1.000 words of self-assurance

10 July 2010

I feel slightly unraveled today. Having ruined what had the potential to be a highlight evening last night by getting too drunk and having a bad trip at a huge concert, I stepped into today with enumerable misgivings about myself.
It was as if I took every single one of my worst thoughts and opinions about myself and not only affirmed them with my behavior but surpassed them in deplorability. I’m tired of these stupid situations that lead to me feeling ashamed.
It may seem overly romantic or idiotically idyllic but all I really want at this moment is for Jason to come walking into the room, sit down next to me, wrap his arms around me and say, “Noah, I love you. And everything is going to be okay.”
Perhaps it’s my life to this point having so few real obstacles that has led me to a place of needing constant reassurance. Whatever the prompting, the result is the same: I want to be protected, to be made safe, and to be allowed to admit I’m afraid.
The notion of fear tends to in some way indicate weakness and I am uncomfortable with the idea of being weak. This used to manifest itself in my constant bodily comparison to people who were more muscular than me. Then it transitioned into my never saying no when people asked me for help. The lifeguard in me then went a step further and I began to feel the need to fix things for anyone and everyone. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was a friend or a stranger, the moment I caught wind of someone’s problem- be it relational, financial, occupational, academic, spiritual, or otherwise- the synapses in my brain would start firing at top speed, madly concocting some sort of panacea for whomever it was that needed a change.
The pressure of this kind of habit is quiet, sneaky, and ultimately exhausting. Thus, I spent years of my life in a quandary as to why I would always end up hitting a wall out of nowhere, utterly spent.
I’d be going like gangbusters, everything seeming to be right where it belonged, only to exceed some invisible speed limit, evidenced by my starting to spin out of control. And then I would fall down and down, my energy seeping out of some giant figurative tear in the quickly deflating balloon of my happiness and success.
Eventually I would operate as a shell of the person I knew myself to be. Foods I used to love would become little more than incidental forms of necessary nourishment. Books would seem too hefty to lift, open, and read. Music would lose its appeal and ability to comfort. And I would be left to do nothing with myself other than go about my days like a robot: no feeling, no depth, just hardened emptiness.
It is during these times (and there have been several) that I search myself inside and out for a renewed sense of purpose. I beg the sky for a secret ladder to descend to my front door where I can simply mount the rungs and, one after the other, climb them higher and higher toward some eventual preset goal.
The charm of this fantasy is the idea that I’m not responsible to do anything other than pull myself up, one hand at a time. Someone or something other than myself establishes the path and destination. I simply stay on track. I believe this appeals to me because I know my capabilities and strength well enough to invest fully into anything I find worthwhile.
And, when I’m already operating on nearly dead batteries, it’s the quest for the worthwhile that leaves me feeling sick and hopeless. By the time I’ve reached the point where I’m little more than an inert lump of misery it’s all I can do not to give up on everything including myself. Thus the prospect of burrowing into the raw, messy truth of the difficulties of being sentient and alive in hopes of unearthing something tiny and beautiful seems beyond Herculean.
Yet somehow each of these episodes comes to a welcome close. My sunshine trickles back in, little by little, and I start to sense the potential all around me. At first it’s just the occasional thought that there is more to be found in everyone and everything, that there is possibility hiding beneath a thin veneer coating the whole world. This gradually becomes a hopefulness to witness something of that possibility. And finally, after catching glimpses of it in people and places all around, I feel excited, expectant, and thrilled to be alive.
Coming full circle I can see why this series of feelings and thoughts could become cyclical. However, on that same note, I do not at all see anything that would lead me to believe that it must.
There is a choice involved in everything I do. Even breathing, which is automatic, is something I must choose to do fully or only half way. In the same sense I have a choice as to my level of commitment to myself to break away from the possible sadness. I can choose to devote myself fully or only half way.
Life is a thing of marvelous complexity and, as such, I choose to regard it as a combination of minute details all playing together into one huge composition of beauty, pain, happiness, growth, and yes, total potential.
As someone who’s been curious about everything since day one, always asking “why, why, why”, I could not be more satisfied than to think of there being no end of mystery in the day to day, moment to moment. And I choose to embrace that mystery with a devout discipline and total abandon.
If I’m to overcome my misgivings, fears, worries, and disappointments, the one thing I can use as a constant assurance of my capacity for victory is that I have a choice: Fully or half way.