Alice had it. A fear of muchness. Wondering, incessantly, if your incessancy is incessant. I asked anyone who was around this morning, Am I too much? 

Fresh off the heels of a break-up. Initiated by me. I'd cited the reason for our split as it being too much. Given all the things I am currently juggling in my life, it was not an overstatement in the least. In this moment, my relationship and ability to properly support a partner was too much. Whether I had the capacity but not the will, or the inverse, is unknown. Either way, it was over. True to my patterns, I felt almost numb to the news. I did not cry. My sadness looked like withdrawal and discomfort. Feeling guilty for not being enough, the entire situation felt like the most bitter irony. 

I mused out loud to a former lover,

I think the vast majority of people cannot hold me because they cannot see me. To them, I'm Oz but really I'm the woman behind the curtain, you see? My work and my persona is so huge and dynamic it could fill a city...and I know that it (I) can be intimidating and overwhelming. I've been told that I am both, intimidating and overwhelming. But all that shit, it's not me. Well it is me, and it isn't. I don't know how to just say 'I love you', I have to write it in a poem. I don't know how to just have a quick conversation. One thing reminds me of seventeen others and I have to use all of them to make my point. I overwhelm people. Men. I overwhelm men and as a result men have tried to silence me. Quiet me. Dim me. Edit me. Alter me. Control me and confine me. I am not willing to be any of the above. So I ask you, is that too much? 

He was unsure how to respond. At 7am, perhaps my question in and of itself was too much. But these are when my thoughts come! I shook my fist to the universe. By virtue of being unapologetic in my being, was I condemning myself? I refused to believe that was true. I reject the idea that just because I say too much, too often, too poetically that SOMEONE out there cannot appreciate it. I refuse to stay sad at the prospect of having a million first dates and no seconds. 

I told myself, I will make different meaning out of my solitude than I have in the past. My mother told me that I have always been endlessly curious and observant. I saw and heard everything and always had questions about why things were a certain way. I wanted to know why they couldn't be something else?  She told me that my endless pondering was exhausting as a parent. Now, as an adult I see my questioning as my gift. Still exhausting as I rack my own brain and that of those around me to help me build the most accurate picture of myself possible. Asking more whys and why nots. Pushing boundaries and ultimately deciding that who I am cannot be a mistake, and therefore all the things that I am also cannot be in error. 

Nature doesn't allow for excess. So, I can't possibly be too much. At least not for long because life always has a way of achieving balance. If and when I ever did become TOO anything, much or not enough, I trust that the universe would send me just what I needed to return back to a healthy stasis. I also trust that she would do so in a way that I could receive it because nature also speaks in a very distinct language. One that is not about power or force or assimilation. Nature speaks only in love. To answer my own question, dear child NO you are not too much. You are just enough. And if ever, again, you forget simply ask me and I will remind you.