Hey, Lara--
What's up? Funny how life goes, huh? You think you get to a better place in your head, and then the shit comes flooding in again. Like, you forget everything your meditation taught you about how to be human using skillful means. You become a sniveling baby-- crying, crying and crying-- and then you're just a human using unskillful means.
I'm not here to tell you how to do it exactly right, Lara. Or what you should do. Why? Because I'm you! I have the same problems! And I see your patterns because I am your pattern! So let's have fun!
Every time you get on a high horse of, like, *this is what I'm going to do*, *this is how I'm going to do it right* you just sort of fall off again. How do you get inspired to do something, but also *not* let your expectations get so high that you inevitably plummet?
You know, maybe you just have to plummet, girl. Actually? This is you, telling you that yeah, you just have to plummet. Take the plunge, right? Get married and see what happens!
It's like what they say about falling in love. It is better to have loved and lost that to never have loved at all. Someone in your high school class used that as their yearbook quote. My yearbook quote was something from The Body by Stephen King, which is the novella that the movie Stand By Me is based on. Isn't that cute? I was just different. Special, I would have told you then.
My therapist said that when you're jealous of someone it's a sign that there's something in that jealousy-provoking person that is calling to you. Instead of flaming up in jealousy, or burning down with jealousy-- maybe flaming up then burning down-- you could say, Hey, that's a cool thing about that person. Maybe I should do something cool like that, too. Yes, that seems like a better way to go through life. But maybe I like being jealous. Maybe I like being jealous and stuck because then I can be jealous and stuck but smarter than everyone else because I don't "play the game". Jesus Christ. I am definitely not smarter than anyone. Just like, superior.
Isn't it funny how we're so mean to ourselves in our heads? Like, why is that? God, when did I become a verbally abusive spouse to myself? I was driving to and fro the other day, and I actually caught myself saying--while driving on, like, Belmont Ave., which is where I drive everyday-- You basically have failed at everything you attempted to do, and now you're just one of those sad people who's always writing a novel.
OMG, but I really am a sad person who's always writing a novel! Oh my god. That's hilarious. For some reason that might be clear to me soon-- maybe it's already clear to me-- I am thinking of an Emily Dickinson poem that my eighth grade teacher Sister Marie made our class memorize.
(There's a lot to say about Sister Marie, including that she was a total bitch who took a leave of absence because she had cancer, so then you felt bad about calling her Sister Fuck-Me behind her back. Maybe I'll save that for another blog post.)
The poem is I'm Nobody, Who Are You?
I swear to God I'm not looking this up on the www. I have it memorized, OKAY? I am a superior person who has poetry memorized.
I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us, don't tell.
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody.
How public like a frog.
To say your name the livelong day,
to an admiring bog.
Emily Dickinson identified as a nobody and she was Emily Dickinson.
I am not Emily Dickinson.
But I do have her poem memorized.