new year, same me

everybody loves to throw around the "new year, new you!" phrase. i dislike it.

i understand the sentiment, i just don't agree with it. over the past couple of months, i've been working really hard on knowing exactly who i am, and exactly who i am not. i've considered the positive and the negative, but mostly the positive. truth be told, i have spent more than enough time on the negative in my life already.

so lately, i've come to know myself and all of the great things that that entails. i have considered my strengths, the things i am naturally adept with, my potential that is brimming just below the surface or is sitting on the surface, but unused. i am slowly but surely enriching my life by adding things to it that i know i will love or maybe, will simply challenge me. i want the challenge. but i'm not undertaking all of this hoping to arrive at "a new me". i want to arrive as the me i am now. i want to experience life as i want it, as i hope for it. my own standards and judgements are all that matter. and there's no way in hell i'm going to sell myself short, and there's no need for reinvention. if you don't like yourself, by all means, make some changes. but don't expect to be someone entirely different. that doesn't happen. the good in you and the strength are already there. you just need to bring them out. you need to not be afraid to try and fail and maybe suffer a little.

the thing i've learned is, things that are supposed to seem great are anything but, when you have no sense of yourself. who you actually are. enjoyment isn't possible when you have no sense of yourself. by the same measure, suffering is not really that bad, when you're not afraid of taking it on because you have a sense of yourself and what YOU can handle and who you are. the good is that much better, and the bad is survivable when you respect yourself and know yourself and LIKE yourself.  because no matter what, you can't lose that. no matter what happens to you. and i've learned that recently. i finally have. "man's search for meaning" has finally smacked me upside the head with understanding. and not a minute too soon.

this morning i'm sitting on a porch chair in sunny southern california. the weather is beautiful, i am watching the sea, breathing it in. i am exactly where i want to be. the second year in a row, i've made this happen because it matters to me. funny enough, i've had problems since arriving here. a medication issue, that's left me with some pain and unpleasant symptoms. however, i'm solving that problem and it's not at the forefront of my mind.

what's at the forefront of my mind? that it's sixty-something degrees outside, the sun is beating down on my body and the air is fresh and i can taste the ocean in it. that tomorrow i will party with some of the coolest family anyone could hope for, that i will see an old friend while here. that this week holds for me whatever i want it to. that when i go back home, i will be buoyed up to survive the rest of the winter.

what else could i need?

this new year is going to hold for me, whatever i want it to. my physical limitations are shrinking daily and i am taking care of myself mentally and physically, getting stronger. i will do whatever i want to. i will be me, the same me i've always been- but with the experience of illness, heartbreak, rock-bottom-and-up-again, a renewal and removal of disillusionment. i will write passionately, laugh freely, (at myself, most of the time i'm sure) and surround myself with whomever and whatever i choose to. and at the end of the day, when i go to bed and look at myself in the mirror, i'll be happy that i am living MY life in THIS body. as THIS person.

and that's enough.

parasite

i knew that when the thought of you no longer made me sick,
i was done.

finders keepers

writing is my way to speak. my way to dream, to escape. to be someone. when things are really bad in my life, i stop writing. i deprive myself of the particular joy and sense of purpose it gives me. there's a kind of famine inside. right now, is the first time i've been able to write anything for too long of a while.

i've been moved. there are lots of things that move me. music. books. movies. nature. photographs and paintings. when i am being self-destructive as i had been, i hide from the things that move me. i become immoveable and numb to everything except pain. and then pain takes over and rules my existence.

 not physical pain, not necessarily. i live my life in physical pain the way normal people live without it. i don't have a choice in this, so i have adapted to fit it. my body has certain things wrong that will always cause me pain. fine. i have learned to live around the physical pain. that's not what scares me anymore. what scares me, is the emotional pain. mental pain. and that, i heap upon myself when i self-destruct. i heap it on like you wouldn't believe. 

until recently, i got caught in an ugly mess of a destructive cycle. i did everything i could to sabotage myself. i degraded myself and let myself be walked all over, hurt and demeaned. i lashed out at people i care about and tried to please the people i didn't care about. i surrounded myself with company that made me squirm inside. i behaved in ways that those who know and love me, would never recognize. and then, the physical side came crashing down. i am still dealing with it currently and won't know much until tomorrow, when i meet with my surgeon. i hope that whatever is going on, is something that won't require surgery or anything drastic. i know that some part of me believes i deserve to lose certain things that mean so much to me. i am trying to fight against that part of me with all that i consciously can.

i guess i should say what moved me recently. finally. i finally hit rock-bottom in my self-destructive cycle and realized i could go no lower. the whole thing was complete. i was finally done. i had enough to remind myself of, enough to cringe over, for a long time. once that was finished, i began picking pieces of myself back up and putting them in a drawer for later- for when i would feel capable of trying to put myself back together again.

time went by where i just existed. until recently. several things happened. one of them though, was that i started reading "the fountainhead" by ayn rand. don't roll your eyes. while you may have to tolerate rand's ideals to read "atlas shrugged" perhaps, "the fountainhead" is purely a work of fiction and can be enjoyed (and yet still moving) as such. i saw myself looking into my own soul when i read the character of dominique francon. and i began to understand. that book has inspired me and lifted me, and also reminded me of why i love writing. there's a lot of beautiful language to be had for someone who knows how to use words- and that is one thing i've always been able to give myself. i know how to use them. i'm a born wordsmith. it's the one thing i never let go of even at my most self-destructive. i deprive myself of writing, but because i know that i CAN. there is never any doubt of that.

right now, i feel simply grateful that something reached me. that since reading that book, i have been able to feel moved by the things i love again. no matter what happens with my health, i have those things. i have writing. i am done being self-destructive because i've finally been able to admit to it, and more  importantly, to the WHY.


if anything i ever write, accomplishes what that book has accomplished for me.....it will be worth everything i've put myself through to get there.
finders keepers.