I am still just a..
Thought I would vent some of my life frustrations today in order to :
a) Let out some of the steam so I can face my problems more calmly, and
b) Make them more “real” by putting them out into the world where I can’t just suppress them all over again
It’s called “externalization” and it can serve many purposes.
On the face of it, finding remote work for myself does not seem like the craziest idea in the world. I’m sharp, I’m resourceful, I am hardworking, I am determined. There’s all kinds of remote work type jobs I could do.
So as is usually the case with me, the barriers are 90 percent internal. It’s that classic problem of mine that I don’t want to face the maelstrom of possibilities and options and potential risks and hazards of the world in order to pursue that goal.
And I know that’s mostly madness. I mean yeah, on some level, that means choices have to made from all the stuff the internet has to offer, but there’s nothing wrong with just going with whatever tops the Google search and giving it a try to see how that works out, and if it doesn’t work out, I just try the next one.
All of that is perfectly sensible and logical and in many ways obvious but that doesn’t keep that scared little animal inside of me from scrabbling at the walls trying to get away from the idea.
Because I know it’s going to hurt. Busting out of this cage is going to require a degree of self-overcoming that cannot help but be very painful and that scared little animal (SLA? Nah. ) is, of course, afraid of that.
But pain is just pain. It sucks but then it’s over and you got what you wanted and stopped letting a very temporary sensation keep you from getting it.
Avoiding pain at all costs is not only childish, it’s life-destroying. Being a grownup means understanding that sometimes the pain is worth it. Some deals are genuinely worth making. Sometimes the reward really does justify the effort.
And in order to find those sufficiently rewarding things, you have to be willing to try stuff that might not pay out.
That’s why it’s best to do all your trying stuff when you are young and energetic and resilient. But the next best time to do it is now because you will only get less capable of it as you get older.
Easier said than done, I know. Consider it a stretch goal. Something to reach for.
I feel like I still have a lot of stored trauma and deferred life-grief and despair at my situation to work through. A lot of my psyche is still invested in this hypnotic loop I have been in for 30 years and that part does not want to have to wake up and activate and deal with reality any more than it already does.
Which is, of course, as little as possible.
So it’s a slow but inevitable process of blooming as a person. I will apply for that Onion job and go looking for other opportunities and slowly I will open the door of my cold dark vault and let the sunlight and the pure waters and the sweet smelling breeze into my life and my soul.
I am not filth. And I can be clean. The filth is just something that has happened to me over time and I can shake it off like a husky shaking off snow when I want to.
Underneath it all I am a shining, wonderful, scintillating star who can’t wait to finally get up out of the mud to climb into the sky and shine for everybody.
But first my light has to burn away all the sick miasmic fog clinging to me.
And that will take some time.
Go, sunbeam, go!
More after the break.
Burn, burn, burn
Of course, shining stars don’t just shine. They also burn.
And that’s how I feel lately. Like the raging fires within me are finally rising to the surface of my soul and burning all that accumulated mulch and gunk away.
And that does hurt, though maybe not as much as you’d think. The fire does burn but it also cleans and purifies, and that feels great, so the net pain is not so bad.
And I am actively stoking that blessed flame. I want it to burn hotter and hotter until it bursts free of my funky grotto and burns all my limitations away and sends my demons and my ghosts screaming into incinerated oblivion.
You know. If that’s an option.
And it is.
I’m still “learning to fly”.
That is, learning to transcend the limitations of what reality decides to give me in order to simply give myself sufficient buoyancy to stay out of the depths and establish a minimum mood level that allows for hope no matter what.
But reality is a hard habit to break. I have spent too long taking cold, concrete, cruel comfort in not being “deluded” and focusing solely on what I “knew to be real” for me to have any level of comfort with leaving that logical, provable, “sensible” world behind.
At some point in the process, I will have to accept as real that which I cannot prove or deduce or verify to be real, and that seems impossible.
Maybe it is. Maybe I am too old to learn faith now.
But I have to try. It’s my best bet for replacing that piece of me that has been broken all these years. For closing that gaping wound at my core, the one so deep that at times I can feel a cold hard wind blowing through it.
Reality can help. If I improve my life so that I am not so locked into this hypnotic loop of mine, that will help shrink the wound or at least remove impediments to its healing.
But I know in my soul that it will take more than that to actually close that damned wound. And merely intellectually accepting the need for faith does nothing.
It will take being willing and able to believe it to be closed without needed to justify or explain why or how to really complete the healing process.
Believing in things unseen. Denying the need for evidence and proof in order to preserve belief. The power to make something true by believing in it.
That’s what faith is, and I am finally learning that it is not optional.
Even people who have angrily rejected the faith they were raised in and consider themselves to be total atheists still retain that all important seed of faith within them that closes the gap in their soul that people like me fall through to our doom.
There are worse things than believing things that are not “true”.
But it’s not going to be easy to get myself to accept that.
I’m working on it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.