Dear Diary,
I remembered what I was going to write about earlier before I got so easily derailed. And it’s a good thing, too, because this is important. I know a lot of the revelations I’ve been having, I have probably had before during other moments of lucidity (and for long-time readers, I’m sorry about that, medication-muddle), but I really don’t think I’ve had this particular one because I can’t remember feeling this feeling so truly and genuinely before. If I did, I am a hopeless lunatic, not just a silly lunatic. Because, as I said, this is important:
I’m happy. And over the last several months, that feeling has grown in me, been cultivated, in spite of what is going on with Doc all the time. I am truly pleased with myself. I am proud of myself. My feeling of accomplishment and contentment is self-feeding at this point. I’m not chasing a dragon anymore, so much as reaching for the brass ring from the outside horse. And my ideas keep driving the merry go round around. And the ring is the reward to take another ride, where more ideas come and then there is the ring again, and you see what I’m saying?
I stopped doing something. I don’t know how. Much like when I lose weight, I’m never sure what kicked my metabolism into gear to cause it, it just happens. This just did. I let go. I let go of the Plastic Gurl. The wishing, deep inside, no matter what I said, that I was one of “them.” The polished and the perfect. The ones with the best of everything, looks, things, wit, charm, opportunities. I stopped doing that.
Over the course of the last few months I have gotten to know a new side of myself. And I really dig this chick. She’s a little different, and prone to senseless rages of soliloquy, but she gets shit done. She finds something she wants or needs and then finds a way to get it. Herself. She doesn’t wait for people to come to her. She isn’t preening, molding, forming into something she really isn’t for some image of something that if she had, she really wouldn’t want.
She is rough around the edges. Her photos are always a little pixelated and her nose is as bent as her thoughts. And she holds herself tight, or she wants to. She wants, really, wants to be happy with herself. With life. Her hair is never quite right, and even the best of efforts are always a little off kilter. And she doesn’t mind that at all. In fact, she embraces it. Of all the . . . yes, she does. She flaunts her rough edges. She’s okay with the idea that she hasn’t been tumbled and polished like a stone under duress. She knows from Tetris that if you fit in perfectly, you disappear.
Yeah, I want to be HER, Not these other bimbos I’ve been chasing the illusions of. For starters, I’m not putting out any more illusions. If my house is a mess when I want to take a picture, I either will clean it or take the sodding picture, already. If I don’t look my best, but I want to document and share the look on my face, I’ll do it. I’ve already started. And it is so liberating.
It’s okay that one of my eyes is darker than the other. It’s all right that my nose is crooked and I have a paunch. If my product photos are a little off center, or my painted lines not clean . . . there is nothing wrong with that any more. I don’t want to be popular. I want to be me.
Now this isn’t sudden. It has been happening over the last 9 months in the background, like a benign pregnancy. I’ve noted it, some of the things about it. When things happen as direct results of my taking chances, I want to take more. And the more I take, the more I succeed. I’m starting to finally understand the reality of the self-fulfilling prophecy, instead of the illusion I was taught of it in Pygmallion. Where other people believe in you to the point where it is true. That is the presumption, the WRONG one, that I have been working under. If other people believe in me and like me, then I will. That’s the way I was taught it works, you need other people.
And from what I’ve observed, it appears to be true in western society. The masses make the ego. But you don’t need a lot of people. Just a few choice ones, pulling the weight of you and them both. I have a couple dozen of those. You guys. And you and I are all I really need. I could be altruistic and say that I could do it all on my own if I wanted to, but I think we all would have a great laugh. We all know I need a little to a lot of help. I don’t mind asking so much anymore. And most importantly, I don’t mind reaching out, taking a chance and giving back. Swallowing the blush and saying “thank you” and offering something of myself. I realize that even though the small gesture may be huge to me, it is still just small to others. Yes, I see that now. It seems so obvious. I can’t believe I wasted, what 30 years coming to this conclusion?
But, then again, I got treated like a 20-something today by a 30-something. It was amusing, they had seen my photos and were still assuming I was younger than them. My pics must be more out of focus than I realize. I mean, I’m aging well, no one is more amazed than I am at that, but I can’t pass in the real world for a 20-something and I have no idea how I was mistaken for one on the internet. I mean, people are really stupid.
Okay, I’ve gotten it all out. Once again, I feel like I am forgetting something. But everything is done and squared away. I guess I’m just not used to having free time (put an asterisk on that “free”, I could be working, but I promised myself I would just do house stuff today) this early before Doc gets home. Usually I am sitting around with something hanging over my head, formulating an excuse for why I haven’t done it. Kelli pointed out the other day, “you’re a bipolar schizophrenic, sometimes shit just doesn’t get done.” I wish I lived with her, she accepts that. She always has. Doc did, too, when she was around. He “got” me better when she was here. She never really ran interference for us, but she was there, as a sort of intermediary when it was needed. She didn’t settle arguments so much as she distracted us with shiny things.
I’m going to go find something shiny to play with. Maybe a complicated Google search, or the new photo editing/paint app I got for my phone, for free. The best stuff in apps is free, it’s amazing. I don’t mind the odd ad here and there. Anything I want to do electronically, I can do for free with an app on my phone. this shit is bananas.