Empty

There are things I know I need to do to keep my tanks filled, to engage in sufficient self-care, to be able to be enough for the tasks at hand and the people that I serve.

I'm not currently doing most of them.

I'm feeling absolutely unseen, unknown and I can't imagine how that is, since I'm better lately at saying exactly what I mean, what I need.

I can't seem to understand how I came to this place of so much need, so much validation expected of me and so little given in return. I feel like the mother bird surrounded by open mouths. And I have no worms.

Teenagers are a vicious lot. They rain down so much biting criticism, so much disapproval, so much exacting scorn. It eats through confidence like acid. I spend most of my waking hours with teens of one shape or another these days.

I try to see people for who they are and, with varying success, give them as charitable a berth as I am able. I try to tell people--at least the ones who purport to be my people--how to treat me, the things I need. And pretty consistently I'm being told that I'm wrong. Wrong about myself. Wrong about what I'm entitled to for treatment. Wrong about hoping for a charitable berth for myself.

Too much chaos is draining. Too many people on too many occasions wears. The holidays are inexplicably draining and wearing. All the people. All the chaos. I'm spinning the plates as quickly as I can and still they break. I am mean and I don't want to be mean. I am impatient and I don't want to be impatient. I am selfish. I find myself operating under the worst case of scarcity. I have nothing to share, nothing to give and I feel too fully the fingers pulling what little I can garner straight from my own hands.

I'm closed for renovation. I can't accept any more orders for now. I can't even.