It's Complicated

You know how you can pick that as your relationship status on Facebook? You can tell everyone that you are in a relationship and that "it's complicated." What relationship is not complicated at one time or another? I seriously think it should be implied in "married" or "in a relationship."

I guess if you pick that as your status it's more like the purgatory between a relationship and being single. That middle ground of confusion about whether to stay or go or whether he's on the same page with you because you kind of feel like maybe he is but then again there are these signals that suggest otherwise and then there's the length of time he takes to respond to your texts and...

Whew. I am glad I'm not in a relationship. But I mean, seriously, yay for the rest of you who do it and rock it, even with the complicated stuff.

At least a complicated relationship is something you could leave if it got too bad. Sadly, my complicated thing is my brain.

Here's what I wish. I wish there were a little switch on my brain that I could turn off an on. Like, literally, I wish I could turn my brain off sometimes. And it would also be nice if I could flip a switch that would turn on a scrolling marquee on my forehead that says, "It's complicated." What a great warning for people that would be!

My brain is the last place you want to be if, like Fergie sings in Big Girls Don't Cry, you are looking to be with yourself, center and get some clarity, peace, and serenity.

And that's why I'm writing about it because I'm always looking for ways to make it more peaceful and less complicated in there. Granted, it's been way worse in there than it is now. Right now it's not too bad... but there's still room for improvement and today I had sort of a light bulb moment about something I'd been making overly complicated and I told myself what I'm always telling other people (usually not to their face, usually it's when I'm kvetching about something at work or something that is driving me nuts). I say, "It's not that hard."

It's not that hard.

It really isn't. Some things just aren't that hard to grasp and to make sense of and yet I find myself over-complicating such things a lot. And I don't want to do that.

A friend recently posted a clip from YouTube of a guy doing a funny riff on the differences between the brains of men and women. He talks about women's brains being sort of like a jumble of wires where everything is connected, compared to the brains of men, which would look like a set of boxes, everything separate and compartmentalized. Now, I would be likely to say such an idea were ridiculous if it were not, in my case, so true. I do connect a bunch of stuff together and sometimes it is because it should all be connected together and other times, you know, not so much. But it's what I do (ask my ex-husband).

I will never be able to divorce my thinking from my feelings. And I will always be an over-thinker, sometimes to the detriment of my psychological well-being. But I'm writing because I'm also going to try to embrace the moments of clarity where I really listen to what I tell other people:

It's not that hard.

And also:

It's not that serious.
It's not nearly as complicated as I'm making it out to be.

The more I keep this in mind and the more I relish the feeling of taking something complicated and making it simple, the more I will be likely to do it. At least I hope so.

Do any of you think the crap out of stuff or have to deal with someone who does? Know any good tricks (other than meds, that's one of mine!) that help with this sort of thing? Please, share your ideas with me!