You Can't Make a Cake Without Breaking a Few Yokes

The transformation has begun! Or the renovation. Or the "Great Uncovering". Or whatever you'd like to call it. As expected, things are a mess and the pain has already started.

Step 1 for the house renovation was to get the right tools and dismantle the kitchen. I have done just that. In an unexpected move, I actually went to the know-it-all guy at Lowe's with a cabinet door in hand and "let" him investigate the best plan of attack for my project. We (he) determined the best plan (sandpaper and paint). I bought the supplies and headed home.


I realized very quickly that to keep up the momentum - and prevent the usual mid-project melt down - I would need inspiration. So I quickly finished sanding one door, primed it and completely painted it. It looks fantastic!


Half way through sanding the 2nd door, my shoulders started to burn. That's when visions of the other 24 doors started to taunt me. I heard the familiar chorus of "WHY do I start these grandiose projects?" Thankfully, the pristine, newly painted reminder caught my eye and I settled down a bit. I reminded myself that there's no deadline. Afterall, my roommate is delighted there are no doors on the cabinets. He sees closing and reopening the same cabinet door as an inexcusable waste of his time and energy. I'm not having company any time soon - well none that will care if there are or are not doors on the kitchen cabinets. The only person who might raise a stink is ME. And complaining to me makes no sense since I haven't taken my own advice in decades.


So that brings us to the second part of the transformation - the renovation of ME.


I started, as promised, to read "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth. I was startled and a little disconcerted to discover that her first message is (paraphrased) "There's nothing wrong with you. Stop trying to fix yourself." For a girl who just started a blog based on the comparison between her personal and home transformations, this was less than welcome news.


There's nothing wrong with me? Stop trying to fix myself? How is that even possible? If you'll recall, even teenage girls can tell you there is plenty wrong with me. And if there's nothing to be changed, why do I still have 208 pages to read?


I continued reading because I wanted an explanation for why I paid $24 for a book about NOT making myself better. As I continued, I discovered the 2nd message (paraphrased) "Live in the moment. Pay no attention to the mistakes of your past or the 'what ifs' of the future. You're missing what is happening right now." Hmm....that sounds oddly familiar. Oh, wait! "Give us THIS DAY our daily bread." Dang! She's right. It does all come back to God.


So I have to figure out how to get better without changing anything? My big quest for transformation requires me to stop going on quests? Then I read Geneen's words: "They can relate to the belief that if they keep themselves wounded and damaged, they will be loved." Uh oh. That's starting to ring some bells. I'm having flashbacks to every time I slowed myself, dumbed myself down, pretended not to know how to do something and tried to act casual to keep from spooking a guy.


I continue reading: "They fit in by hating themselves." Oh, crap! How often have I wanted to say, "I'm having a fantastic day!" only to catch the words in my throat as I make eye contact with a room full of women who are waiting for my tales of woe to confirm that I'm one of them? Enough times that having a tale of woe has become automatic. I don't have the flash anymore. I go immediately to my Complaint-of-the-Day.


Geneen's next question stops me in my tracks: "When you sense yourself directly, immediately, right now, without preconception, who are you? [...] The you who is not your past, not your habits, not your compulsions."


Hmm...


I'm suddenly remembering a relationship in which the guy I was dating repeatedly called me a Ferrari and talked about how much precision one needed to be in a relationship with me. I was mortified! I told him he was mistaken or perhaps I had shown him the wrong thing (afterall, it had to be my fault). I explained that I'm really very casual, low maintenance...breezy. Every magazine article and woman-centered self help book I'd ever read told me that it is VITAL for me to be "breezy". To show my guy just how little effort is required to be with me. To act like I'm hard to get. That, they told me, was the recipe for being the perfect girlfriend. That attitude was what would drive the boys mad and send them running after me, dying to be in my presence. The less they thought I cared, the more they'd clamour to my side. So I bickered with his assessment and after each conversation I worked harder to show him how available I was and how convenient a relationship with me could be.

I didn't realize that he wasn't criticizing me for being high maintenance. When I think back now, there was a sense of pride and titilation in his voice when he talked about the complexities of me. He wasn't griping because being with me was such hard work. He was showing off. Pointing out that he could handle me. He has the skills it takes to be with someone as discerning as I am.

Now that is an image I can relate to. I've been in relationships with guys who thought they could just start pushing buttons, grinding gears and stomping on pedals. The result: I whined and groaned and we went nowhere. When I tried to explain that the nuisances of communication would make our relationship a smooth and very exciting ride, those guys scratched their heads and looked at me like I was speaking another language.

To give another anology, I was like a race horse dating a Clydesdale. Both are perfectly fine animals with strengths, beauties, value. Yet, try to race a Clydesdale against a Thoroughbred and that big, clunky horse will wear out or lose interest. Likewise, yoke a Thoroughbred to a Clydesdale and that racing machine will go crazy. I can't slow myself down to go at your pace and you can't pick up enough speed to feel the power I feel when I let myself go. So I'm taking off the yoke. In intimate relationships, work relationships and friendships, I'm not going to try to be what I think everyone wants from me. I need to figure out who I am and how we fit...or if we don't.

My task now is to figure out how to be high maintenance without being a royal pain in the butt. I've seen a lot of strong, intelligent, independent women trying to show their strength but coming off as a shrew. You know the type. They used to call them "ball busters" until that term was deemed non-P.C. They come out swinging and showing their strength like men. They haven't mastered the quiet grace and elegance innate in truly powerful women.


So, I'm breaking the yoke. I'm questing without questing. Learning how to be myself and finding it unbelievable that it is so incredibly hard to stop faking it in so many areas of my life. I feel like I've woken up from a coma. How many years have I been away? How long will it take to bring myself back to life?


Here's hoping I can master it by our deadline of June 4th! :-)