Sans Seraph

Tag: self

  • Rattling the keys

    Mine is a very anxious mind, and as such, I have a very hard time sitting still. You see, I like to solve problems. More than anything I’ve ever been able to do, that is what I do best. Even this blog is a means to try to solve the problems I have with the insane ramble that is always chattering and wailing inside my head. Living like this, while constantly feeling I must shift one way or another, in a futile attempt to “fix” something about myself, or my life, is an absolutely horrible way to live.

    I wrote the above after having a shower revelation. I spend so much of my life trying to pursue some sort of arbitrary level of perfection. The impatience and anxiety I embody wholly is immense. I am eternally, and existentially, exhausted. I seem to be constantly taught and reminded to breathe and take things easier, slower. So I am hoping that this small, daily reminder, posted next to my monitor, will be something that can ease some of this tension.

    My entire life there has felt like I have this spring inside me, that I just desperately want to let go. The only time I have been able to make any progress on that goal was when I started transition. That is perhaps the only time I have ever felt peace in my life, and, for a long time, it was good. However, I’ve noticed a curious pattern of late. If I could find an answer to the biggest question I ever had, if I could actually change things in my life, than surely I could solve everything, right? If I had the ability to start this monumental journey, it should be easy to roll the momentum over and finally reach the top of the mountain. I could untwist the spring inside of me until the coil was straight and true and rang pure into the void of my soul.

    So, without even realizing, I let my guard down. I took out the earplugs, and let the sinister voice of anxiety back in. That demon then immediately used its greatest weapon against me. My old nemesis had sat for nearly a year armed and ready to bring me down, and it did so with my greatest flaw.

    I’ve never been a patient person. I rush through things. Really, it goes hand in hand with my anxiety. If I have things I want to do, problems I want to solve, I feel compelled to do them, even if care and caution are warranted. The weight of the thing pushes on the spring and undoes whatever progress I have made. Thus, the only logical way to relieve the tension, is to immediately and completely do the thing.

    Sometimes this manifests as projects completed to a lesser grade than I would like, sometimes it manifests as crippling agitation when I can’t do them. I will spend a whole weekend worrying about something I have to do on Monday. If I can’t complete something in one day’s time, than I will ceaselessly grind down on it until it and I are dust.

    I decided I’ve spent too much of my life concerned for the future and lamenting the past. I gave myself an amazing gift, of finally, after more than three decades, of being my true self. I have goals, sure. I’d like to own my own house some day. I really need to get out of my dead end job and do something creative for work again. None of these goals are achievable overnight. I am doing the work. Hell, this blog is testament to that. In the mean time though, there is a whole lot of life I’m missing.

    This is all easier said than done, of course. Not only do I seem biologically prone to this constant worry, but we live in very worrying times. Ours is a world that tells us to constantly achieve, constantly grow and earn. If we don’t do that we’re left behind, or possibly cast out. Our lives are candle flames that are being used to heat an ever larger pot, and the cook cares not for any individual candle flame, only that more are produced when one burns out. Well I’m done caring about the pot. The only thing that matters are the lights within me and around me, because in the end, all that really matters is the warmth around us while our candle still burns.

    So if there is a spring, and if there is a constant, never ending supply of loads added to it, then it follows that I should not be concerned with the rate at which I am able to unload the spring, but rather with how much weight the spring can handle. There will always be time to remove loads and solve problems, and there are far worse things to be than a spring.

  • Paddle your own spacesuit

    I have a very interesting relationship with alcohol. I’ve spent a good amount of time trying to define that relationship. It certainly isn’t a relationship I have a lot of control over, but I do think it’s one I can figure out.

    My brain never shuts up. I’ve been known to say that I am “existentially tired,” and that’s why. Even my dreams are a bundle of horrible worries inserted into the VCR of my less than wakeful consciousness. Especially recently, it seems. Enter in alcohol.

    Nothing takes away all of those worries like alcohol. The constant barrage of thoughts ends for a brief few hours. Add to it the boost in confidence, and the final escape into oblivion, and you have a perfect drug for dealing with a mind that is far from stable. It is the one thing I keep coming back to, and probably always will.

    At times in my life I definitely could have been considered an alcoholic. I’ve ruined relationships because of my drinking. I’ve ruined days, weeks, jobs, hearts, property, all in the name of escaping myself. While I seem to (mostly) have a handle on things, sometimes I go a bit too far, and once I lose control, I definitely become and act like a person that I dislike far worse than the person I’m trying to escape from.

    If there has been one hallmark of my transition, it has been that it is a supreme act of self love. This whole journey was started because I was faced with the question of “why do I hate myself so much?” Well, a big reason is that I hated this meat spacesuit I pilot around. It was, in fact, a HUGE reason, and things are better, but they aren’t perfect. Now I’ve come to realize that I still have a long way to go to feel good about the pilot.

    Shame is a powerful motivator, and where in the past I’ve always tended to wallow in my self loathing after doing something I regret, now I really want to get to the bottom of it. I know that I have the capacity in me to feel better. I feel better every day I look in the mirror, and that is because I decided to make figuring out the source of my troubles a supreme priority.

    So, why then, do I hate the pilot? Is the disconnect I have between body and mind the issue? Is there some sort of unification I can bring to the two, so that the growing love I have for the outside can flow to the inside? I always feel as if my emotions, my problems, have no weight given the emotions and problems of others. As I am reminded often by those around me, I am too hard on myself. I also have a bad case of the “people pleasies.” I will go out of my way to do anything for everyone, but if I slip up, if I need help, if I get all in my cups and cry and let the flood gates open, that somehow feels wrong.

    I love it when people open up to me. I love playing therapist, but even now, even having the logical ability to see how one sided and insane it is that others wouldn’t also enjoy doing those things for me, I can’t give myself the grace to accept it. When I think about being anything else than the confident girl who can do anything for anyone, when I think about needing help myself, then the feelings of doubt and shame creep in. Suddenly, the illusion is destroyed. When others need help they’re simply human, and deserving. When I need it, it has to explode out of me in a horrible way, and then I feel worthless and small because of it.

    So I’m trying. I’m going to stop feeling sorry for myself, accept that I’ve made a mistake, and move on. I’m going to start trying to recognize when I need a little guidance, or a hand, and not let it all fester inside of me to where only under the lubrication of some substance or another it comes out, because the truth is I am worthy of having the same things I so willingly give to others. I’m not a terrible person. What I’m doing is a brave thing (despite how much I get tired of hearing it.) Am I more unstable now? Yes and no. This phenomenon is not a new thing for me, in fact, this whole “charge and discharge” thing is right out of deadname’s playbook, but I’m not him anymore, and I can be better.

    I’m not saying it won’t be a long road, but I am saying that I’m going to walk it, instead of drunkenly stumble down it. I’m worth that much, and I’d like to remember it as much as I can. I didn’t start transition to come out on the other end the same as I went in. I aim to be better, and if I can’t make the spacesuit be indistinguishable from me, then I want to fill it so completely that the lining on the inside feels like home.