Let them eat cake!...
As aristocratically pompous and distrait were Marie Antoinette's words to her french constituency, there is still a vague shadow of confidence and strength that rest between the rise and fall of each syllable in her comment to a starving people.
Herein lies my jealousy.
I am vigorously annoyed with the idea that in my strongest of moments, I am still inundated with extremely subtle feelings of a need for acceptance - a particular weakness I inherited from my mother. All of her friends love her. She is always the life of the party. And it wasn't until I grew older to saw the tax that popularity has on a person spirit. I took a true self-inventory to derive at this truth - one that hurt in revelation but has unlocked the wrist shackles of this web of chains in which I am locked.
In my earlier years, I can recall being a serious introvert. The people who would have known my truest feelings were my action figures and any other imaginary character I created to keep me company. Lame, you might think, but the reality was that I didn't go outside much, didn't have many friends, rarely ventured away from the security that my mother provided and built an unhealthy relationship with books. Then, at some point in my life, things changed.
I was forced out of hiding. I paid less attention to the way grass shifted in the wind and I started to give more weight to the things that made me feel appreciated in others' eye-sights. My little paradigm was founded on the comments I would get from others like "he's gonna be a heartbreaker" and "people will pay for your skin tone one day." What I vetted from comments like these and others was that there was something different or wrong with building the inward me; but that I should instead, shift my focus on developing what people would notice physically. (sigh) I excelled academically, mostly because those skills were more innate to me - they couldn't be contrived or redirected outwardly. And on occasion, there was some public reward for my studies which was an irregular reminder that the most basic part of me had some validity in this world. However, like any moth to a flame, I began to crave the attention. I didn't have to work hard for it. It came frequently. And I felt good for the time I spent doing it.
Like any smart kid with a particular addiction, I made a bargain with myself to facilitate this exchange. I had developed a particular set of skills as a quiet observer that could be used to help people. But I would use this extrovert shell of mine to get the fix I needed. So I became many things, good (for others) yet unhealthy (for me) things: The strong one. The person who could bare the weight of your problems because his did not exist. The smile. The educated one. The bank account. The listening ear. Each label slowly chipping away at the core person, confusing real with plastic. In the process, I began to buy into the hype. So, I became emotionless to take on others emotional needs. I became an advice columnist to for many who subscribed to my type of solutions while I, myself, made bad personal choices. I built relationships in the place where I should have been falling in love with myself. And ultimately as a result I have become everything for everybody but absolutely nothing for myself. I find it amazing though because its not supposed to work. Even on airplanes, in times of flight distress, you are told to put your oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else. I had lived successfully doing this until now.
So, who does the listener turn to when he needs a listening ear? How can I be successful in relationships when I don't know my core and what I have is based on everyone else's happiness? I can't show weakness because I have forgotten how and I feel I won't be accepted if I do. So where does this leave me.
Now, I am at a place where the change can either become permanent or I can reasonably find some way to scaffold out those parts of me that I want to keep and those I want to rid myself of forever. Some reflection has led me to choose the latter option. They say the hardest part of giving up an addiction is that first step. "They" weren't lying. I don't know where to begin. I've carved out a path so crisp through this addiction that I don't know where to look to find the road I originally started on. Here and there are snippets of that little blonde haired kid but they are faint at best. (sigh) I just don't really know what to do.
I desperately have to get back to me. Start building up the core again, laying down foundation that is true to the real me.
I guess change is gonna come because honestly, I am long overdue saying to the needs of others, "Let them eat cake!"
Herein lies my jealousy.
I am vigorously annoyed with the idea that in my strongest of moments, I am still inundated with extremely subtle feelings of a need for acceptance - a particular weakness I inherited from my mother. All of her friends love her. She is always the life of the party. And it wasn't until I grew older to saw the tax that popularity has on a person spirit. I took a true self-inventory to derive at this truth - one that hurt in revelation but has unlocked the wrist shackles of this web of chains in which I am locked.
In my earlier years, I can recall being a serious introvert. The people who would have known my truest feelings were my action figures and any other imaginary character I created to keep me company. Lame, you might think, but the reality was that I didn't go outside much, didn't have many friends, rarely ventured away from the security that my mother provided and built an unhealthy relationship with books. Then, at some point in my life, things changed.
I was forced out of hiding. I paid less attention to the way grass shifted in the wind and I started to give more weight to the things that made me feel appreciated in others' eye-sights. My little paradigm was founded on the comments I would get from others like "he's gonna be a heartbreaker" and "people will pay for your skin tone one day." What I vetted from comments like these and others was that there was something different or wrong with building the inward me; but that I should instead, shift my focus on developing what people would notice physically. (sigh) I excelled academically, mostly because those skills were more innate to me - they couldn't be contrived or redirected outwardly. And on occasion, there was some public reward for my studies which was an irregular reminder that the most basic part of me had some validity in this world. However, like any moth to a flame, I began to crave the attention. I didn't have to work hard for it. It came frequently. And I felt good for the time I spent doing it.
Like any smart kid with a particular addiction, I made a bargain with myself to facilitate this exchange. I had developed a particular set of skills as a quiet observer that could be used to help people. But I would use this extrovert shell of mine to get the fix I needed. So I became many things, good (for others) yet unhealthy (for me) things: The strong one. The person who could bare the weight of your problems because his did not exist. The smile. The educated one. The bank account. The listening ear. Each label slowly chipping away at the core person, confusing real with plastic. In the process, I began to buy into the hype. So, I became emotionless to take on others emotional needs. I became an advice columnist to for many who subscribed to my type of solutions while I, myself, made bad personal choices. I built relationships in the place where I should have been falling in love with myself. And ultimately as a result I have become everything for everybody but absolutely nothing for myself. I find it amazing though because its not supposed to work. Even on airplanes, in times of flight distress, you are told to put your oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else. I had lived successfully doing this until now.
So, who does the listener turn to when he needs a listening ear? How can I be successful in relationships when I don't know my core and what I have is based on everyone else's happiness? I can't show weakness because I have forgotten how and I feel I won't be accepted if I do. So where does this leave me.
Now, I am at a place where the change can either become permanent or I can reasonably find some way to scaffold out those parts of me that I want to keep and those I want to rid myself of forever. Some reflection has led me to choose the latter option. They say the hardest part of giving up an addiction is that first step. "They" weren't lying. I don't know where to begin. I've carved out a path so crisp through this addiction that I don't know where to look to find the road I originally started on. Here and there are snippets of that little blonde haired kid but they are faint at best. (sigh) I just don't really know what to do.
I desperately have to get back to me. Start building up the core again, laying down foundation that is true to the real me.
I guess change is gonna come because honestly, I am long overdue saying to the needs of others, "Let them eat cake!"