Protector

“a warrior is an animal who has been challenged but has stayed true to himself or herself.” – Ke$ha “My Crazy Beautiful Life”

It’s been a long week for me. Personally and professionally, it has just been exhausting. In reality it has been a long month so far, I really haven’t had a single day off of work since New Years and the rest of my life is in a whirlwind. The last ten days have included two breakups among my social groups, my own breakup from one of my partners, the police raiding my work office, the busiest work week so far, and the news that I need to find a new place to live by March 1st. I’m tough but it has been exhausting.

It isn’t really how all these things have hit me directly that have started to wear on me, it is the indirect blows. For example, the police raid on my work had little to do with me but my boss was out of town and I quickly assumed the roll of rock for the office. I love my office mates but with my experience in the army and my crazy life in general I am much less likely to get rattled by scum bag cops. I became a focal point for my coworkers, someone to latch on to when they got nervous. I was also a counter weight to some of the police who were kind of assholes. The police told me I could leave early on in the process but I refused, I wasn’t going to leave my coworkers behind. So, while the impact of the actual event was minimal against me it was exhausting acting as a rock, but really that is the role I am used to and kind of enjoy. It seems many of the things we love are often the things that also exhaust us.

I have been doing a lot of self reflection lately (thank you restorative yoga!) and come to realize that there is a second side of my Rock coin. Yes, I am often the stable ground that people come to when there are relationship issues, work problems, or whatever (I still don’t know why they come to me but I am happy to help when I can), but I also seek out a preemptive strategy of protecting my friends when I can. In fact, when I am least comfortable I take a step back and appoint myself the guardian of the group. If I can’t enjoy myself I want to make sure those I care about can. One example of this was at Burning Man last year when a group of us had taken some shrooms at night and were walking around. I am not a social drug user so I was feeling a bit anxious and uncomfortable, to combat this anxiety I started looking out for threats. Realistically there are not any threats at Burning Man, it is the most loving place ever, but it comforted me to be observing others and making sure the situation was safe.

The more I think I about it the less I am sure if this is a good thing or not. It seems that defaulting to a “the world is dangerous” point of view might not be the best way to cope with things. More meditation on the issue needs to be done, but it really comes from my love for my friends and I can’t imagine a more noble thing to do than protect and secure them so that they can be happy.