Monday, December 2, 2013

I Am That Guy

I am one of those people. A kind of person I NEVER thought I'd be. The kind of person I thought was an ascetic maniac.

I read about people who wake up at 5 AM and write every day because "that's when I can have time to myself." I thought that was nuts. I read about people who's ideal birthday involves getting out to go running first thing in the morning. Whacko! Only now that's me! I DO THOSE THINGS. How did this happen?

All of those things sounded like punishment for people who didn't like themselves very much. It's not a punishment at all. In fact it's a necessity for me to do those things so I can understand and process the things that happen to me. It is much more punishing to not do them. I seem to require them in order to stay reasonably sane and happy.

I've found over the years that I do tend to incorporate things I feared or didn't understand. For example, when I was a kid we used to go visit my dad's cousin's creepy farm in rural Virginia where they had wild snakes (not pets) in the basement (and occasionally in the kitchen) I absolutely didn't understand choosing to live like that. Now I have my own creepy farm and I LOVE snakes. I've never seen one in my kitchen but I wouldn't mind - it would help keep the mouse population down.

When I was around three years old I was at preschool. For Halloween they had a lady dressed as a witch come and hand out lollipops to all the kids (I feel like I've written about this before...) I was terrified and hid, crying, in my cubby. Now I think I am a witch, at least temperamentally. I totally understand why the Bad Fairy cursed Sleeping Beauty.

As for my other big childhood fears, I have not yet become Santa Claus or a monster under the bed (or a severed head in the toilet bowl) but I do feel like a clown sometimes.

There is SO MUCH in this life I fear or don't understand. I can never tell which of these things I'm going to embody. I only figure it out later. It makes me wonder what else I'm going to manifest.

I fear destroying things. I understand intellectually that you have to get rid of the old to make way for the new. For the most part I find that I don't have the internal fortitude to trash something that's still technically viable. I have too many old toothbrushes hanging around. Old sneakers that are flat on the inside - no support anymore - but without holes and not that dirty. They still look useful but they aren't really. Can I throw them away?

I know intellectually that sometimes it is more merciful and compassionate to cut something off and get rid of it and yet I'm too wimpy to follow through on that (Like I'll leave it to the snakes to take care of the mice) I wonder if someday I'll learn? Under what circumstances do you learn something like that?

I find that an exciting idea: to become the terrifying goddess you fear. I'm way too chicken to set out to do that on purpose though.

But, as I said, there a re a lot of things I fear or don't understand. Who is to say which of them will pop up in me next?

1 comment:

John Gregg said...

I have an old freebie coffee mug in the garage stuffed with old toothbrushes. They come in handy out there sometimes. I'm pretty compulsive about not just throwing stuff away - and I'm not a terribly good environmentalist or anything. I use my town dump's swap shop and freecycle.org a lot. Not old shoes. though. It feels really good to throw them away.