get my head and my heart on the same page

they are in the same place
something i believe with my heart and my mind
whatever becomes, no matter what…
it is worth it.

I have visited my sister’s counselor three times this month. Last week she gave me a personality test that I have not seen before, called “Personality Plus.” It has four types: popular sanguine, powerful choleric, peaceful phlegmatic, and perfect melancholy. You can read a little summary of each here.

My quiz came out about half and half sanguine and melancholy, leaning more toward melancholy. Interested, I flipped to the back page to see what this meant. It’s possible to be a mixture of two types, particularly those adjacent to each other in the diagram above. But sanguine and melancholy are opposites, called “unnatural” combination. Not possible…?

It went on to describe how one of them is a mask, skills learned because of experience or family, not your god-given temperament. Mask? It discussed the manifestation of each temperament during different phases of life before all this adaptation occurred (like what does a melancholy baby act like?). Soooo I called my mom to ask how I was as a kid. Her overwhelming answer?

Sanguine! cheerful, inquisitive, outgoing, optimistic. Hands down. Spunky, she has always called me spunky.

This shocked me. Those people I see as sanguine make me feel pangs of longing. I want to be like that. I don’t want my fears to get in the way. That is how I am when I am confident, and surrounded by loved ones. Or after a beer or two :) So I now realize I wear a perfect melancholy mask. An adaptation to a demanding, choleric and perfectionistic father, and meticulous science schooling. A defensive response to the painful lessons I’ve learned by being too naive, trusting, emotional.

This is so liberating. I think I see a sunbeam of myself that just needs coaxing out from underneath. This helps explain why I didn’t feel like myself being an uptight sort of teacher. Why I struggled with being detailed enough to do fantastic research. Why I feel so overwhelmed being the dutiful responsible one. Because perhaps it’s just not coming naturally to me. To let go of my insecurities and laugh, to chip away at this shell I’ve calcified around my soul… she’s glowing in there and I’ve got to figure out how to let her out.

my head knows it’s well past time to move on. my heart has melted into a puddle. tonight at the end of a meeting (it’s an effort to be tough while seeing him, working with him frequently) i needed to know when we could discuss an impending deadline. i said i was tired, and from nowhwere he cupped my face in his hands, ran his thumbs along the top of my cheekbones, along the dark circles under my eyes and said “i can tell….” he effectively ignored me the hours everyone socialized post meeting, and then crushed me as i left. my carpoolers were already downstairs so i composed myself in the stairwell, fighting back tears of pent up emotion and wishes of how things would have gone and the endless struggle to dam up the words that want to gush out and ruin any sliver of hope i hang on to….
why did he do that? what does he mean? did it really even happen?
head says this is nothing but the same old going-nowhere trouble. heart is looooong gone.

Heart:
I am not eager
to spend time with him tonight
redefined as “friend.”

Brain:
It will go smoothly.
Concealed ache won’t interfere
‘cause big girls don’t cry….

This will be okay. I was very happy being single, and I’m not happy now. It is logical for this to come to an end now. Left on my own, I make peace with myself. This is the best possible conclusion.

I only worry that the peace I find alone is superficial. Was I happy because I wasn’t dealing with these issues I am usually able to bury, that only crop up in relation to others?
Hmmm….

is for someone to put their arms around me and tell me they understand, they care, and mean it.

that is something we can both agree on.