It felt right to frame this in gold this week, but the original message painted itself about a year ago.
I know that because I’m writing this while sitting in the Midas waiting room during my car inspection.
A year ago, a mechanic walked into this same waiting room with an expression I’d only ever seen on doctor shows before, looking hesitantly in my direction, “Hi, are you the owner of the yellow Jeep?”
I stood. “Yes, hi….”
“I am so sorry… I hate to do this. Will you come with me?” I followed him into the garage.
_
Diagnosis: I had been driving a Jeep with a frame that was rusting in several prominent spots for who knows how long. It would need some in-depth welding—if not a total frame replacement—to be safe enough to drive again.
And this, by the way, is how I’ve learned to catch myself in a pattern of self-abandonment:
A loud, physical “SOMETHING’S OFF” that forces me to finally recognize where the frame of my life is anything but solid, healthy, and sustainable.
Because if self-abandonment is in the foundation of something, it will not stand.
Read that again.
–
A year ago, I was also a few months into a full-time job at a non-profit in Pittsburgh. Though hired as a childcare program assistant—a role I initially thrived in as I creatively supported kids through their pandemic-specific difficulties of online grade school—I gradually received lessening support and ever-increasing responsibilities. Oftentimes, I found myself alone in a loud windowless classroom of children with differing needs and grade levels but a similar urgency for my attention.
I’m tempted to say, “This happened over the course of a few weeks without my even realizing it” but in hindsight, I am aware that it actually happened over the course of a few weeks with numerous occurrences of my saying, “Oh okay, that’s fine!” before checking in with myself to see if was, in fact, fine. These are my rust spots.
One workday, I used the classroom phone to call the office of the brilliant, generous woman I was hired to assist. I asked if she could step away from her administrative tasks for a second to cover our classroom. This was so I could discreetly waltz into the donated toys closet, and let a nervous breakdown run its course.
“SOMETHING’S OFF.”
If you know, you know—I needed more than a second. It’s nearly impossible to stop the wave once it’s been given the space to move through you. Eventually I was able to shakily finish the day of work and drive home in my rental car, only to cry some more, and paint, talk, and feel it all out to completion.
To surrender. The quiet place where I listen to myself again.
Find divine guidance again.
Breathe.
I texted my boss, “Can we meet tomorrow before work?”
–
I brought notes to the meeting, promising myself I would say exactly what I needed to say. How I was feeling, where I had over-agreed and actually required more support, and where I had ideas to improve the situation.
She listened, but said that with her other duties in the organization, she could not make any promises that circumstances would change.
I pulled away and took a deep breath.
She quickly affirmed how well I was doing and how much the kids appreciated me—which flattered me enough to nod and carry on. Rust spot.
So, nothing changed, except in the areas of my teaching quality and health (declining) and frequency of lunch breaks spent in stress tears (rapid incline). But everyone continued telling me I was doing so well.
–
Meanwhile, my rusty Jeep.
The task before me a few nights later was to return the rental car and drive the Jeep, carefully, to its used car dealership of origin—45 minutes away—to undergo needed repairs.
I called my mom. “I can’t do it. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay. Can you at least return the rental? We’ll pick you up and you can take the Jeep in the morning.”
I agreed.
The drive to return the rental was under a pitch black sky, in pouring rain pounding like fifty snare drums at once, amongst bright lights reflecting off streaming water in all directions, on McKnight Road at rush hour.
Halfway there, I pulled over in an Aldi’s parking lot.
I closed my eyes, forehead on the steering wheel, and breathed, unsure if I had ever experienced this degree of sensory overload in my life. Eventually I gathered up enough mental stillness to finish the journey. And just barely.
Then my dad picked me up from the Enterprise and breezily suggested that I drive the Jeep to the used car dealership that very night so the repairmen could work on it first thing in the morning. I was stunned. Every cell in my body required me to admit, out of sheer survival, because this was a stubborn pattern and that’s what it took:
“Dad, with all due respect, that would be my literal hell.”
“Oh.”
My brother ended up driving the Jeep that night, and my dad drove out to pick him up.
–
This event illuminated something important:
Driving 45 minutes in the dark in the pouring rain that night wasn’t everyone’s literal hell, but… that didn’t mean it was any less of one for me.
And that goes for a lot of needs and limits and priorities I’d been suppressing for months… and for years.
–
I let the boys do what was easy and natural for them, and not being a martyr gave me the night off to dig deeper. To find that divine guidance again.
In the quiet, I remembered watching a TED Talk once on something called “The Highly Sensitive Person.” I re-watched it, then watched an entire movie on the subject (“Sensitive,” which to my great comfort features Alanis Morrissette), then read as many articles as I could, and ordered the book. Pieces fell into place. Good, sometimes difficult, pieces.
About 1 out of every 5 people has the High Sensitivity trait, according to the research of Psychologist Dr. Elaine Aaron. Highly Sensitive People, simply put, have an intensified experience of… everything. Their sensitive nervous system makes them more aware of subtleties in their surroundings, including lights, sounds, and the emotions of others. They’re natural “noticers.” And music moves them to a wonderfully excessive degree… but slightly less wonderful when, you know, generally speaking, an Adele song has them on the verge of crying in the smoothie shop. Generally speaking.
The trait lends itself to high creativity, empathy, and intuition. Also, because of the higher depth of processing, it makes HSPs more prone to overstimulation, and more in need of down time.
When the trait is honored, HSPs can thrive and share unique gifts. When the trait is not honored, but suppressed–which, in a hyper-masculine culture that celebrates toughness and action over sensitivity and rest, is too often the case–they are more prone to anxiety, low self-esteem, sickness, and burnout.
Everything written about the trait felt hauntingly familiar. I had always sensed (highly, you could say) there was something a little different in how I processed things. And for the first time, that difference was presented to me as a wholly valid way to be. It was that night that I began the long road of accepting that my sensitivity didn’t mean something was wrong with me. My “weakness” became my key.
And then, in the quiet, this essentially painted itself:
I stared at my sketch book. Did I? Could I? What would that look like?
What did living a life that honored my own needs and truest desires look like? One that looked not to what I thought “they” think I “should” do, but to what I know I need to do? One of zero self-betrayal? One of self-trust?
There, alone at a desk, with no voice weighing in but my own inner one, I let myself dream.
And it became increasingly clear what it would ultimately look like: Something creative and generous and healthy and original and true. Something that would make five year-old Ally simply glow. A life beyond my wildest dreams.
Fuck.
–
It wasn’t all clear and linear after that. In my journal around that time, there are plenty of fervent prayers for “renewed job love.” After all, there were many good aspects of that season, and natural bonds formed between myself and the students, my boss, and my other colleagues at the non-profit. I still believed so much in the transformative work the organization was doing for the community.
Those prayers were indeed answered, but only in the weeks after I submitted my formal resignation letter. After that, I was free to do the best I could during the workday, then go home and build my website, research business requirements, paint, dream, and rest without guilt. Every step in the new direction flooded me with an energy I had forgotten was possible.
Well-intentioned people advised me to stay, some straight-up suggested I was making a mistake, and one colleague even said, “Don’t be overwhelmed!” which did not in fact “cure” my nervous system or make the job role suddenly healthy for me. My own conditioned and religious stories weighed in, because nonprofit work was seen as “good” and artistry as “indulgent.” My own conditioned stories of scarcity protested, even when I knew I had enough and would have enough.
But again and again and excruciatingly again, I trusted me.
Overall, the transition and good-bye were full of love.
–
Today, the diagnosis for the Jeep is better: Things look sound for the most part, except for this one part of the frame where the welding is covered by a questionable amount of putty and another small area still showing need of repair.
This has been a year of repairing the rusty frame of my life, of finding the places built upon self-abandonment and letting them go so that something truer to me can take their place. It has been no quick and simple fix. There are times when I want to trade authenticity for external approval so badly. There are times when I’ve given into that. There are times when my intuition scares the hell out of me, so I outsource it and take bad advice. There are times when I want to hide or give up. There are times I want to say “Oh okay, that’s fine!” instead of leaning into a vulnerable conversation about boundaries, and how something isn’t actually fine for me. There are times of grief, even when whatever I am losing is something phony, unfit, and/or outdated for me. But today I walk within a life that feels more fulfilling, more vibrant, more connected, and more my own than ever. My nervous system has a lot more breathing room and my intuition has a lot more say. It is, in all honesty, even better than what I dreamt up a year ago.
And I know there are still parts to bring to the light. I don’t want putty and bandaids; I want healing.
So while it’s annoying on a practical level that I had to schedule yet another appointment for a welder to look at the Jeep… it’s satisfying on a poetic level that I’m doing so the day after I finally scheduled an appointment with a counselor.
The ongoing path of self-trust has been the most divine walk of my life. And because of this, I have vowed to give no more advice… only non-advice: Follow your inner knowing.
Listen to her.
Embody her.
Trust her.
Do you?