This morning, as I was walking the dog in the cold rain, I became convinced that, if we tried to go over the hill, we would slip. But I immediately recognized this as anxiety and not real.
Over Christmas, when I was sitting in my parents’ van, I caught sight of some crepe-y-ness on my neck. This weekend, I saw it in my regular mirror. Also, an old boyfriend of mine is about to become a grandfather.
And it just made me think about all the things I haven’t done. And whether I want to do them.
For so long, I wanted to write fiction. I haven’t done that meaningfully in a year. But also, I’ve done that. So… I don’t know if that’s a success or I’m failing. Duotrope wants me to reup my membership and I’m just like “Do I do this anymore?” Is it worth the money if I’m not writing?
Am I succeeding or failing? And, if so, at what?
For the first time in a long time, I turned my TV on last night to something other than Law & Order repeats. The Golden Globes were on, but I watched the last hour of Spy instead.
Worked some on the afghan. It’s not quite as fast as it was in baby size, but it’s still going pretty quickly.
I’ll be honest, I think a lot of my free-floating anxiety revolves around whether I deserve to be loved. And the hard part about it is that I want to believe that, if someone so awesome came along and loved me, then it would prove to myself that I deserve it. But I also know that I have pushed people away, awesome people, or held it against them for being stupid enough to love me. I think I’m better about that in my crepe-neck old age, but maybe not as better about it as I’d like to be.
But, obviously, the outside validation isn’t the issue. I have to figure out how to accept and love myself. And I guess this is bugging me so much because I felt like I had kind of come to a frail truce with my body. I had gotten used to it, even if I can’t always see anything so great about it. And now it’s like “Love me with this skin, too” or “Love me with these weird bumps” or “Love me with a hair that sprouts here.”
And I just don’t know if I can. I was already doing as much as I could, which was not enough.
There’s a moment in Spy when she’s going into the casino and she kind of puts on a Mae West “kill them with charm and audacity” thing and it’s very attractive. And I guess I need to figure out how to strike myself as charming and audacious.
Anyway, that may be too much honesty for a Monday morning.
Tiny Cat Pants 