Hoggle, What Have You Done?
Hoggle: [leaves in fear] Oh, damn you, Jareth. And damn me, too.
I was once called a quintessential service submissive. My heart burns with the desire to serve. Once I fulfilled this through advocacy for students, for the environment, for uninsured folks. I put long hours toward improving the status quo and I had confidence that I made a difference in the world.
I became a mother, and my service became inextricably to the house and to the children. I have often received praise for the warmth and welcome of our home. People compliment the gardens, the festive decor, the comfortable lived-in space. The children are successful in school and congenial with company. They are smart, curious, empathetic, and well on their way towards self-sufficient. I have done my job well.
Why then has my own confidence faded? Why, when I am asked what I like, do I falter? Why do I turn praise aside, citing crayon marks behind the couch or a cluttered desk in the bedroom as proof of my failure? Why do I deride my abilities to make a difference?
Even more troubling, why do I allow inertia to reign? So much of my service in the last couple of years has been feast-or-famine. I plunge my whole being into cleaning, planting, changing, hosting, and utterly exhaust myself. I crash and trash what I hold most dear, depriving myself of pride and confidence in what I achieved. Things slip out of control, pile up, and become depressive.
I spent the last two weeks in high service. Three parties were hosted, the holiday decor was changed twice, the attic partially organized. I scheduled more events, made plans, bought tickets. I went out with Beloved, went out with the kids, went out with friends. It was an amazing two weeks of success after success.
And yet, now I am on the downswing. I am crippled by the overturned garbage, the desperately dry plants, the pile of laundry (both clean and dirty). Beloved wants to know if I want to go to out in three days, and I want to cringe.
I *want* to meet the challenges, but I am so tired. No matter how much I do, I don't feel like I have done "good enough" because there is always more that I could, should do.
So many years ago, Sir told me just how easy it was to break me. The order to "keep count on each cheek while singing the National Anthem in Swahili" is simply impossible; I don't know Swahili. I could learn it, though.
Damn it! The point isn't to learn the language! The point is to accept my own limitations! I am not perfect! No one expects me to be perfect! Except for me. I expect me to be perfect.
I look around myself and am confronted with all the coulds and shoulds and I ask myself why I am writing instead of serving. Right now, I want to cry.
As you know, I'm going through my own journey, and also as you know, I am a servant by nature. The hardest, scariest, most important thing I am trying to really adopt is the understanding that the highest form of service is service to self. That is something that we say to others, something we've heard thousands of times, but those of us who have an affinity for service don't really understand it - in the end, we find so easily the excuses that mean we aren't worthy of service. It is tremendously scary to think that maybe we *are* worthy, maybe there's something good and deserving of our own service... and finding that thing, finding those needs, finding the ways to serve them, finding the fulfillment from self-service, these are equally difficult, long-term things. But they are, for me, the root of my journey towards a balanced attitude of service. You know there are many people around you who want to help, just as we know that we can't, really - at least not with this core piece. *big hugs* - know you are loved, you are served by others, who find you worthy of service. You need to find that worth in yourself, and you will have the ultimate recipient for your service, the ultimate validation for a job well done, because it is done for the most worthy individual: you. I love you deeply.
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