, but I also no longer hide it from him (which started our downward spiral). And the most crucial step in this program is that I change my crappy life. I do more things that make me happy. I try to take better care of myself, and I started therapy. You know what? I feel better. Lighter. The depression is gone and the motivation to achieve my life long goal of writing and publishing a novel returned, along with my need to socialize. I’m, slowly, working my way back to the land of the living.
Now if only I could fit daily exercise into this program.
