Time for me to alienate you by drilling down into this topic yet again.
I have to get to the bottom of why I find it so hard to accept that I am incredibly gifted and thus fully integrate this truth into my self-image well enough that I can hopefully find my way to using those gifts to escape this close fitting crypt of a life of mine and maybe even get myself some nice things.
Like a fancy new computer. Or a boyfriend.
At the very least, I should be able to use my awesome abilities to repair my punctured self worth so I can at least like myself and be happy to be myself most of the time.
Right now, I am kind of half way there. I start off good with, “I have incredible gifts of intellect, creativity, and personality… ” but then my depression butts in with, “WHICH I AM SQUANDERING PLAYING VIDEO GAMES ALL DAY WHILE DYING OH MY GOD I AM 50 AND HAVE DONE NOTHING WITH MY LIFE I AM SUCH A LOSER!!” and so forth and so on in a similar vein.
I guess I can’t really accept myself until I forgive myself.
Stick a pin in that, it seems important. I’ll get back to it later.
Back to the main question : why is it so hard for me to accept my abilities?
In the past, we have dealt with issues like being afraid of the responsibility. For a long time I have had this terrible suspicion that I am supposed to do something with all these gifts – that I owe that to the world.
And I can’t take that kind of pressure!
Never mind having no idea WHAT I am supposed to be doing.
And to be honest, I feel like the world owes me a lot,. not the other way around. If the world was more generous to me, then I might feel like I have something to pay back.
I know that’s a “bad” attitude. And I don’t care.
Besides, the real issue, I think, is that when I think about my magical powers, it makes me want to do things with them, and that desire then gets caught in the sticky trap that is my anti-action bias and brother does that HURT.
And there’s still those infinite doors to deal with.
Another issue I have dealt with in the past is that I feel like accepting my elevated abilities takes me even further from the rest of humanity and my connection to my fellow humans is already incredibly weak and tenuous as is.
I am terrified that if I stretch it any further it will snap and I will float away forever. Never to see the ground again. Lost in the esoteric madness of the untethered mind.
God it’s beautiful out today. Sunny but with enough of a breeze that it’s not too hot. Light clouds giving the sunlight that nostalgic glow from all my favorite childhood memories from those sun-drenched summers with me and my mother and my siblings all around.
And here I am, a cripple with a keyboard, typing about it instead of living it.
That’s so incredibly wrong. And I want to make it right.
But I am far too weak to get there by myself.
More after the break.
Why so weak?
There has to be a physical component.
I mean, I am a very sick man. Diabetes, sleep apnea, depression, whatever the fuck is wrong with my legs, and so on and etc.
Oh, and heart troubles. Can’t forget that ticking fucking time bomb.
So I certainly have a lot of reasons to feel physically weak. Like whatever bucket is supposed to hold my strength has a huge hole in it and the strength of my body and my spirit just flows right back out again.
If I could just get at and fix whatever the damned problem is that puts that hole in my bucket and fix it (and fix it), maybe I could get some wholesome strength going and feel a lot more human for a change.
That would probably involve me learning to live with CPAP. Sleep apnea sure as fuck can make a fella feel weak.
And I know I sleep like crap in general. Never sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a time, not nearly enough deep REM sleep, and so on.
Yet I feel like that’s not it. And not just because I don’t want to go another round with CPAP,. I don’t think.
I am worried that it’s my heart. That the narrowing of my cardiac arteries that caused me to need to have stents put in a couple of years ago has gotten worse and the blood flow through my heart is fucked up and that’s why I feel so weak all the time.
That’s not the only possible culprit. It could be that despite having improved my diet, I am still rocking a severe vitamin B12 deficiency because my body lost the enzymes that metabolize B12 when I was an accidental vegan for a while.
Guess I need one of those probiotic drinks.
And of course, I can’t ignore the psychological side of things either. I’d rather it was something physical because those are a hell of a lot easier to fix.
I can’t go to VGH to get stents implanted in my soul, more’s the pity.
But depression and social anxiety and Avoidant Personality Syndrome (my Rolodex of crazy just keeps getting longer) can make you feel weak too, and I sometimes wonder if what I lack is not B12 but character.
One of the ways out of this vacuous valley of mine would be to just give in to my family legacy of cussedness and become a perpetually pissed off dude.
I don’t want to be that guy. I love being sweet fluffy Fru. I’d miss him.
But being him might just be killing me, in body and/or in soul, and the way out of this death trap might just involve getting pissed off and staying that way.
I feel the temptation. That “mode” hangs there in my mind just waiting for me to give in and let it loose on the world.
But the carnage would be… I can’t do that to people. My friends are sensitive souls and that “mode” would hurt them so bad.
Maybe I could be lovably gruff? Like Doctor McCoy or Mel the cook on Alice? Or Lou Grant from Mary Tyler Moore?
I will think about it.
And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.,