I've been talking to myself...

I wasn’t going to blog today. The plan was to just hide until tomorrow when I plan to  post my response to my challenge regarding my five strongest personality traits.

I was going to pretend the rest of the world wasn’t here. But, here I am anyway, mind spinning in circles, looking for something to share.

For me, journaling this way has become something of an addiction. It’s almost as if I can’t find a way to function if I don’t purge myself of all the words and phrases swimming in my brain. Sometimes I wonder if the endless need to spill my life over on to this blog don’t come from all the things I wish I could say and can’t.

Me? The girl who seems to have no filter in regard to things I say?

Absolutely.

I have rules of engagement. Remember?

If it were just a matter of it being MY things to share, then I most certainly would tell it all without hesitation. But, there are also those daily happenings that don’t belong solely to me. I share my life with a multitude of family and friends who all have their own happenings. Happenings that affect my life as much as they affect theirs. It’s those things I can’t share. It’s one thing to tell all when it comes to me but, for them…

Well, that just wouldn’t be right, would it?

There are things I want to share about the special needs of my children. I feel I can’t though. Because if people knew the scope of the need my kids would be open to all the scrutiny and stigma associated with those needs. They’re children. As their mother, it’s my job to protect them from that, not add to it.

There are emotional and stressful things happening in the life of my brother. Things that, albeit on a much lighter scale, affect me too in an emotional and stressful way. Again, not solely mine to share.

What do I do then? What outlet do I chose and deem safe to express the additional angst that I deal with – things that aren’t just mine? The things I want to rant about but feel restrained by my sense of obligation to those people in my life?

Sometimes I feel as though I’m just going to explode with those things. I can feel them stretching thin the outer edges of my psyche until I feel they’re weak, leaving me fearful of leaking little bits of those things that aren’t mine.

I loathe editing myself. I loathe restraint.

So, how do I reconcile who I am with the right thing to do?

I talk to myself. I have entire conversations with myself. I have entire two-sided conversations with myself. My brain is constantly in a state of give and take, statement and rebuttal, two-sided conversation.

I firmly believe that it’s this little habit that, rather than make me crazy, is the one thing that keeps me sane.