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omnia_mutanturi have an unnatural fondness for Herodotus.
i just thought i should get that out of the way now.
things feel up in the air. we're settling into the house, and i imagine in another month or so, it'll be time to teach myself to paint. (i'm certainly starting with the midget bathroom that contains the cat box. something ludicrous (like a violent pinker purple, or a sunshine yellow) on the two walls you only see if you're changing the cat litter, and something demure on the two walls you can see on your way to the cellar, i think) so maybe it's a more social, or more personal upheaval.
things with light continue to be good, and informative. there are still bits that confuse me, and bits that hurt me, but even in the middle of sniping at each other for reasons neither one of us is particularly clear on, i have this feeling of unshakeable faith. and maybe i'm actually learning about the idea of believing in something improvable, which seems so unimaginably precious that i'm barely comfortable talking about, as though positive emotions were subject to some sort of quantum theory, and i try to observe them, they'll veer off in another direction, out of my grasp.
(hells yeah, i'm butchering my metaphors)
yesterday's post made me wonder about a concept that i've pretty much got underlying every single thing i do. or at least as far as i can figure out. and it's not the most complex thought, and probably not one going to bear up to intense scrutiny (though really, i'm probably not going to be able to look at it too hard, 'cause it hurts to even start to try.
said thought? that i am not good enough to keep.
the image that typing it brings to mind is that of my parents throwing me back in the water, hoping to catch another fish more suited to their dreams of what a little girl would be. and even that sounds too self-pitying. (i fear looking like i'm asking for pity more than i fear anything else. i did the best i could, and pity makes me think that people think i could have done better, that they could have done better.)
maybe i've seen too many coke commercials, read too many cosmos, seen too many lifetime specials, and want some romantic ideal where someone fights something for me, as though i had a quantifiable worth and said action would prove it. a world where someone in my family stands up to my father for me, where lesson stands up to his peers....the list could go on, but it won't. maybe that narrative doesn't really fit in this life style. i try to give every one as easy an out as possible because i don't want to be That Girl, so why should i be surprised when the routes i offer are taken.
can i be good enough to keep.
can i be good enough
can i be good
i've always loved nested phrases, little russian dolls of insecurity. what i don't love is these little morality plays that take place inside my head, where i'm measured and found wanting over and over again by some abstracted Good or God, and there's never an actual solid standard that i'm being weighed against, the conclusion is foregone, but i keep struggling with it, and i can't justify any of it, i can't answer the question why i'm not good enough, i can't even answer the question why i think i'm not good enough, or really what i'm not good enough for. (to keep, what does that mean? i'm still trying to follow the script of that inane saying, something about loving like i've never been eviscerated, but i'm not sure how...do i keep chasing the people who don't call back, don't email back (skin, i'm _not_ talking about you), do i try and explain to the people who hurt me that i miss what they did and what i can't handle them doing again, or do they even care, and how does one tell the difference? has everything that's ended, fallen to the ground out of neglect been because those people that i thought cared for me really didn't, because we all change as we grow up, and sometimes we change in different directions, because i'm actually as awful a person as my detractors would lead me to believe?) (and of course, i'm sure this feeds directly into the whole marriage thing, but i'm really not going to investigate that.)
bleck. where does this self-confidence thing come from? i've got oodles of 'take me as is or not at all', which seems a version of it, but also seems to subtly miss the point. it's not that i like who i am, but that i've come to terms with who i think i am. (though maybe that's not even true, because self-deprecation by definition minimizes self, so what i think of myself changes based on wind direction and medication levels, so maybe it's not terms, just an excess of stubbornness.)
i've made treaties with lots of my demons, feeling like i've sacrificed X for Y, where X might have made me happy, Y kept me alive, kept me functional enough that i didn't end up inpatient, out of school, a ward of the state, or any othersuch. and as i grew older, the treaties became more subtle, i wouldn't feel things too deeply and in exchange, i wouldn't have to drink. i wouldn't think too hard about my body and my dislike of it, and i wouldn't have to start sneaking into the bathroom after every meal. it's like my mother's policy of ignoring the bad things, but more reasoned.
there's a job, i've been told, where someone rides the fences of a ranch, mending them as they go, but it's never a finished process, that other parts of the fence have fallen down by the time you get back to the beginning. i think of my mind something like that, some sort of constant maintenance.
in the end, i think there's only a few things left that i won't do, because those are the ones carved in stone. and light chips away at them, and history does, but erosion takes time to undo work done with a chisel. and so i keep trying not to want bigger things. i don't try and go to school, i don't try too hard to make friends, i don't try to lose weight, i don't try to find a better job. because i'm afraid i won't handle the rejection, and i'm still at place where i'm terrified shitless of what the not-handling would look like that, and it feels like breaking a compact with myself, a bargain where i won't take big risks, and the payoff will be that i don't have anymore embarrassing scars.
yeah. that.
i just thought i should get that out of the way now.
things feel up in the air. we're settling into the house, and i imagine in another month or so, it'll be time to teach myself to paint. (i'm certainly starting with the midget bathroom that contains the cat box. something ludicrous (like a violent pinker purple, or a sunshine yellow) on the two walls you only see if you're changing the cat litter, and something demure on the two walls you can see on your way to the cellar, i think) so maybe it's a more social, or more personal upheaval.
things with light continue to be good, and informative. there are still bits that confuse me, and bits that hurt me, but even in the middle of sniping at each other for reasons neither one of us is particularly clear on, i have this feeling of unshakeable faith. and maybe i'm actually learning about the idea of believing in something improvable, which seems so unimaginably precious that i'm barely comfortable talking about, as though positive emotions were subject to some sort of quantum theory, and i try to observe them, they'll veer off in another direction, out of my grasp.
(hells yeah, i'm butchering my metaphors)
yesterday's post made me wonder about a concept that i've pretty much got underlying every single thing i do. or at least as far as i can figure out. and it's not the most complex thought, and probably not one going to bear up to intense scrutiny (though really, i'm probably not going to be able to look at it too hard, 'cause it hurts to even start to try.
said thought? that i am not good enough to keep.
the image that typing it brings to mind is that of my parents throwing me back in the water, hoping to catch another fish more suited to their dreams of what a little girl would be. and even that sounds too self-pitying. (i fear looking like i'm asking for pity more than i fear anything else. i did the best i could, and pity makes me think that people think i could have done better, that they could have done better.)
maybe i've seen too many coke commercials, read too many cosmos, seen too many lifetime specials, and want some romantic ideal where someone fights something for me, as though i had a quantifiable worth and said action would prove it. a world where someone in my family stands up to my father for me, where lesson stands up to his peers....the list could go on, but it won't. maybe that narrative doesn't really fit in this life style. i try to give every one as easy an out as possible because i don't want to be That Girl, so why should i be surprised when the routes i offer are taken.
can i be good enough to keep.
can i be good enough
can i be good
i've always loved nested phrases, little russian dolls of insecurity. what i don't love is these little morality plays that take place inside my head, where i'm measured and found wanting over and over again by some abstracted Good or God, and there's never an actual solid standard that i'm being weighed against, the conclusion is foregone, but i keep struggling with it, and i can't justify any of it, i can't answer the question why i'm not good enough, i can't even answer the question why i think i'm not good enough, or really what i'm not good enough for. (to keep, what does that mean? i'm still trying to follow the script of that inane saying, something about loving like i've never been eviscerated, but i'm not sure how...do i keep chasing the people who don't call back, don't email back (skin, i'm _not_ talking about you), do i try and explain to the people who hurt me that i miss what they did and what i can't handle them doing again, or do they even care, and how does one tell the difference? has everything that's ended, fallen to the ground out of neglect been because those people that i thought cared for me really didn't, because we all change as we grow up, and sometimes we change in different directions, because i'm actually as awful a person as my detractors would lead me to believe?) (and of course, i'm sure this feeds directly into the whole marriage thing, but i'm really not going to investigate that.)
bleck. where does this self-confidence thing come from? i've got oodles of 'take me as is or not at all', which seems a version of it, but also seems to subtly miss the point. it's not that i like who i am, but that i've come to terms with who i think i am. (though maybe that's not even true, because self-deprecation by definition minimizes self, so what i think of myself changes based on wind direction and medication levels, so maybe it's not terms, just an excess of stubbornness.)
i've made treaties with lots of my demons, feeling like i've sacrificed X for Y, where X might have made me happy, Y kept me alive, kept me functional enough that i didn't end up inpatient, out of school, a ward of the state, or any othersuch. and as i grew older, the treaties became more subtle, i wouldn't feel things too deeply and in exchange, i wouldn't have to drink. i wouldn't think too hard about my body and my dislike of it, and i wouldn't have to start sneaking into the bathroom after every meal. it's like my mother's policy of ignoring the bad things, but more reasoned.
there's a job, i've been told, where someone rides the fences of a ranch, mending them as they go, but it's never a finished process, that other parts of the fence have fallen down by the time you get back to the beginning. i think of my mind something like that, some sort of constant maintenance.
in the end, i think there's only a few things left that i won't do, because those are the ones carved in stone. and light chips away at them, and history does, but erosion takes time to undo work done with a chisel. and so i keep trying not to want bigger things. i don't try and go to school, i don't try too hard to make friends, i don't try to lose weight, i don't try to find a better job. because i'm afraid i won't handle the rejection, and i'm still at place where i'm terrified shitless of what the not-handling would look like that, and it feels like breaking a compact with myself, a bargain where i won't take big risks, and the payoff will be that i don't have anymore embarrassing scars.
yeah. that.
