The morning greets me with a sense of estrangement. The clock reads twenty-'til, and I left my phone in the car. I'm still in my pajamas, feeling less handsome and more homely, less prodigious and more pitiful, and I don't know whether it is sad thing nor a liberating thing. Nor whether or not I should care either way.
I suppose what concerns me today is merely me, but I've recently come to look at myself as "less ____ than..."; less brilliant than my classmates, less handsome than the guys with girlfriends (or boyfriends, depending), less capable than the ones in my life who accomplish anything. Less than, less than, less than: it's been ringing in the hallway maze of my mind, and I've been searching of how to get rid of it: to drown it out with my own saying otherwise. I've been trying to find out how to explain to myself the constant lack of confidence, the cringes of disapproval upon every picture of myself on facebook, the less than attitude of myself in comparison to everyone.
A part of me feels like the same avenues are useless: My body and my mind know all of my tricks. The same distractions won't do anymore; I don't know how to fool myself into being self-confident, how to fool myself into being self-sufficient, how to fool myself into doing anything. A part of me feels trapped in my own skin syrupy mind.
And a part of me feels like a waste, how the best things that I could think of could change the world, and will never be able done by another, how this time is meant for me, and that is why I am here. How the general's horn is sounding and I should be answering, not laying in my cot.
But my body feels foreign; heavy, like a suit of armor. My soul feels frustrated at the daily beating, and we don't seem to be getting any stronger, any more pretty, any smarter, just hearing more of the same in all the words spoken to us from our mother and our friends, the actions, the plans made for us, the plans made without us. We aren't strong. We aren't pretty. We aren't smart. My body says to me, echoing in the halls of my mind. I can't turn the music up loud enough in my ears or my head: they just chant louder.
So here I lay, ugly, stupid, and weak, my body too heavy, the chanting too loud. I have no one beside me, and no future before me, but I know I'll keep pushing for Pushing's sake.
And I look in the mirror, give it a kiss.
"Look at me, Baby. We'll be fine.
Look at me, Baby. We'll be fine.
'Cause all We've got to do is to be brave and be kind."
Baby, We'll Be Fine by youngestson
i believe you subscribe to a biblical way of thinking, at least at times.
ReplyDeleteto me, you often gloss over some of the things i find to be real gems to hold tightly much of the work that is much more problematic. we've not had much in the way of long conversation about these matters in a while so you may have changed in this area or just stopped talking to me about such stuff.
i realize that calling some parts of the bible "problematic" may be offensive to some, so i apologize for how that sounds, but i am willing to discuss it if anyone so desires.
i think it's joel 3:10 that says "let the weak say 'i am strong.'"
i think that's a great verse.
i think it is one of the better versus in "the good book" as it cuts at the heart of the matter.
all people are weak.
everyone feels weak.
we all are keenly aware of every flaw we have and it shine so brightly in our own eyes as to be not an achilles heal, but an achilles torso.
frankly, we have to act our way into what we want to be; fake it till we can make it is the pop psychologist way of teaching us how to work through this phenomenon.
claim your strength.
own your strength.
then behave your way into your best self the way all great people do, one step at a time.
even thomas showed doubt (and in my view he was *thee* best disciple) and christ counted on him.
is it not part of your belief system that god chooses you?
you choose him; he chooses you.
you are among the chosen of god--is god wrong?
do you trust this god?
if so, shake off your icky feelings as part of a melancholy state we all find are selves in from time to time and face the day anew.
talk to friends if need be, let them know you are feeling that funk, and hopefully good friends and good conversation lifts you back up again to fight another day.
look around the world, there are lots of people with less gifts than you doing what they have to do.
no life is perfect, we work through the bad times to enjoy the good times and in the end, everything matters.