Here's another one: I don't think I'll ever be able to completely trust anyone. It's not that I don't want to. God, I want to, I really, really want to. It's just impossible. When you've led a life of deception, when you've been deceived too many times, when you realize how terribly easy it is to make anyone believe the things you want them to, you sadly have to face the fact that the world is probably doing it right back to you too.
All of this rambling and what does it even mean? It means that I'm quite seriously scared to death. So scared that I really just want to sit still, let nothing happen, and yet, when I do that, I get bored with it all. Maybe the philosophers were right, maybe the idiots are right. I don't even know anymore. And, at this very moment, playing through my headphones is "You can count on the sun to rise, and the stars to come out at night ... trust is a tightrope we all have to walk". Why is it so much easier for some people than others? Do we all have the kind of angst and confusion that I feel and I just dwell on it, just swim in it, or do some people really get off easy. And, hey, I don't mean that in a negative way. I would love to be one of those people who go through life seeing all the good, feeling positive at every turn, bouncing back all the time, but, here I am, about to be 51 years old, and I just feel like maybe I never got it right.
The moments that keep illuminating in my mind, in my heart, are the moments when my children were small. I keep seeing that, keep feeling that, how sweet, perfect, uncomplicated it really was. It was easy to put a smile on their face, and seeing that smile made my life feel important, significant, worthwhile. I had this conversation with someone the other night ... actually, my significant other ... that we all get our sense of ourselves from other people. Okay, I hear everyone going, "No, no, I created myself, I formed my own self-esteem". Of course you didn't. From the moment you came onto this planet, it was the reflection of yourself in the eyes, in the hearts of those around you, that nurtured you ... or ... damn the "or" ... destroyed you, damaged you in a way that can never be repaired.
I keep trying to be a "live in the moment" kind of person. I don't think it's too late for that just because I'm "old" by all the standards that everyone uses. Oh, yes, isn't the greatest compliment we receive once we're over the age of 35 is "You don't look that old!" Why is it bad to look old? Why isn't it beautiful? Why aren't lines beautiful? Is it all about perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect breasts? The awful, unavoidable answer is yes. Our value diminishes with every passing year.
This is so stream-of-consciousness, because, as I finished typing that thought, I realized that it's a good thing. It means that the value you place on yourself, those who learn to value you, are all that really mattered, and it was all a process just to get there. I hope for me, I hope for everyone, we get to arrive at a place where we are The Velveteen Rabbit:
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
3 comments:
oh my god I LOVE your blog. Didn't realize you had written any more on it, and yet here you are.
You are beautiful!
Thank you, my love.
The Skin Horse has it right. By the time you are real, you generally are coming apart at the joints and having your fur loved off and becoming noticeably shabby (compared to a new toy, for sure).
My oldest daughter tells me I'm not ugly, though -- at least not yet. My guess it's her lack of experience. My objective: to make sure she can tell who's real before she can tell how bad a shape I'm really in.
Everyone needs a goal!
As for creating yourself: no, you don't create yourself from scratch. Once you understand that your perception is for all practical purposes your reality, however, you can do the next-best-thing. Since what you see (including yourself) results from the lens through which you look, you can start taking a critical look at that lens, and reshaping it in line with what you decide you really believe.
While you're reshaping the lens through which you look, you discover the world looks rather different than when you were using borrowed glasses.
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