I’m a surprisingly judgmental and unforgiving person. I’ve known this
about myself for ages, but for some reason it still surprises me. Particularly
since I know I’m capable of so much love. Why waste time with malcontent and
unhappiness when there can be love instead? A conundrum.
For the record, that lack of forgiveness most definitely turns back on
myself. Relentlessly so. If there’s anything my time here and in therapy and in
schooling has taught me, it’s that in my head the world is frighteningly black
and white. Pass/fail. Acceptable and unacceptable. In regards to myself, the
range of acceptable is very small, and when I'm outside of that range I eat
myself alive over it. When it comes to others, the range of acceptable is
really quite large, but when someone crosses into the other realm I have a
terrible time bringing them back into the safe space in my head. The space I understand
and accept. When I can’t, I feel I’ve
failed, and fall into a sadness. Not good enough. Not loving enough. Not
forgiving enough.
Well, tough junk. Perfection doesn’t come in an instant. Hell, it doesn’t
come in a lifetime. Let’s take Candide’s lesson and say ‘we’ll do the best we
know’. Do the best we can at the time with what we’ve got, eh?
Got that statement figured out, now if only I could implement it more
often…
I’ve been thinking for a long time that I don’t carry nearly as much
guilt as I did as a child. Well… lets rearrange that to say that I don’t choose
to feel it as actively as I did as a child. Now that I’ve made the choice to
feel things more actively again, or perhaps, choose to address how I’m actually
feeling rather than fall directly into an inexplicable depression, I find items
of guilt everywhere. In no particular order:
- I owe people pictures. Some people, LOTS of pictures.
- I don’t practice nearly enough.
- I don’t keep house like Martha Stewart, and damn would I have more
peace of mind if I did.
- I’m always waiting until the last minute on homework, and while I do
the best I can at the time, it’s not my true best.
- I’m not as good a cat-momma as my fur-princess deserves.
- I’m selfish with my time and feelings, and not infrequently.
- I don’t budget particularly well.
- I choose not to look at things that make me feel badly rather than
take care of them.
- I don’t work out enough.
- I’m ignoring my spirituality.
You name it, it can fit in my laundry list somewhere. Oh, laundry. I’m
WAY behind on that. Add it to the list!
So… what to do about it? Well, I’m gonna make a very specific list
and fix it one step at a time. This junk isn’t gonna fix itself in an
instant. Will take out the objects of greatest angst first I think. Surely that’ll
help.
Things to try this week
- Working out for at least 30 minutes each day. Gonna start with yoga ‘cause
I can get that going with little mental stress and it’s spiritually centering. w00t.
- Keeping up with homework and taking more time on it.
- Making smart, reasonable food choices. Not too hard.
- Meditating on one tarot card a day. How does it relate to the world?
How does it relate to me? How can I use its association to become stronger.
- Practice more – Celebrate the awesome privilege of getting to learn amazing
music and poetry.
Cool, some reasonable goals for the week.
Now… something I’ve been avoiding stating out loud, but is definitely
true. My mind and heart are conflicted about a certain person. I knew there was
nothing solid going on once we’d had a chat about uncertainties, and I was OK
with that at the time, but now that we had a true argument about it when things got too
intense looking for him, and since we opted to step it back 100% to friendship,
it feels lost. Part of my heart says that it’s over, give up on it, it’s not
worth it, why did you bother? We didn’t decide to trash it completely, just
give time for that person to work things out in themselves and see if it was
really right for them. Which is absolutely the right decision, no argument on that front. Since it’s not completely
dead, though, the part of my heart that runs rampant in daydreams is foolishly hopeful.
Thinks that he’ll come back and things will be better than ever. My heart will
have a chance to be warm and happy again. Possibly have that hole that was
momentarily filled be full for once. For more than just a sliver of time. That
he might be a solution for this lonely bitterness, which has for the most part
returned. I see happy couples and my dark distrust and resentment of love and
couples and mushy crap overwhelms me. (Have you noticed this is a quick trigger subject?) Like it did before I felt things in
my heart for someone. I don’t know that what I felt was ever true romantic love, but
it felt like an intense friendship love that pushed at something deeper. Wanted
to be something deeper. Then I felt like it got rejected. Like I got rejected.
It’s not really how it is, but in a way it is. It still hurts intensely. I
chose to risk, and as usual I chose to risk on something complicated. Something
that was more than likely to end up this way, and now I’m eating the
consequences, and at the moment they hurt certain arias for me. Love songs have
that same old bitter tinge they used to. The ‘what bullshit’ tinge. It’s sort
of nostalgic, really. I understand now why I was unhappy. Why it felt like a
gaping emptiness lived in my soul. Having someone there for you, there with
you, that makes you want to be a better person, it changes something in you. I
felt stronger, lovelier, more intelligent, more capable than I’d ever really
felt. Now… I feel like I’m back to plain old me for the most part. Some corners
of myself remain bolstered, but…for the most part, I’m the woman who is still
waiting. A hopeless romantic afraid to love, because everywhere I look it seems
like a lie. A bitter, ugly, beautiful lie.
I want that potential back. My heart screams for it. My body misses
having someone to connect to, to seek comfort from and give comfort to. It
wants back the first person it felt truly safe to connect to. That safety feels
forever lost. Bully for risk and all its benefits and pitfalls.
As of yet I’ve still never had a real, official
relationship, yet it burns like I had one and it died. I’m like some kind of
magnet for over-complicated human social interaction. Most of that is totally my
fault. Additional note, Facebook is like a torture center for the bitter and
lonely. The fuck do I keep looking at that?
I think the hardest part is there’s nothing I can do for this situation.
I’ve been told I haven’t damaged it or the other party; that it was just not
the right time right now. The right time might be later or it might never be
the time. So I wait, and hurt, and hope, and despair, and believe, and ignore,
and mull over. Some sort of vague purgatory where I’ve given someone else the
keys to the doors. Only they can open
the door to great happiness, but they equally have the potential to throw me
into a deep, dark pit that I have to slowly crawl back out of. I do have a spare
key, but for me that key only opens one pathway. The one to the pit where I
mourn the loss of something that was good for a while. Very good. Something I
won’t ever see again because no two things in this world are alike. There has
been so much mourning recently… can’t something just live for once?
On that note, I’m going to take a shower and probably take a brief nap.
Those things tend to banish the gloomies for a bit. If not, what the hell, we
move on. Life keeps on rolling and time makes it hurt less. At least things are
a hell-of-a-lot better than they’ve been for most of the month. So much better.
Hopefully, they’ll soon be much less bitter and guilt ridden. ^_^
I leave you with something you can’t watch and not smile. Well, you can,
but it’d be a damn shame, 'cause it's friggin' brilliant.
