My favorite part of 2020 was getting to know my past and making peace with it. The good, the bad, the ugly…especially the ugly. The ugly encompasses my “wrongdoings”; the how and where I may have hurt others and how I’ve hurt myself. This is no easy task. It requires a lot of work, both emotional and critical. But it’s the work I expect I’ll be most proud of in life. By December’s end I finally understood how I’ve sabotaged relationships, hurt people that cared for me, pushed away the only friends I really had in my darkest days, and worst of all, neglected my mental well-being. It wasn’t the world; it wasn’t Jane or John Doe or Dad or the boy who called me crazy or even the unruly politicians who I used to believe were responsible for all of my misfortunes. It wasn’t the giant that held me down and taped my mouth shut. It doesn’t matter who they were or what they did because it was never about the others. At the end of the day I never had any control over anyone or thing except for myself and even that was unpredictable. If I had understood then that the only thing I’d ever have control over in life isn’t the event but the way I respond to the event, I might have saved myself a lot of pain. Who knows? I might even have an extra 20 years to my lifespan. I think I put too much pressure on myself to act as a mature being – but what the hell could that mean? I don’t know if I believe there is such a thing. Maturing, sure. But matured? Developed? Done? That’s it? It’s all behind you now? Might as well leave the physical world now as there’s nothing left to do! I digress.
What I’m getting at is that it took me 21 years to see that I’ve been in my own way all this time. I still am! It’s a nasty wound to stitch but now that I’ve at least found the laceration I can stop the bleeding. I can try, anyway. The hardest part of any project has always been the start for me. I like to think I’ve gotten over that hump, but that may be wishful. Of course there are amends to be made, but I believe that’s much more doable when you actually believe in your apology. If those I’ve hurt aren’t interested in hearing from me, that’s OK, too. I’m going to continue to practice honesty in all of my relationships with others, but for now I can focus on the one I’m building with myself.
Me again, 3 days later (January 6th, 2021). I’ve been in a mindset of choosing to take responsibility for the outcomes of my wellbeing and the environment that creates it. I wasted a lot of time being angry at the cards I was dealt; thinking I had to work harder than my peers to get what I needed, looking after a dying parent, watching my relationships crumble and the only home I’d ever known slip from under my feet. I believed it to be more productive to convert my sadness into anger. I actually read that was the productive thing to do on a blog somewhere. As it turns out, bloggers can be wrong! Like the energy required for photosynthesis in plants, this conversion took at least double the energy I could have better spent actually trying to understand my “problems” rather than dwell on them. I think in a twisted way I held onto them because they became part of me. Or did they become me altogether? I didn’t know who I was without them: Nobody: the sad, tired girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. That was something that could have been admired. Who’s going to pay attention to the girl who quietly gets her life in order? That’s boring.
I wasted years channeling my anger into politics (this was a big one). Not knowing any politicians personally makes them the perfect scapegoat. They are evil. They are responsible for my suffering. How could Brett Kavanaugh do such a thing? That orange clown is a bigot! Conservatives are idiots. They don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves. There is no argument against gun control and affirmative action. And cancel anyone that disagrees with me! I got angry with my peers for not being angry with me. Can you believe that shit? I was angry I couldn’t drag others into my personal little hell! It’s bullshit.
I do need to be kinder to myself, though. That version of me was under a lot of pressure – pressure to be anything other than Nobody. She couldn’t even comprehend the traumas she was facing yet. That’s why she’s taking the time to heal now. I no longer need to explain myself for not speaking out on issues I don’t know enough about. By worrying less about being liked and being relevant, I grow and learn more about the world, but more importantly about myself. I bargain with my future that way; heal today, show up tomorrow.
yesterday i was clever, so i wanted o change the world.
today i am wise, so i am changing myself.
– Rusi
In My Heads 