A Long Way Gone

One day I will become the person others see in me.

I ascribe such negative views to others, but really, these are my views of myself. It is a habit that hurts me and only me. Or so I believe. Perhaps I hurt others by not seeing what they see.

I seek solace in things that make me feel worse, less so than in the past, but I still do. I am ever envious and ashamed. I am ever feeling weaker, more fragile, less competent than others.

My high school English teacher forwarded me a recommendation he wrote when I was applying to university. It had the same impact on me as my mother's synopsis of my life for the same applications. I am humbled, I am stunned, and I am shamed. Am I really so wonderful to others? Am I so unique?

I feel like the raindrops I kick off my umbrella before tossing it in the corner. I feel like the bread crumbs I brush into the trashcan. Perhaps it's the rain; gray skies demoralize me. Too much sleep depresses me. Falling behind on work makes me guilty and ashamed. Guilt and Shame. How tired I am of those two old, old acquaintances.

My roommate is studying Psychology. This week they are learning about Eating Disorders and Depression. I feel like the freaking Venn Diagram in her textbook: one part depression, one part anxiety, and one part disorder. Why is it that those who are the most organized on the outside are often the most dysfunctional on the inside? Why is my lens so warped?

And why is my first thought always "It's my fault."

Fault? It's not a fault. I know that, at least. There are things I can control - my grades, my sleep schedule, what foods I eat - and there are things far, far beyond my control: what others think of me. The weather. My biochemistry.

For me, writing is cathartic. It lets me exorcise the shadows and mud inside. But it cannot do everything. It cannot be everything. There is a quote I feel is particularly relevent to my mood right now. It goes like this:

"the number one reason why people give up so fast

is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go

rather than how far they have come." 

Yes. Yes. I always look behind me rather than ahead of me. I always see the weakness, rather than the strengths. I want to see the sunshine instead of the rain; my progress is in how much sunshine I see before the rain comes back. 

I can list the skills I recognize from long repetition: kindness, laughter, wit, intelligence, silence, sympathy, righteous rage, tolerance. They all seem so...good. 

I give away public pieces of myself without trusting that others will care for them. Perhaps this is what makes it such a task to get me to talk truly, and mean what I say? Maybe the rest of you know me better than I know myself. I think, therefore I am...or if I had my way sometimes, therefore I would not be. 

I cannot seek the comfort of blame, for I have no one to blame for my guilt, my shame, my constant need to compare and compare and compare. I should not blame myself, but in the end, it seems fairest. I am what forms me, shapes me, holds me back or sets me free. I control me. I build me. I want to assign blame, for therein I dervice order and thus comfort. But I also want to assign blame justly. No. Not justly. I have been told too often that blaming oneself is not justice. I want to assign blame without hurting someone else. No. It hurts me. Do you see how tangled this is? 

This is a very long post. My thanks to those who read it through to the end. I want to apologize, but I have been trying to push past that inclination. I don't want to be a doormat, and I know that the key to not being a doormat is not forming the habits of a doormat. (Muh.) Before I was diverted, I was thanking you, Reader, for patience. And perhaps a little understanding. 

Sorry. No. I will not apologize for being blue. Maybe somewhere, in all my musings, I have stumbled over something that resonates with one of you out there.

There. That's something I can be proud of. Mr. Moore, I'm doing my best. I'll keep trying. 

WolfGrrl