It's not true.
I said it wasn't true at the time, and at any other time a similar comment was made. Nicely, of course, acknowledging the way it was meant as a compliment. But I am the very picture of finite. And even if, at the time, I had hoped that maybe it was true, now I know for sure that it wasn't. It isn't.
Lately I've come up against more and more of my limits. I don't know why other people in my life have such a hard time believing in my limits, but I really wish they could feel the crush of the limits the way I do. Singed wings and lung constriction.
So here, world, I am declaring my limits. I am limited in how much I can give, and bear, and forgive before I need (and yes, need) to step away in order to preserve my sanity and sense of self worth. Yeah yeah yeah Christian forgiveness I know I know, but God is infinite. I am finite. I have a brain and a heart and neural networks and actual physical parts of my body that God designed and I'm telling you, He's designed them in such a way that coming up against some of this stuff so many times is going to do serious damage to me. It already has done damage. And there's all that stuff about your body is your temple and that the body came first and then the spirit (That's in the gospel of John in some form, isn't it? Something like that? Help me out, scholars. Comment if you know) that seems to run right up against all that forgive and love bears all and forgives all. Lay down one's life for a friend. Cut off the left hand. It all becomes kind of tangled up when I apply it to my life. And at the end of the day, I'm simply not God. And I'm not supposed to be. And maybe part of my problem all along has been that I'm trying to love like I have no limits and that won't ever work because the reality is that I'm very, very limited. Add to those limits of bearing all the limits that come from my own rucksack fulla flaws I'm carrying around with me and it's not, in the words of D.J. Davis, tenable. (I'll always think of him when I use the word tenable).
I'd like to just get it across that I'm limited and struggling and that the things I accomplish all come at a cost. This isn't easy for me. I end my days worn the hell down. And I guess I think that if some of the key players in my life could see me for the limited person I am, they would take a little less, nurture a little more, and I wouldn't feel so much like this:
The responsibility is mine, ultimately. I know that. I have to set boundaries (such a convenient term but seems to be so much harder than just putting up a fence or drawing a line in the sand). Protect my time, fortify myself, surround myself with people who build me up or whatever. That's all nice and good but it's not nearly as easy as it sounds. Not with four kids, especially. My resources, my time, my everything is limited, too. Which makes it harder to stand up for the limits. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to shake the sense that I have to be the rock for people to come to and lean on. I like that role, to an extent. The problem has always been that the rock-being is just not reciprocal as I need it to be. Or that sense that most people just aren't all that interested in my stupid, cyclical, never-changing problems. Hell, if I want to get away from them and they're my life, I can only imagine how enervating they are for other people to hear about over and over.
But but but here's the cool thing that happened:
Yesterday, I hung out with an old friend from high school. In all honesty, there were times we could be considered frenemies, but despite that, we've always had a lot in common. In fact, the commonalities were probably what was really the root of any contention that existed in our adolescent selves. I can't remember any real reasons for beef between us.
But we've grown up and become mothers and built careers. And yesterday we got together and laughed and it felt so good to just be limited around someone else. We laughed so much, connecting over the joys and aggravations of motherhood, wifehood, labor, essential oils, inappropriate jokes about murder, you name it. Rather than leaning on and drawing from, I just felt ease.
Suddenly hanging out with someone I haven't seen in person in almost fifteen years could have been awkward, I guess, but I knew in my gut that this wouldn't be. And I came away from last night feeling seen and known... which is something I'm not used to experiencing on the regular. How sad, that. What a gift it was to see her and to lay my limits on the table next to the falafel salad and instead of "why why why no you can't yes you must but but but no you're wrong" there was "yes! and!" And sitting across from the sometimes birdlike movements of hand and chin, and the familiar features that have been softened and made more beautiful in the fifteen+ years between our last shared meal, I felt a little more whole.
So that's how it all pulls together, then. To look at me without seeing my limits is not to see the whole me. It's like zooming in to a coloring book picture so much that you can't really tell what the picture is. Like this, for instance: What is it? You can still color it and your mind can maybe make a guess, but without the seeing all the limits, all the outlines and edges, the picture is not complete. 
But once all the limits are known, the full image emerges. I don't want to be a partial portrait, not to the people in my life who play the largest roles. The lines, the limits, show you who I am.
It's once again too late at night for my ideas to come together they way they did in stages throughout the day. But one of my goals for break was to write here at least five times, so here it is. Mess and limits and all.
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