Emotional purgatory

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this angsty. And by a “long time,” I’d say it’s been about three or four weeks. 😉

I like to think I’m fairly carefree and happy, but all those cares that I’ve been trying to pretend don’t exist, well, do, and they hit you like the proverbial ton of bricks all at once after you’ve neglected them for awhile.

I don’t want all these cares, these problems, these things in my head that either don’t belong there or that I don’t know how to turn into something constructive.

I’m starting to understand why I don’t drink much, because when I do? I feel good (at least until the next morning. har har har). I return to that old self, the one that just wants to go find some trouble to get into or who can’t remember just exactly what it was that had her scandalous panties in such a twist four beers earlier.

I have been seeing a lot of signs lately, and you know I depend on them to tell me I’m in the right place. And that’s a relief, but because the signs are so few and far between, I wonder if I’m just taking the long way to get from point A to B when there are more-efficient routes that I just can’t discover because I’m not looking for them.

I think my answer to complacency is to just ruin everything. If I could wipe my credit report as clean as my short-term memory, I’d be golden. When I go out with my friends, they ask, “Whatever happened to that guy? Or that one? Or what about that class you were taking or that book you were bragging about? You didn’t go to the class or finish the book? What guy are we on now for the year?”

Don’t worry kids, I’m hardly a slut. I’m pretty much just a tease. 🙂 They say men fall in love until you screw ’em, and women fall in love after. So I prolong it as much as I can.

I’m finding that the more tired I am, the more violent the angry streak is. It doesn’t come out often, but I’ve had more fantasies of filleting people who cut me off in traffic than a girl has a right to. I don’t like Angsty Goddess. And I try not to indulge her that often. Because as we all know, Karma is one haggedy-ass bitch when she has to stop what she’s doing and pay your crabby butt a visit.

I was doing fine until a friend pointed out that I seem like I’m about to snap. Here I thought I was holding it all together so well, but like my mom used to tell me when I was little when I refused to go to the bathroom, “It’ll come out your ears if you don’t.”

That sufficiently terrorized me back then, and I wonder if that’s what happens when you don’t address the sources of your stress — the steam really does come out of your ears when you think you’re smiling pretty.

I heard a story about someone being kicked off a plane for her skirt being too short. I remember in my early career, wearing the shortest skirts I could find. I wasn’t trying to impress/offend anyone — it was just my style. I figured I’d do it while I was young. That and unless you’re stick-figure skinny, your skirts tend to look shorter because you have more ass to cover. 😉

And I always felt like, when I was being addressed for the short skirts (Harper Valley PTA, anyone?) and whatever else someone perceived was “wrong” with me, little by little they were tearing away at my individuality and, yes, even my self-confidence.

So now I’m older, and I mostly dress appropriately for my age and whereabouts. I could do better. I think any infraction I commit tends to come from a place of just trying to feel like I “won” some small battle to compensate for the bigger ones that I might be losing.

But I’ve got to rise above all of this. My motivation is sort of waning and I don’t know what to do about it. And I know me — nothing motivates me more than fear. I stay in a groove of safety and complacency (which I hate) so I shake it up with rebellion. And I have to recognize whether I’m rebelling for a cause or because it keeps things interesting.

I know the drill, though. I shape up for a while and go ADD again. Or maybe that’s my defense mechanism against knowing what I want and not going for it.

And that’s the thing with me. I ALWAYS know what I’m supposed to be doing. I know what needs to be done next. I tell everyone I have no attention span for details, but no one puts more thought into anything than I do. Their heads would explode if they thought things out so exhaustively. Which may explain why my own head is throbbing pretty much constantly.

I struggle between wanting to be comfortable/secure and purposely stirring up the pot. I don’t want to be blindsided when I think everything’s going OK, but I can understand it if something fucked-up happens when I’m veering off-course.

I don’t know what point I’m trying to make. I guess as I’m trying to get healthy again, with the doctor’s appointment looming this week, I wish I hadn’t let things go for as long as I did. But I always get a chance to start over. The recovery is harder, when it comes late in the game, as opposed to catching/treating something early. But why do something when it’s easy to address, when you feel a sense of victory when the challenge is so much harder?

I need to reverse that way of thinking. I have a lot of damage to undo. And I’ve always been able to start over again, right from where I’m standing. I count on it. The past scares me so much more than the future ever could.

I don’t know why I lapse into these funks. Maybe to remind me to be good and be grateful and to get my shit together.

Maybe one of these days I will unpack my boxes. I don’t know what it is with me that I allow myself to live so uncomfortably. I don’t know where anything is, and I don’t want to know. But wouldn’t it help me to move forward if I knew that everything from that scary past has its permanent place so that I can build from there?

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