I normally try to end the week on a high note– it’s Friday, after all! I will most definitely be looking forward to 4:59:59 and getting the heck outta dodge until 8 am Monday morning, but something that came through the grapevine has made me stop and think about a few things. I felt a need to try to organize my thoughts and since that’s what this here blog is for, I’m gonna go for it !!
I don’t know if it’s the new spring season that seems to be taking its own sweet time coming (at least in Atlanta, where it’s nearly unheard of to still be in the 30’s in February), but it seems like much of the Blogosphere is talking about doing some Spring Cleaning of the Mind. Tex posted yesterday about Better Living Through Chemistry. Green Eyes and I have been chatting about changes we want to make to better ourselves. I had an enlightening conversation last night with a twiend, Wildchild, about the recurring theme of self discovery and how that leads to choosing a mate and being the right one for someone else, as well as realizing that the thrill is gone and it’s time to move on, not desperately hanging on to what we have because we don’t want to be alone.
Last evening, while avoiding doing things I said I’d do, S sent up a link to the Chicago Sun Times and Roger Ebert’s blog. He shared his behind-the-scenes thoughts on a recent article in Esquire Magazine. Both pieces were great, and tear inducing but not in a sad way. He spoke about Gene Siskel (whom I still miss- Ebert and Roper just never caught on for me), his illness, his life, his dedicated and cherished wife.
My first reaction was shock at the photo covering one entire page, because I was unaware that Ebert was ill. As the writer from Esquire, Chris Jones, so eloquently put it, “Ebert is dying in increments, and he is aware of it.” Four years after losing his lower jaw and the ability to speak to cancer, Ebert is still at work. He continues to write. He still watches movies, still reviews them. Still tells us the good parts without spoiling the film. He’s still detailed and precise, splicing a film almost scene by scene, seeking a deeper meaning, analyzing technique, drawing out the story. His notepad and pen, keyboard and mouse have become that authoritative voice I think of when I picture film critics. Well, that and Jon Lovitz but that’s a whole another post.
I think what always amazes me about survivors is their spirit. If I get a hangnail, I am sure to whine about it for as long as I can milk it. I sprained my ankle — badly– last year and I will still complain about it, if you give me space and opportunity. Ebert doesn’t seem to be at the place I would be, after losing my jaw. It seemed like he just went back to work. There were movies to watch and critiques to write, and Ebert went back to work.
Something really struck me, in Ebert’s blog and was the brainchild of today’s post. He writes, “Resentment is allowing someone to live rent-free in a room in your head… If we think we have physical imperfections, obsessing about them is only destructive. Low self-esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. That means they’re living upstairs in the rent-free room.”
Can I just say that that sentence brings tears to my eyes? What a statement. Low self esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. He just put into words my entire thought process on a daily basis. I call it ‘being realistic’. It makes me wonder how many times a day I look at myself and do just that. Imagine the worst. And then say it first because if I say it, it doesn’t hurt as bad when/if others do.
My head is full of squatters. People living rent free in rooms, taking up all the space and using up all the hot water and making a mess and running out of paper towels and not replacing them and leaving like, a swallow of milk in the jug and putting it back in the refrigerator. They’re rude and inconsiderate and dirty. They need to get the eff out.
I didn’t used to be that way. There was a time when I thought I was hot stuff. I met the Ex when I was feeling really good about myself. I was happy and whole and a complete person before I met him. He was the icing on the cake that was my life. I had a good time with him, and as we got to know each other and I let myself dream of being able to say ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘our’, my self esteem soared because I thought someone else thought I was awesome, too. I saw what others saw in me. I thought what others thought about me — the best, not the worst.
I had a whole post here about him and being with him and how I was devastated when I figured out that he didn’t think I was awesome, and it was just as I thought, men don’t want me, and my self esteem hit the can and hasn’t been seen since, and how I’m not the woman I used to be, and it’s all his fault, dammit. But this isn’t about being attractive to a man, really. This isn’t about wanting to meet someone who’s ready to meet someone and skipping off into the sunset.
This is about all aspects of life. Who my friends are. Who I surround myself with. The people I know. The people that I let know me. The people I let love me and the people I love back. I’ve been thinking a lot about these things the last few days and the posts from the Blogosphere have my mind absolutely reeling with new viewpoints and thoughts to consider, to a point that I’ve been trying to articulate them all week and my words are failing me. I am trying to make sense of what I need to do and want to do and things I have to decide in order to move forward and my mind is in such a jumble that I can’t figure it out.
Is t normal to want to be happy and not know how the hell to get there?
The discussion I had last night is weighing heavily on me. I am going to have to do something I hate doing, be something I hate being– vulnerable. It’s a dirty word, in my book. My walls are high and thick and go six feet underground and six feet over my head. I don’t let myself get hurt. I shy away from anything that makes me think real thoughts and feel real feelings. I don’t know how I can be a real person, though without doing that work, knowing myself, liking myself. Which leads to happiness. Happiness (not just pleasure, which is fleeting) leads to being able to choose the person that is right for me, figuring out what I need and asking for it, being ready to accept someone in my life and accept that someone could think I’m awesome.
It also means that I could achieve other goals I’ve set for myself. I could let myself believe that I have talent and skill and I could be published somewhere, someday. I could stop looking at other people and what they’re doing and comparing myself to them and trying to gauge if I am successful or not. I call this Keeping My Eyes On My Own Paper, something I am struggling with , lately. I can’t be jealous when people get what I want. People work at what they want. They go for it. They don’t imagine the worst that other people can think about them and then accept it as truth and act on it, instead of a completely different reality.
Do not get me wrong. I am living a great life. I’m living the best life I’ve ever lived and having a ball, truly. I just know that I can do better. I can think better and live better and do better and feel better.
Maybe it’s time for some Spring Cleaning in my mind. Push the squatters out and make the place all shiny and spruced up. Gotta make room for happiness and joy and a positive thought life. And good self esteem.
I hope all of my readers, even the 378 people searching for blackberries who found my weird post on all the blackberries I’ve owned, have a fantastically wonderful weekend. I’m going to try not to blog this weekend. Instead I am going to work on a piece I am trying to submit to a short story archive and maybe spend some time in the Self Help section at Barnes & Noble.
I know, I know. I want to cut myself for even thinking about it. I promise not to buy a book by Dr. Phil.
Maybe.
