I called home last night for the first time since the move on Saturday, to hear mama's voice. I rambled on to her about my profs, people who express with passion the romanticism of grammar, and swoon over the 100+ word sentences of Charles Dickens. (I'm not kidding.) Then she asked me about the commute, the cat, and how everything was going. How was I feeling?
It was then, I had a moment of pristine verbal clarity, something that does not happen to me very often. "Mom," I said, "No one daydreams about the transition period."
No thirteen year old on the cusp of puberty lays down in the evening, starry eyed about growing pains and acne. They wax hopeful about new heights, about breasts and curves, about muscles and low voices. The end result.
I never sat with my psychologist, pouring my heart out about the excitement of struggling with my social anxiety. I looked forward to a time when heading into work wouldn't be the cause of tears and panic, when I didn't care so much about what people had to think of me. When I could feel 'normal.'
So, I guess what it boils down to at this moment in time is: Am I 100% happy?
No. Of course not, I'm in transition. I've been in the city not but a week, without a full week of classes under my belt. I've not yet stretched my legs out and headed to the higher ground. I haven't had much opportunity to make new friends, or build a new life here, or get into a routine. Those things take patience and time. When people spew entire whip-lash paragraphs of Quebecois French at me, my brain still shuts off, like it's white noise. Je ne comprends pas. This English-outcast mentality has put my confidence offside. Where once I felt strong and confident, I now feel.... paled in comparison. Reverse ugly duckling syndrome.
I knew this wasn't going to be easy, and I'm not miserable, I'm just incomplete. I have to make what I want for myself. "Putting yourself out there," is nowhere near as simple as it seems.
I had a similar discussion with my friend JG, who lives in Liverpool at the moment, but is planning on making the move to Edinburgh. I lectured him that moving to Scotland wouldn't be a cure all for any discontent he had with his life. I said he would have to take pains and put in effort to get what he wanted. Well, it seems as though I may as well have been talking about this to myself. Advice that I ought to take straight into my heart, until I find my niche, where I belong, and this new brave world of happiness. I guess we'll see. It's a little premature to be developing anything, and little early to be despairing too.
Awkwardness. And they say you only go through puberty once?
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
September 07, 2012
August 27, 2012
Funeral for a Friend
I had bought the bag when I was in highschool. It was messenger style, brown canvas, with two pockets on the flap, embellished with blue and brown plaid. However, sorting through my purses today, I realized that I not only wanted to leave this bag behind, but that I no longer wanted it at all. I looked up at my friend Steph, sitting on my bed.
"Hey, do you like this? You can have it if you want."
"Are you giving away all your things? It's like your funeral or something," she said.
And, kids, it very much is. Moving is exciting, but right now, I've found this bittersweet melancholic haze has taken over. I feel as though I'm soldiering toward the move instead of sprinting to it now. I'm giving away all my things, like a living will.
You know how there are distant relatives or friends you only see once someone drops dead? The deal is the same with moving. People you haven't seen for a year. People you've just met, they all come out of the woodwork. You have to say all of your goodbyes. Get some closure, or at least let them know they're welcome to visit your new life once you've settled in.
Thursday, I had coffee with a friend of mine from Starbucks. In the afternoon of the same day, I met up with a guy friend of from my days at Sheridan. I hadn't seen the Starbucks friend in about a week, and it had literally been about a year since I had seen my college pal. I had to say goodbye to both of them. She hugged me and then bequeathed me a set of knives for my new kitchen.. He hugged me so hard he picked me up off the ground. My favourite hugs are the kind that hurt.
Sometimes, moving is like a funeral because you struggle to find closure. Sometimes, you can't see all the people you want to. You can't give them reasons, or get rid of all of the things you wish you could say. Sometimes, you don't get to spit out all the goodbyes you want to and I think that's going to be the hardest part right now.
ANGSTANGSTANGST vs. excitement, basically. Je ne sais pas.
"Hey, do you like this? You can have it if you want."
"Are you giving away all your things? It's like your funeral or something," she said.
And, kids, it very much is. Moving is exciting, but right now, I've found this bittersweet melancholic haze has taken over. I feel as though I'm soldiering toward the move instead of sprinting to it now. I'm giving away all my things, like a living will.
You know how there are distant relatives or friends you only see once someone drops dead? The deal is the same with moving. People you haven't seen for a year. People you've just met, they all come out of the woodwork. You have to say all of your goodbyes. Get some closure, or at least let them know they're welcome to visit your new life once you've settled in.
Thursday, I had coffee with a friend of mine from Starbucks. In the afternoon of the same day, I met up with a guy friend of from my days at Sheridan. I hadn't seen the Starbucks friend in about a week, and it had literally been about a year since I had seen my college pal. I had to say goodbye to both of them. She hugged me and then bequeathed me a set of knives for my new kitchen.. He hugged me so hard he picked me up off the ground. My favourite hugs are the kind that hurt.
Sometimes, moving is like a funeral because you struggle to find closure. Sometimes, you can't see all the people you want to. You can't give them reasons, or get rid of all of the things you wish you could say. Sometimes, you don't get to spit out all the goodbyes you want to and I think that's going to be the hardest part right now.
ANGSTANGSTANGST vs. excitement, basically. Je ne sais pas.
June 16, 2012
Blog By Numbers
#1. The way to keep your life from being consumed by a fashion blog is to not write a fashion blog.
#2. The way to celebrate your birthday is to first declare loudly you don't want to do anything. Then decide you do want to do something. After this deliberate endlessly over WHAT should be done for it, and with whom and upon what day. Then, sit back, throw your hands down onto the keyboard and and write a blog about. Also, make sure you don't book it off for work so that you can scramble to find someone to cover your shift, because while you're not sure WHAT you're doing, your special birthday ass is NOT celebrating by asking people for their Optimum cards.
#3. The way to cut out refined carbs is to stop eating chips, crackers and white bread. Instead, you find yourself eating lots of yogurt, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and ALWAYS BEING HUNGRY.
#4. The fact that having two jobs is starting to cut into my social calendar is really...discouraging. I need the cash but spending 6 or 7 days a week without being able to see people who I'm going to miss in a few months time is...disheartening. And frustrating. And stupid. I want a real weekend, DAMNIT. It's also hard to be happy about my jobs when I'd rather be off chasing my passions. It's day jobs vs. love in the dark.
#5. Two albums I can't stop listening right now: Jack White's Blunderbuss and Tom Waits' Bad As Me.
#6. My cat just barked. And my barked I mean he ruffed and woofed.
#7. I'm already beginning to stress about money and the move to Montreal in a few months time. I'm already missing people. I'm already getting pangs of feelings. What the hell have I done?! Don't get me wrong. I'm excited. But....Now the excitement is being shaken up with fear and worry as reality sets in. University seems big and cold and impersonal right now...
#2. The way to celebrate your birthday is to first declare loudly you don't want to do anything. Then decide you do want to do something. After this deliberate endlessly over WHAT should be done for it, and with whom and upon what day. Then, sit back, throw your hands down onto the keyboard and and write a blog about. Also, make sure you don't book it off for work so that you can scramble to find someone to cover your shift, because while you're not sure WHAT you're doing, your special birthday ass is NOT celebrating by asking people for their Optimum cards.
#3. The way to cut out refined carbs is to stop eating chips, crackers and white bread. Instead, you find yourself eating lots of yogurt, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and ALWAYS BEING HUNGRY.
#4. The fact that having two jobs is starting to cut into my social calendar is really...discouraging. I need the cash but spending 6 or 7 days a week without being able to see people who I'm going to miss in a few months time is...disheartening. And frustrating. And stupid. I want a real weekend, DAMNIT. It's also hard to be happy about my jobs when I'd rather be off chasing my passions. It's day jobs vs. love in the dark.
#5. Two albums I can't stop listening right now: Jack White's Blunderbuss and Tom Waits' Bad As Me.
#6. My cat just barked. And my barked I mean he ruffed and woofed.
#7. I'm already beginning to stress about money and the move to Montreal in a few months time. I'm already missing people. I'm already getting pangs of feelings. What the hell have I done?! Don't get me wrong. I'm excited. But....Now the excitement is being shaken up with fear and worry as reality sets in. University seems big and cold and impersonal right now...
October 14, 2011
The Daily News...and tits.
The Bear has been on the prowl lately. I think, combined with PMS raises it and my buried anxieties about the run are bringing it to the front. It's on the 16th, so we are officially two days away. And, not to sound like someone making New Years resolutions, but after the run, I'm hoping to get back into a better health routine in terms of going to the gym and watching what I eat. I've been TERRIBLE lately... like reality TV terrible and I think it's effecting my mood and my confidence, for starters.
The Bear scares away my optimism and I crawl back into bed at 4 in the afternoon because I don't want to go downstairs and eat everything in the kitchen out of some nameless anxiety and feelings of being emotionally and physically hideous. Some bitterness. I don't know...it's not a good state of mind. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just saying, that's how out of whack I get around this time. Jill and Rebekah both separately suggested going on the pill to help regulate some of my hormones, which I think might be a good idea. Except that you need to get your doctor to give you a PAP, and in my peaky, pre-PMS whiny sensitive state, the worst idea ever seems to be an old guy looking at my lady parts, analyzing them while he thinks about the bad golf game he had on the weekend.
It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened to me.
(For those of you who aren't educated, that's the journal I had before this one. Warning: The post talks about my tits and the awkward doctor appointment where they were first revealed to the world. Yes, I said tits.)
Either way. To lift our spirits and get some stuff done, Bek and I went Halloween shopping today. I got white pants, suspenders, shoes, a wig and a moustache. My Freddie ensemble is basically complete. (Weird story: While we were at the second costume store, we saw costume moustaches made out of 100 percent REAL HUMAN HAIR. WTF IS THAT.) I'm looking forward to Halloween more and more and more. I've never even been a big fan of it...(I was traumatized by a booby trapped house as a child, true story) but this year I'm actually SO excited. My love of Freddie combined with my love of gay bars will explode into black and orange glittery love. Seriously. Bek got a lot of the stuff for her costume. GO TEAM US!
After shopping we went out for dinner and spoke about the sort of near but also slightly distant future. We spoke about Chuck Palahniuk's soon to be released book Damned, and of our prospective lives if we moved to Montreal. Nous avons parlé de l'étudie le Francais. University and work. My prospective writing portfolio. Ogling the Montreal men. Apartment warming parties. I don't know. It was enough to bring a little warmth back into my bones and lift my spirits. That's what friends are for!
Plans? Costume? Tits? TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT.
The Bear scares away my optimism and I crawl back into bed at 4 in the afternoon because I don't want to go downstairs and eat everything in the kitchen out of some nameless anxiety and feelings of being emotionally and physically hideous. Some bitterness. I don't know...it's not a good state of mind. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just saying, that's how out of whack I get around this time. Jill and Rebekah both separately suggested going on the pill to help regulate some of my hormones, which I think might be a good idea. Except that you need to get your doctor to give you a PAP, and in my peaky, pre-PMS whiny sensitive state, the worst idea ever seems to be an old guy looking at my lady parts, analyzing them while he thinks about the bad golf game he had on the weekend.
It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened to me.
(For those of you who aren't educated, that's the journal I had before this one. Warning: The post talks about my tits and the awkward doctor appointment where they were first revealed to the world. Yes, I said tits.)
Either way. To lift our spirits and get some stuff done, Bek and I went Halloween shopping today. I got white pants, suspenders, shoes, a wig and a moustache. My Freddie ensemble is basically complete. (Weird story: While we were at the second costume store, we saw costume moustaches made out of 100 percent REAL HUMAN HAIR. WTF IS THAT.) I'm looking forward to Halloween more and more and more. I've never even been a big fan of it...(I was traumatized by a booby trapped house as a child, true story) but this year I'm actually SO excited. My love of Freddie combined with my love of gay bars will explode into black and orange glittery love. Seriously. Bek got a lot of the stuff for her costume. GO TEAM US!
After shopping we went out for dinner and spoke about the sort of near but also slightly distant future. We spoke about Chuck Palahniuk's soon to be released book Damned, and of our prospective lives if we moved to Montreal. Nous avons parlé de l'étudie le Francais. University and work. My prospective writing portfolio. Ogling the Montreal men. Apartment warming parties. I don't know. It was enough to bring a little warmth back into my bones and lift my spirits. That's what friends are for!
Plans? Costume? Tits? TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT.
September 20, 2011
Growth
My Sunday meltdown resulted in a trip to my psychologist on Tuesday afternoon. I'm not ashamed to say I've seen a counselor professionally. While I know therapy isn't for everyone, I've found it always helps me. I starting going when I first had panic attacks in my teens, and any time I'm out of sorts, I end up back on that same couch, pouring my hear out.
Naturally, it was one of the first things I concluded I needed, when I forgot my black shoes for work on Monday morning and collapsed again into crying with frustration while driving home to get them. (More than hormones. More than work stress....Seriously. The second you find yourself crying over sneakers is when you admit you're going CRAYCRAY and book an appointment ASAP.)
My psych is a lovely woman understands and sympathizes me in a way no one else could. She is not just there to pay attention to me because I'm another cheque. (Well TECHNICALLY she is... but...The look on her face an in her eyes whenever I'm spilling my guts out to her is always sympathy.) I've told her things I don't think I could bring myself to admit to my closest friends.
The point of this all is that I'm feeling sorted out. I'm not RESOLVED, but I understand more. I understand why I had the first real panic attack I've had in years. The weird feelings I've been having. The depth of the break up I went through. (Read: It was more than just... petty. Which made me feel less stupid for being sad about it.)
ANYWAY, the point is, there is going to be some change in my life, and soon, I hope. Or soonish. What it might be, I don't know. All I know is that feeling understood is amazing. Feeling not CRAZY...is also amazing. I feel more level.
I'm going to try and get out a regular post but I've been busy with work/going insane/and back again. I worked a 13 hour day on Monday between my two jobs. UGH.
Naturally, it was one of the first things I concluded I needed, when I forgot my black shoes for work on Monday morning and collapsed again into crying with frustration while driving home to get them. (More than hormones. More than work stress....Seriously. The second you find yourself crying over sneakers is when you admit you're going CRAYCRAY and book an appointment ASAP.)
My psych is a lovely woman understands and sympathizes me in a way no one else could. She is not just there to pay attention to me because I'm another cheque. (Well TECHNICALLY she is... but...The look on her face an in her eyes whenever I'm spilling my guts out to her is always sympathy.) I've told her things I don't think I could bring myself to admit to my closest friends.
The point of this all is that I'm feeling sorted out. I'm not RESOLVED, but I understand more. I understand why I had the first real panic attack I've had in years. The weird feelings I've been having. The depth of the break up I went through. (Read: It was more than just... petty. Which made me feel less stupid for being sad about it.)
ANYWAY, the point is, there is going to be some change in my life, and soon, I hope. Or soonish. What it might be, I don't know. All I know is that feeling understood is amazing. Feeling not CRAZY...is also amazing. I feel more level.
I'm going to try and get out a regular post but I've been busy with work/going insane/and back again. I worked a 13 hour day on Monday between my two jobs. UGH.
September 13, 2011
Good vs. Bad
THE BAD STUFF
I got up at 4:15AM to go to work at 5AM this morning.
I was supposed to be up at 4:15 this morning to get my ass into work for 5AM, but instead I ended up learning a couple of things about life. I don't REMEMBER getting up walking to my desk and turning off my alarm clock. I do remember Telly nuzzling my face, checking my cellphone which magically was under my pillow and gasping in horror at the time. (Sitcom situation impending!)
• 5:30AM (the ACTUAL time I woke up) still looks like the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
• Cats make good alarm clocks.
• If people don't USUALLY compliment you on your work glasses but they're noticing them today, you put them on in the dark and wore your hipster goggles to work by accident. Also, you're still half asleep.
Usually when I have anxious freak outs it's because I make some sort of mistake, so today had me on the brink. When I apologized sincerely (it was a Mona Lisa of an apology, trust me) to my manager she honestly seemed to care less about my accidental tardiness than I did. Still, it bothered me for the rest of my shift. I was in a bad way, and it was adding on to some of the feelings that have been following me around. Egging the Bear on, so to speak.
Despite my own promises to live with joie de vivre and making up a new motto to go with it, I have to confess kids, I've been feeling in a rut lately. A rut that is threatening to turn into a trench. Unless I do something about it... I have a plan and a possible opportunity but I don't want to write about it until it's a little more certain. (Ooh. Mysterious.)
THE GOOD STUFF
After work, I got home, chilled out for a little bit and then popped out to do some errands.
I went to the library and saw a dream car in the parking lot: a red Mercedes 560SL. I love the boxy look of old Mercedes and gawked at it like a construction workers eye up ladies in films from the 80s. (Yeah, I rhymed, what?) It's a serious head turner.
In terms of books I picked up On the Road by Jack Kerouac (for hipster cred), a book about writing/planning novels to try and sort out some ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo, and Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston, the book/man upon which the movie 127 Hours is based.
Then I went to the grocery store and bought smiley fries (Hellyeah,my one weakness) and strawberry soy milk. Which I then had for lunch, because I am not a BORN health nut. When I finally arrived home from having a huge sneeze attack, I also discovered my new Aldo boots had arrived!
The goods today outweigh the bads, something I'm grateful for in a day that got off to a less than settled start, and I'm proud of myself for keeping it together and moving on over dwelling on it like I usually do.
I was supposed to be up at 4:15 this morning to get my ass into work for 5AM, but instead I ended up learning a couple of things about life. I don't REMEMBER getting up walking to my desk and turning off my alarm clock. I do remember Telly nuzzling my face, checking my cellphone which magically was under my pillow and gasping in horror at the time. (Sitcom situation impending!)
• 5:30AM (the ACTUAL time I woke up) still looks like the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
• Cats make good alarm clocks.
• If people don't USUALLY compliment you on your work glasses but they're noticing them today, you put them on in the dark and wore your hipster goggles to work by accident. Also, you're still half asleep.
Usually when I have anxious freak outs it's because I make some sort of mistake, so today had me on the brink. When I apologized sincerely (it was a Mona Lisa of an apology, trust me) to my manager she honestly seemed to care less about my accidental tardiness than I did. Still, it bothered me for the rest of my shift. I was in a bad way, and it was adding on to some of the feelings that have been following me around. Egging the Bear on, so to speak.
Despite my own promises to live with joie de vivre and making up a new motto to go with it, I have to confess kids, I've been feeling in a rut lately. A rut that is threatening to turn into a trench. Unless I do something about it... I have a plan and a possible opportunity but I don't want to write about it until it's a little more certain. (Ooh. Mysterious.)
THE GOOD STUFF
After work, I got home, chilled out for a little bit and then popped out to do some errands.
I went to the library and saw a dream car in the parking lot: a red Mercedes 560SL. I love the boxy look of old Mercedes and gawked at it like a construction workers eye up ladies in films from the 80s. (Yeah, I rhymed, what?) It's a serious head turner.
In terms of books I picked up On the Road by Jack Kerouac (for hipster cred), a book about writing/planning novels to try and sort out some ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo, and Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston, the book/man upon which the movie 127 Hours is based.
Then I went to the grocery store and bought smiley fries (Hellyeah,my one weakness) and strawberry soy milk. Which I then had for lunch, because I am not a BORN health nut. When I finally arrived home from having a huge sneeze attack, I also discovered my new Aldo boots had arrived!
The goods today outweigh the bads, something I'm grateful for in a day that got off to a less than settled start, and I'm proud of myself for keeping it together and moving on over dwelling on it like I usually do.
September 01, 2011
Cliff Diving
A journalist I follow on Twitter recently posted about needing either an intern or a clone to keep up with all the work he was being offered. I'm a fan of his work so I jokingly (kind of?) encouraged him to go the route of taking on an intern. To my shock, he replied back, asking if I had any experience in photography.
[Insert unnecessary heart explosion of excitement here.]
After freaking out (mildly) and deliberating with my mama for about five minutes, I told him that I HAD studied some photography in college, but I was not Andy Warhol. It's true-- in first year Media Arts, we had to learn photography, everything from f-stops, ISO and white balance to frame composition. Even though I have yet to hear back from this guy, and maybe I never will, this put my place on the board in heightened perspective.
As I pondered becoming the shy, awkward but resilient intern, my mind ran wild. What if he said no? What if he said yes? It was a cliff, and I was looking straight down at a big, ominous body of turbulent water.
I realized that, given the chance, I would jump. I would quit both my jobs, pack my life up and sleep on my friends' couch to intern in Toronto. My mind romanticized the crap out of it, all the while saying that, YES it would be hard but it could be worth it. After all, in all the stories about people who make something of themselves, it always starts with one stupid move. One jump into the cold water waiting below.
I know now that I'm ready to make a leap, even if that particular opportunity never becomes something, I'm ready to jump for something else. Fall for someone else. Do anything to chase a dream. This is coming from a girl who has quit two jobs and survived plenty of sobbing panic attacks due to work related anxiety. I would like to take a moment and relish this absolute moment of pure insanity brought about by the need to do something I love with my life. The moment in which I realize I would do something ridiculous in spite of, or maybe even because of mental afflictions. Hell. Yes.
[Insert unnecessary heart explosion of excitement here.]
After freaking out (mildly) and deliberating with my mama for about five minutes, I told him that I HAD studied some photography in college, but I was not Andy Warhol. It's true-- in first year Media Arts, we had to learn photography, everything from f-stops, ISO and white balance to frame composition. Even though I have yet to hear back from this guy, and maybe I never will, this put my place on the board in heightened perspective.
As I pondered becoming the shy, awkward but resilient intern, my mind ran wild. What if he said no? What if he said yes? It was a cliff, and I was looking straight down at a big, ominous body of turbulent water.
I realized that, given the chance, I would jump. I would quit both my jobs, pack my life up and sleep on my friends' couch to intern in Toronto. My mind romanticized the crap out of it, all the while saying that, YES it would be hard but it could be worth it. After all, in all the stories about people who make something of themselves, it always starts with one stupid move. One jump into the cold water waiting below.
I know now that I'm ready to make a leap, even if that particular opportunity never becomes something, I'm ready to jump for something else. Fall for someone else. Do anything to chase a dream. This is coming from a girl who has quit two jobs and survived plenty of sobbing panic attacks due to work related anxiety. I would like to take a moment and relish this absolute moment of pure insanity brought about by the need to do something I love with my life. The moment in which I realize I would do something ridiculous in spite of, or maybe even because of mental afflictions. Hell. Yes.
August 08, 2011
4AM Rambles
I like staying up late because it affords me the time to sit with my own thoughts, without distractions and write, think, make plans. When I'm up late I can dream about the finish line, the films and stories I'm not yet writing. I can think about the acoustic guitar I want to learn to play, and the people I miss with more clarity than in the chaos of daytime. I can really get down to the marrow in the bones of what I want, or need. Things that seem unclear suddenly emerge like they're really obvious.
What I need to do with my future. What I want from life. What I feel about who, and why. Sometimes the hard thing is admitting to these revelations, because they're not what everyone else wants or needs to hear. Sometimes, they're not even what I want to hear, especially if they mean putting myself before pre-made plans or notions. Things that might mess with other people.
The pressure to appease the other people in my life is manifest in a diagnosed social phobia/anxiety disorder that I try not to let define me. Every now and again though, it allows me to open up, especially to other people. I found out two of my co-workers also suffer from anxiety today and it immediately put my heart out to them in a way I don't think I would have connected with them otherwise.
It seems like almost everyone I know has suffered through, or is suffering through some kind of anxiety of the times. At dinner I asked my parents if this was the case 30 years ago. Were people just more quiet about their problems because mental illness was taboo? Or is the internet age breeding directionless heart broken kids with carpal tunnel and happy pills to keep them upright during the day?
Staying up late also affords me the brilliant ability to ramble for paragraphs, a constant stream of thought sort of thing. I don't think I should write much longer, it's 4AM. We'll be back to your regular programming soon... I'd just post this because I'd hate for all these thoughts to go to waste somewhere.
What I need to do with my future. What I want from life. What I feel about who, and why. Sometimes the hard thing is admitting to these revelations, because they're not what everyone else wants or needs to hear. Sometimes, they're not even what I want to hear, especially if they mean putting myself before pre-made plans or notions. Things that might mess with other people.
The pressure to appease the other people in my life is manifest in a diagnosed social phobia/anxiety disorder that I try not to let define me. Every now and again though, it allows me to open up, especially to other people. I found out two of my co-workers also suffer from anxiety today and it immediately put my heart out to them in a way I don't think I would have connected with them otherwise.
It seems like almost everyone I know has suffered through, or is suffering through some kind of anxiety of the times. At dinner I asked my parents if this was the case 30 years ago. Were people just more quiet about their problems because mental illness was taboo? Or is the internet age breeding directionless heart broken kids with carpal tunnel and happy pills to keep them upright during the day?
Staying up late also affords me the brilliant ability to ramble for paragraphs, a constant stream of thought sort of thing. I don't think I should write much longer, it's 4AM. We'll be back to your regular programming soon... I'd just post this because I'd hate for all these thoughts to go to waste somewhere.
July 15, 2011
RANT: The Bear
The Bear hibernates for long periods of time, only to show up at random, during that time of the month, when I'm sleepy, or when it smells something it might like to feed off of. When a friend shows up looking fabulous and gorgeous to the max, I'm happy, but The Bear snarls and grumps with jealousy. When my older sister invites me for a night out, dancing at the bar, The Bear reminds me that all her friends are skinnier than me, and people will be judging me. When there's a long shift at work, The Bear will sleep for the shift and come out afterwards, angry for no reason whatsoever. Basically, The Bear is out to massacre my good moods, my nights out, my confidence, my relationships with the ones I love or the the ones I could love. The Bear, when it's around, gives me guilt and fear for just wanting to do things that I want to do.
I've been fighting with The Bear lately. I've been struggling to workout, to find some peace with myself, but I've also been struggling really hard with the art of letting go. The art of not giving a [cover your ears kids] fuck. When someone hurts me, I don't tend to get over it, I hold on to it and forget about it, until something brings back the pain or frustration. I've seen this quality in other people and it's not flattering or healthy. In fact I think it's neurotic, my social phobia rearing it's ugly head. A big lumbering beast, following me around in my day to day life, making everything generally worse.
Milliseconds of painful time seem to be branded in my memory. I remember all the words people used to tease me when I was little. I remember my birthday, 17 or 18, making my own cupcakes while my friends and best-friend-at-the-time played video games in my basement. I remember one night last year having too much to drink, having a wild panic attack and being given the silent treatment the next day by my roommates, for one reason or another. Not a month ago, I was stretching in my driveway after a run-- a car cruised by with some young guys in it. One of them yelled something, but I couldn't hear it because of my headphones. I assumed the worst and couldn't put it out of my mind.
I keep all this stuff locked up when really, all I want to do is get rid of it. Lose the luggage, fly somewhere else. I really can't wait to start exercising again, because in lots of ways, running is good for my mind and my body. I'm stronger and I'm more stable, and I don't let the little things get to me as much. That being said, I'm making a public statement: to give less of a fuck, and to GET BACK INTO THE GYM because it fixes all sorts of things. The people who love me will encourage or forgive me for whatever actions I might have to be ashamed of. The people who judge me or hate on me without knowing who I am don't deserve to be a part of my life.
It's hunting season, and I'm out to get The Bear.
Note: Arcade Ragdoll does not support hunting of actual bears with actual weapons. We're hunting The Bear so we can tranquilize it and release it into the wild.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)