The affirmations are going to be a tad more basic tonight.
I have the right to exist.
I deserve to be here.
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
I have the same right to exist, survive, thrive, and be happy as anyone else.
I have as much of a right of a place at the table and a share of meal and all the other good things in life as anyone else.
I might have been a mistake but I am not a crime and I don’t have to apologize for being alive and being myself and being around.
I don’t have to justify my existence. I don’t have to earn people’s love by being funny or sweet or even smart. I am not some horrible thing that has to tapdance as hard as he can in order to stay in the light of people’s attention because if I fail to kepe them dazzled for even one second, they will realize how awful I am and reject me with infinite force and duration.
I don’t have to do that. There is nothing to distract from, nothing to cover up. I am a good clean wholesome person who deserves love, respect, acceptance, understanding, and the glowing vitality that can only come from positive human connection.
Nobody has the right to question my presence. Nobody has the right to make me feel bad just for being around. Nobody has the right to exploit my shyness and people pleasing nature to make me marginalize myself and save them the trouble of having to do it themselves.
And nobody has the right to dare to deny me my share of the common resources just because they don’t feel like dealing me in and thus losing a tiny percentage of their own share.
I don’t care if you have gotten comfortable with forgetting all about my existence most of the time. I don’t care if you wrote me off as a solved problem a long time ago and hate the idea of having to re-open my cases. I don’t care if my wants and needs make your life more difficult.
You never should have written me off in the first place.
And now you’re paying the price.
I am here. I have always been here. And I am done hiding. I am going to insist on being recognized as valid and real no matter what.
I am a fully real flesh and blood living, breathing, feeling human being. I am not a computer. I am not a friendly robot. Neither am I a saint or and angel. Nor am I demon or a monster.
I am here now. I exist in this moment and the moments beyond. My existence is not partial, optional, fractional, subliminal, or situational.
Even when I have surrounded myself in a thick cloak of shadows and illusions and my true self cannot be seen, even when I am lost even unto myself, nothing has really changed.
I keep on being valid and real even when I have used up my bag of tricks and put the bag over my head so I can hide from reality.
I am me.
And that is exactly who I am supposed to be.
I had more to say but meh. I am too tired at the moment to think it all up let alone think it through.
It’s been rough lately. I keep getting super sleepy all of a sudden. So I lay down, and more than half the time, suddenly I am not sleepy any more.
It’s all super frustrating.
I know what it is : it’s the phenomenon I call “the melt”, where radiant warmth makes me sleeeeeeeepy.
Usually, I associate this phenomenon with having come inside after being out on a cold day. That’s why I didn’t figure out why I was getting these weird and inconstant nap attacks right away.
But the key is the radiant heat. I get sleepy when the heaters in my room kick in. They are right under this computer desk, and so when they turn on, I am getting lovely toasty warmness aimed right me and down I go.
That’s the logical explanation. The emotional truth is that I am left feeling mega sleepy without being able to go to sleep until I finish my words.
And I hate that shit. I hate the stress of having to force myself to stay awake. It puts me in a bad mood because it makes it so damned hard to think and squeezes the window of my consciousness down to the point where my existential paranoia kicks in and I start freaking out like I had been struck deaf, dumb, and blind.
And without even getting really good at pinball.
Some of the worst moments of everyday life for me have been those times when my body is screaming for sleep but I am in a situation where sleep is either not possible or not at all acceptable.
Like being in class at school, for instant. I always sit in the front row because a) I am a bit of a keener but mostly b) I have poor eyesight and so I need to be up front to even be able to see what is going on.
The front row is, however, a uniquely poor one for the potential class nap taker. The professor is bound to notice a sleeping student when they are only a few feet away and drooling.
Plus, I have an intense fear of missing out or falling behind. So while I have come damned close to sleeping in class, as far as I can tell, I never have.
Another one is the Skytrain. I have a long history of finding being in motion to be very sleep inducing, especially at night.
And the Skytrain is great because it’s a smooth ride and there are parts where the time between stations is more than long enough for a snooze.
In that case, what keeps me awake is my social anxiety and general lack of trust in the world not to stab me in the back the first chance it gets.
Well those are my words for today. Now I lay me down to sleep.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.