I had a strange night.
I successfully did something I’ve been trying to figure out how to do for a couple of weeks (self-tied daruma), and damn, I was flying high off that for a little while. But when the endorphins wore off, man, I got all weird and feelsy. I took a shower and tried to shake it off. I told myself very firmly to knock it the fuck off (that didn’t do much). It was like a tickle just under my skin, and I couldn’t scratch it. So instead, I finally sunk into it, and, while it didn’t make it go away, made it feel more manageable than trying to push it to the side.
Here’s the thing: people who seem strong, confident, put together, whatever: I’d like to think we are, most of the time. I’d like to think that it’s not an elegant facade and we’re all really just hot messes just beneath the surface. And I think that’s true: most of the time, regardless of whatever nonsense is swirling around in my brain at any given moment, I’ve got a pretty solid, grounded idea of who I am and how I function in the world.
But sometimes… I have to give myself permission to be a messy ball of insecure yuck. Sometimes I can’t shake the nagging itch in the back of my mind- even when I know it’s unfounded absurdity and mental self-sabotage- I can’t force it away, or logic it gone. Sometimes, I just have the name the things I’m feeling insecure about- as ridiculous and unfounded as they are- and just sit with them and face them in their myriad levels of absurdity.
I don’t want to be that person. And I don’t need to talk to it out or explain it to anyone other than myself- it’s all absolutely coming from inside of me, and there isn’t anything anyone can do to assuage it. Sometimes, I’m just a messy ball of insecure yuck, and I can’t fix it and I can’t change it, and I just have to name it and own it and sit with it and let it just…be.
Because some of these things are old and take more than one hour, or one night to overcome. Some of these are deeply held pieces of myself that I don’t know fully how to combat. They come down to really nice, succinct abstractions: “trust issues” is usually a nice one. But that doesn’t tell me much of anything.
It’s one of the times where the only way out is through. And through means sinking into the muck, into the insecurities, into the mess, and swimming around this pool until I can find a way to drain it. Like a clogged sink: I have to plunge my hands into it to find what’s causing the problem so that I can fix it.
Will it get better? Sure. It feels better this morning than it did through a night of restless sleep. And it will continue to feel better, but only if I keep plunging back into the mess to figure out where this mental clog is coming from.
It’s ok to be an insecure ball of mess sometimes. It’s not something to push aside or pretend isn’t there, because that clogged sink goes rancid if we ignore it long enough. Plunge your hands into the mess and feel around for what’s causing the issue. The space between sinking into it and finding the solution doesn’t feel great, but at least it feels like some kind of movement forward.
Last night was a strange night. And this morning, while clearer, isn’t any less strange. But tomorrow I get on a bus to see people I haven’t seen in far too long, and that scratches a different itch, gives me something to look forward to. I got this; it’s just not always pretty.
Monomaniacism 