Better Than Nothing

This was good, I think--this archive dive from 6 years ago. I was feeling...something...that day.

 

I've spent a lot of time feeling nothing at all. Believe it or not, angst, disappointment, embarrassment, (fill in whatever feeling you're trying to avoid here)--all of those things are better than nothing at all. I mean...you're alive, right?

 

8/26/2010

At some point, writing will be required.

 

Or at least that's what I tell my 10th grader.

Summer 2010...the summer of weird.  The summer of wrong.  The summer of disbelief. I look very much forward to the crisp air of the Fall.  I want that killer frost to rein in all that has become over-grown, from the path that leads to my back alley (take a machete with you to help you find the trash cans) to all of the panic and over-flowing emotion of the last few months.

This summer has been a culmination of all kinds of things.  So much has happened, and all of it unexpected.  Nothing went down like I planned.  Even the unspoken plans--those secret hopes that you share with no one--had ugly crashes for endings.

Most of what happened, happened because of something I said, or some action I took.  I take full responsibility--for the good and the bad.  Because I was unable to go with the flow--because I had a want, or a vision of "right" or "true" and because felt it worth the effort to pursue, I find myself right where I am at this moment, exhausted and feeling defeated, with one of the few good thoughts left in my head being "Well, at least I tried."

The other thing floating around up there, the deflated spirit revealer, the one I've been saying entirely too much lately, is a very short one:  "Never mind".

How very martyrific, that Never Mind.  Woe is me--the victim of my own stupidity.  I really thought I was something, but I was wrong.  Never mind!

My intention all along has been to make a complete ass of myself while simultaneously dunking my career in the toilet.  Never mind how convincing this embarrassment of mine has been--I meant to do that.  I meant to do ALL of that.  Clearly it was intentional, or I would not have gone after it with such voracity, or kept up the chase so long past the time it was prudent to do so.

So basically, I'm an idiot.  But at least I am a spirited idiot...at least I try.

I wonder what it is about me that causes me to continue to deny to the world that I might actually be feeling something--that I may have any vulnerabilities.  Even a person with serial killer level self-esteem who had the summer I had would be sitting here in late August, questioning their own sanity.  I don't think I have ever been proven wrong so many times in my whole life.

Today, the weather gave that first hint of cool.  To me it signified the end of the summer toiling and the beginning of that time of year where we can enjoy a short rest before the work of surviving the cold begins.  As summer's go, this one was not my best work.  It pains me to have to put it down, having seen nothing positive come from it after so much scrambling.  There weren't even any funny stories to tell, just plenty of examples of me being stupid, which, for me, anyway, is about as un-funny as it gets.

As much as it is sad for me to see nothing good come from all of my efforts, it is a relief to feel that psychological season change.  It's like the buzzer finally ringing at the end of a game that you'd been losing since the coin toss.

Unlike in knitting, you can't unravel a summer you hate and turn it into something you like.  Or can you?  After all--I did learn an awful lot this summer.  I learned I am fat, untalented and uninteresting, not to mention barely employable.  Those are finites that I can work with.  I can be Not Fat, and I can make myself more employable.  I can stop wasting my time with people who actually believe those two things about me--they are idiots, anyway, and they'll be gone like the weeds, come the snow.

The very best thing to come on the cool air this day was that thing that you are looking at--words.  Lots and lots of words.  Permission to say "Fuck it" and write and not worry about it.  I don't give a shit if you're interested.  I'm interested, and since I have finally re-captured the fortress of my brain, mine is the only opinion that matters there.  I may submit more humbly now, having been beat up a little, but "submit" I will--it's that little button in the corner that I am about to push.