"i wish i was both
young and stupid."
sometimes i find myself knee-deep in nostalgia, wishing for a past that has those gold-rimmed truths that really aren't so true. memory paints itself the way the soul wants to see it, and in all the ways i was stronger then, i was weaker, too. i suppose we trade life for wisdom, mistrust for compassion, indecision for hope. though sometimes what you take with you is insecurity, loss, and the internalized self-loathing.
i cringe sometimes at how entertained we all are by self-deprecating humor. not that i am any better at it, not at all. it is always so easier to cling to misery, to fear, to obstacles. to lose yourself so completely that you settle for less because maybe you never had better, or perhaps you keep being reminded that you are not good enough for what you truly want.
so we run, we collapse, we hide, and we crumble. for me, sometimes i wish for when i was younger. a trick i play with my heart that i felt more then, or took to heart less. always the one to love less, to hide more, to act rash in ways that ultimately pulled the rug out from under me.
how does one break that cycle though? how does one take the steps towards being the person they are meant to be?
Similar thoughts and questions to my own...
ReplyDeleteI've been reading and listening to a lot of Joy Division lately. In what I've been reading it said that Ian's problem and something I could relate to was that he was different things to different people but never himself. If Ian had stood up to his band, his wife or his girlfriend and said this is the way that I am and not the way you want to be he might be alive. But we've all fallen into that trap. To mold ourselves to please and enable other people.
ReplyDeleteWhat I've learned this past year is to have yr own space, yr own identity and please yr self. Because if you never show yr true you and only give other people what you think they want to see and feel, you lose yrself and identity in the process.
It has happened to me and many people we are close to. A good friend of mine left L.A. this year because of this. The sad thing is that this is so common.
I wish there was an easy answer. I like to think one day, that we all come out of this shadow and our true selves come out. But we all have the make that first step. after the first leap,, everything else is liberating.
okay here i go again being simple...being what you wish to be. have a choice on what you are being..can turn every second and whenever you wish. Happy, smart, witty, healing, compassionate. etc. this you choose they do not choose you. Though sometimes feels this way.
ReplyDeleteYou make your life, day mean something. Not other way round.
Doubt for daisies. And new days, yeah?
ReplyDeletex
i think one takes those steps, in part, by being self-reflexive. by asking always "does this feel authentic? am i repeating a pattern? etc".
ReplyDeleteand FWIW, i think self-deprecating humour isn't self-loathing at all...i think when done right, it springs from a deep knowledge of (and comfort with) who one truly is. Where we go wrong, however, is in confusing "self-deprecating" with humour...in telling "jokes" about our foibles in order to excuse or minimize them rather out of a recognition that a facet of oneself is, in fact, funny. you know?
as for internalized self-loathing...one of the lessons of life for me has been the oh-so-slow recognition that sometimes that self-loathing is in itself a safety mechanism...that i've been self-loathing for so long that in some ways i feel safe retreating to that.
dunno if i'm making sense...but what i'm thinking lately is that those gold-rimmed truths *aren't*....and that the safety i felt then was the comfort of being paralyzed by/swaddled in fear and self-hatred...and that yeah, its scarier to go on now, but that fear is an indication that i'm not hiding anymore, that i'm moving forward rather than cowering in "comfort"....you know?