doing good
My summer of existential crises is nearing its end; can't say I'll miss the vast number of hours in which to sit around doing nothing and completely losing my sense of self while walking right up to the threshold of mortality and realizing that there are far too many obituaries for 20-year-olds written every day. But... I came to a comfortable resolution with myself after a many weeks of a total dissolution of my usually-stable center (in moods, emotions, intellect and identity). This resolution is that I am alive now. At some point I won't be. I don't know what will happen or where I will go, but I believe one thing: That everyone goes where they believe they will go and ends up with who they think they'll end up with. This summer also helped me believe in one other thing: That it doesn't matter what my surface mind invents to believe in. Some part of me already knows, and I have to trust that part when the time comes. And the only way to trust that part is to make an effort to like myself and trust myself.
I used to like myself pretty well, so I don't know where that went. In the last couple of years I've fucked up (or contributed to the fucking up of) a couple of very close personal relationships. One of those two deeply shook my faith in my own good judgment, and although I logically knew that the other party was responsible for most of her own pain I still had the wholly derailing experience of thinking I had hurt someone else beyond repair, and wondering whether or not the capability existed within me to have done it on purpose. I sustained my first serious injury (broken bone) as well as my first fillings -- both of which are utterly common, but inarguably body-altering; I mean, you get to know your body after 19 years. I've never had much in the way of injury or illness growing up. And then it changes for good, like my foot will always ache and my teeth will always be more cold-sensitive, because human bodies are breakable, changeable things, and it's hard to learn that at the same time that you're learning that you can't live at home forever, that your parents are going to die before you no matter how much you love them and want them to stay, and that your extended family is rapidly shrinking on the upper end while remaining static with yourself, an only child, at the bottom end. I've also moved many, many times in the past two years, to and from school, and although I've moved several times before in my life, this rapid back-and-forth is really disconcerting -- as I'm sure it is to everyone. It's just that I love my parents and my home-home, but I also love my friends and my dorm-home, and I don't want to stop thinking of either one of them as "home." But that means that no matter which one I'm at, the other one is sort of lifeless without the core of my belongings, books and computer and "self" things. I think I've come to terms with it, but it's still a disconcerting state of perpetual half-being, especially when I come home over short holidays during the school year and almost nothing of myself is in the house.
So I used to like myself, not in a narcissistic way, just in a well-adjusted, self-understanding way. And I've been so on-and-off miserable this summer. Just goes to show how dumb smart people can be that it took me this long to realize that it's because I've changed, physically and mentally and in my approaches to things and in my relationships, and that I haven't been acknowledging those changes in my sense of self. It's like balancing a checkbook. The math isn't a do-it-once-and-you've-got-your-answer thing, it has to be constantly updated. So I haven't actually been this person I thought I was supposed to like -- after all I used to like her -- and it made me disgusted with myself. Two-Face. Hypocritical bitch. Would anyone really miss you? No. Everyone you know has someone else, while you only have them. (That's absolutely retarded logic, I know, but it's human logic. Humans aren't exactly Spock on the whole.) Everything you don't have, you don't have because you didn't make the effort find it or take it. I fucking know that. It doesn't change where and what I am now, and I know that the only thing I should be thinking about is the opportunity open to me from this point forwards, but damn it is really hard to let go of the opportunities you didn't take. Why hello there universal life lesson. I think I have learned you now. Please go away and leave me in peace.
I think it only took the realization of these problems to set me halfway back on my feet again. I realized that after emerging from the little emo shell of introspection, the first and biggest thing I hated about my new self was that whiny bitch bloating on pizza and lack of movement sitting on the couch spending hours on end doing fucking cross-stitch which is probably the least creative of all creative endeavors on the face of the planet except maybe paint-by-numbers. So breaking that sentence down, I need to A) quit whining and let things in the past stay in the past, B) stop being a bitch to people I love who are only trying to help me -- oh God, did I turn into a Hot Topic teenager for a few weeks there? I am SO sorry! Everyone has their bad spells but I have no excuse, C) eat better, it isn't that hard, just add something that didn't come out of a box or the freezer to each meal, D) go take a fucking walk, E) if you're going to just sit around, read a book instead of watching the TV, and F) if you feel like a slug on a suicide march across the Utah salt flats because you're not being creative, then, you know, you could try doing something creative. Because, like, no matter how many hours you put into that developing case of carpal tunnel in your stitching wrist, cross-stitch isn't going to get any more imaginative than 'hand tired, color pretty' and/or 'up down half 1 up down 1 up down half 2 up down 2 up down half 3...' for 500,000 tiny squares.
So. But guess what? I still haven't had a soda since New Year's Day. I fucking own at this New Year Resolution thing. So I've successfully given up one unhealthy thing I used to mildly enjoy. Can I give up other unhealthy things that are more addictive and damaging than HFCS and carbonation? Like being sedentary, or being reclusive, or at least one of my many OCD craft habits? I can try, at least.
Anyway, I cut that because it got huge. I'd only intended to say that I've felt a lot better today than I have in a long while. Next summer, I HAVE to have a job. I don't care how tedious it may be, I don't care if it's a volunteer job and I don't get a cent for it. No job is more tedious than doing nothing and knowing no one for months on end. (Hi, Mom. Welcome to your world, I know.)
In other news, I have fandom shit to talk about. ^_^ You knew it wouldn't be a post by me until I dribbled some more about fandom. But since it's late, I may save the bulk of my pent-up ramblings for another post. Topics to cover then: My driving need to find a definition of feminism I'm totally comfortable with, my mild frustration with the terms 'fangirl' and 'fanboy' and where they stop meaning physical gender and start meaning a whole judgment-laden set of preordained attitudes, X-Files, Dark Knight, Dr. Horrible, YA fantasy lit, "unrealistic" young ages as portrayed in YA fiction: was my childhood an exception rather than part of the rule, or what?, censorship (an oldie but a goodie), and lastly but most lengthily, my own fiction: challenge comms, status of epic crossover, experimental all-OC RPG board, and the most viable and actually interesting first life signs of an original world/plot/set of characters who I'm thinking might be NaNo material without cheating.
4:30 am means time for bed is -4 1/2 hours since now.
-rave