Heart Failure

I can’t tell you how my heart breaks when I feel like I screwed up.

I was on the phone to my parents when my sister called.  I had to do a quick juggle to pick it up, and left my mother on the other speaker while my sister talked about some family issues.

Hadn’t been planning to tell parents.  I failed her in her promise to keep a secret.  And she “Hates It When I Do That.”

I feel like shit, deflated, on the ground, runny and smelly.

My first plan was just to die, hang up on both of them and take the pain.  But I did the right thing and stayed on long enough to sort it, down to telling my father; my mother couldn’t keep it from him.

But I feel like shit.

I know all the caveats.  Sister didn’t start with a disclaimer, only ended with it.  I need to fill content to parents, who haul me back to shit twice a day anyway. Keeping secrets is an odd thing anyway.

It may be a small thing in the longer term context, but right now my heart feels flattened, deflated, torn up.

And that takes my energy away in a way that just cripples me.

It’s my response to my family, my response to being caught between, my response trained from years of trying to satisfy them and failing.

I am the black sheep, the target patient.  I take the slams.   I do screw up, of course, but without the air of successes, all I live is failure.

And my heart goes splot, squeezed and hurting, stuck in loss and dysphoria.

I don’t want to kick back, don’t want to find reasons they failed.

I failed.   And I never succeed, not in any context.

My sister bought my parents a book, When Our Grown Children Disappoint Us.

I am the disappointment.   No time to enter my world, just time to fail in theirs.

Bad, heart smashing magic.

Owwwwwwwwch.