Too much and not enough

This is how I have lived most of my adult life feeling. If I would give to you a brief summary of my self-sense, that’s it. I’m too much and not enough. High maintenance, if you will, without a lot of output in all of the wrong places. Too emotional, too needy, too sensitive, too strong, too passionate, too opinionated. Not happy enough, not kind enough, not motivated enough, not brave enough, not thin enough, not organized enough. The list goes on and on and on. It’s so hard to find and sustain meaningful relationships, I feel unseen, unknown, unsought, even to those closest to me. And the problem has always been me, I’m the problem: I’m too much and not enough. I can try harder or retreat deeper, and yet never fix the problem. But for the first time I am realizing that perhaps I am not the problem at all…
I have hundreds of ideas and thoughts rushing in and out of my brain. Colors and flashes, moments of brilliance and complicated pathways of hope and wonder. Every turn supplying new confusion and breakthrough, deep sadness, and great joy. I get lost so easily, so scared, and lonely. Everything is so deep, far far away, and so alluring. I couldn’t live on the surface of my existence even if I gave all of my ever fleeting energy to do so. The call, the possibility, the glory in the world of the spirit and the blend of the soul, I can’t deny it, I can’t avoid it, I am forever drawn. But with its wonder so comes confusion and emptiness. I long to share myself - the darkness and the light. I long to have someone come alongside in the adventure of my soul, the meaning uniquely my own, the something that I am almost certain of, at times, is a gift directly from the Creator himself… but in the depths of feelings and pains that I so easily lose control over, I sometimes doubt. Maybe though, that’s the key I have missed all along - maybe instead of being the roadblock, the thing keeping me from my heart’s desire, perhaps it is my gift, my essential beauty. If I can only be brave enough to embrace it. To be alone hurts so very much – it hurts more then anything else – but to ask for, to expect a partner in the turmoil, in the confusion, in the complicated and yet beautiful adventure… it has always been too much.
If I ever doubted the truth of that statement, the world enforces the sentiment daily. They push back, they hold off, back off, over and over again: “I’m not going there.” So often I have given in, I retreat, I go alone, I am alone, and I am sad and incomplete.
My husband is a gift, he is a fit for my life. I used to think in the dreamy honeymoon moments that he was a perfect fit. He’s not. But what I have learned, and am learning constantly, is that we fit enough, and we signed on for a lifetime of co-molding. I need him in my adventure, with all of its glory and horribleness, and I know the longing of his soul, I know his ultimate constant desire… but even he suffers the sin of the world, even he has known the impulse to back off, to stay at arms length, to not go there… And so we must mold where we do not fit. We have to seek our ultimate longing, and trust in that beyond the indoctrinated sins of this world. He must say, “I am coming with you to the depths, whatever that may bring – you are not too much to handle.” And I must say, “Please come with me to my depths – I am not too much to handle.”