Well, we did it. We made it. We survived 2020.
Now it’s 2021 and time for new beginnings.
I won’t make a lot of resolutions or bright new plans or puff myself up with ambitions because that shit only lasts as long as the wave of enthusiasm lasts and when that shit crashes, boom goes all that hope and I end up super depressed and worse off than if I had done nothing.
So not gonna go there. I’m just going to say that I am glad to have a brand new year to do with as I please and that I look forward to seeing what I make of it.
That should cover it.
I’ll permit myself one medium-sized plan : cleaning my room.
Or at least getting it cleaned. As much as doing all the cleaning myself would be good exercise and good for my self-esteem, I have to be realistic about how much energy and endurance I have now, plus there is the factor of how cleaning makes the air dusty and that can really kicked my ass.
God damn, does being sickly suck. Still got to talk to my GP about the fact that I am still all sickly and weak and I would really like that to stop, if that’s possible.
Preferably before I end up in a scooter or wheelchair.
Getting my room cleaned is entirely possible, though I imagine it might cost me a couple hundred bucks. Whatever. I have the money and it would be an investment well worth making as it would do wonders for my mental and physical health to no longer be wallowing in the filth of many years’ worth of cleaning nothing ever.
The only hurdle is shame. Obviously, in order to get the room cleaned, I have to let strangers see the state this room is in right now, and the prospect fills me with deep and terrible shame because this place is a pigsty.
Which is the whole reason I need it cleaned in the first place. Look, nobody ever said being middle class made sense.
One way to deal with it, and I am seriously considering it, is to simply be elsewhere when the cleaning is happening. Just let the cleaners in then leave. Go out to dinner or go shopping or something.
Problem with that is that I won’t then be around to answer questions. Do we keep this, is it okay if we move that, what do we do with this faintly humming ancient sarcophagus, are we expected to clean the demon’s cage, you know, normal stuff like that.
The answers are, of course, yes, yes, leave it an offering of dried corn and Viagra, and no, that thing will clean its own cage if it knows what’s good for it.
Besides, demon poop requires special handling.
The key is to just fixate on the end goal, which is having this room be nurse-level clean and a much healthier place to live.
After that, all I would have to do is keep it that way. Which means cleaning up messes right away, before they can accumulate, and when they are still small enough that my low energy levels can handle them.
Which means new habits and a new approach to life. Not an easy adjustment to make.
But I want things to be better so bad.
As long as I remember that, I should be able to make it.
More after the break.
A distant ship smokes on the horizon
Now we get to the point of the cycle where in my progress towards being way nicer to myself I have to deal with all my anger.
Because if I am not directing it inward via depression, that means I have to direct it outwards in order to release it, and that’s where I generally shrink from the task and slink off and go back to my self-hating ways because I can’t handle the thought of loosing my rage upon the world.
The prospect terrifies me right down to my core. It feels like death. Like the power of all that rage would annihilate the person I think of as me – the me I know and understand – and in its place would be a raging ogre who doesn’t care who he hurts or what kind of destruction he leaves in his wake as long as he is getting his raw needs met.
I’ve always understood that being Doctor Jekyll is what created Mister Hyde. The classic Hulk is a raging monster from the id precisely because Bruce Banner is such an over-rational milquetoast of a guy. Suppression guarantees explosive expression.
But that doesn’t answer the question of what the hell to do about it when you realize you are Jekyll and your Hyde needs to come out or you will never be sane again.
So far, the only plan I have come up with is not very good. The idea would be to find a relatively obscure (but still fairly active) forum somewhere, sign up, and let loose. Let my very worst side come up and vent like a motherfucker. Like fucking Krakatoa.
Be as rude, dismissive, arrogant, pushy, sarcastic, toxic, and hostile as I need to be in order to vent all this pent up rage and get it out of my system.
Become that forum’s greatest villain, essentially. The guy everyone hates. The guy people whisper to each other about. The one they plot against.
Keep that going as long as I can, and when they inevitably ban me, that will be the end of that experiment and Mister Hyde would go back in his cage again.
Or maybe not. Maybe I will find I really like being a public bastard. I have always wanted to be notorious and controversial. This role would fit the bill.
But I would still follow my own rules.
- Never say anything I do not mean
- Never say anything just to hurt people
- Never attack anyone personally
- Never be afraid to apologize if I fuck up, and
- Never, ever forget that people are not their politics
If I stay true to that code, I might even be able to justify being such a prick.
Or at the very least, not hate myself for it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.