I’ve grown up so much in the past couple years. Especially in the past 6-12 months. A lot of times, it is easy to assume — time has passed, I must have matured some more! Check yo’ face, cause often times that might be the only way you’re maturing. I am talking about growth that I can visibly, circumstantially see.
I’ve been keeping a personal blog since I was at least 16 or 17, and it has been one of the most instrumental pieces in my personal growth and discovery as an individual. When I think about it, it is a measuring stick– a qualitative, wordy measuring stick. I don’t know how anyone could live without one? Not necessarily a blog, but a means to personally measure where they are in life like marking our height on the wall over the years.
I am paranoid of stagnation. Gosh, how many times have I talked about my struggles with stagnation. Usually, it is a life stagnation– where there just isn’t a lot going on with that whole life thing, but beyond that, a personal stagnation is what really has me wetting the bed at night. Is wetting the bed a fear related thing? Crap, I don’t think it is. Well, let’s just say wetting the bed in fear of the monsters beneath it. Salvaged.
I think anyone who gets to know me can see a trend of obsessing over my own betterment. It can be kind of subtle, but I am always trying to better myself in every way that I have awareness of. It takes a toll on my sanity sometimes, and it might even be a little unhealthy, but if you’re going to have a bad habit, it might as well be one that makes you better.
I lost my way for a few years. I was kind of a worthless human for a while, and even worse, I felt I had absolutely no worth. It is kind of hard to function like that. If you know me well, or have read anything I wrote from back then, you can see the development of all my anxiety, depression, and sometimes anger sporadically directed outward; like a malfunctioning sprinkler.
That was a long 2-3 years.
When you have no sense of self-worth (and when you’re me on top of that), you dedicate every thought and goal to making yourself better.
If I can make myself better, people will care about me again.
If I can make myself more attractive, people will want to be around me again
If I can get faster and stronger, I’ll be good at sports again, and people will recognize me again.
If I can figure out how to be funny again, people will give me attention.
If I take the extra time to reconnect with people again, people will see how caring I am and everyone will like me.
And so the story goes. Obviously, there is a lot of flawed logic, but when you think you’re worthless, you’re not in your right mind half the time anyway. At least I was constructive, rather than destructive. But–
Point being: for 2-3 years, up til the present, I focused, obsessively, on being pristine.
Or at least conveying I was pristine. I’m not. Who is? Getting to know someone is like getting a closer look, until you’re so close that you’re putting things under a more powerful lens, then you’re all the way down at the microscopic level, and you can see every tiny, insignificant dent, scratch, and imperfection. It’s pretty liberating, actually, because realizing that another person is just as imperfect and screwed up as you is so relieving; even exciting! We can all relate to that, especially if we embrace it.
I know that I am as screwed up and faulty as anyone else, but for me, I had to try to be immaculate. As an aside, one of my tactics for this is to keep a certain distance from people so that they can only really see that really good side I have, and not much else (furthermore, I also make it appear that I am very open and welcoming to getting close as another smoke and mirrors trick to obfuscate that forced distance).
I’ve gotten so good at being faux-pristine, sometimes I really even buy into my own hype. To me, it’s hard not to. For instance, I always grew up feeling unattractive, even ugly at my worst times. Even in high school, a place where everyone knew me, and most everyone liked me, I always had a pitiful self-image because I always felt overlooked by my friends, who I always heard about this girl and that girl having a huge crush on. James never got any valentines from anyone. James never had any girl or friends’ sister fawning over how hot he was. James was just plain James. Of course, most of that wasn’t true, but how I saw it. It was easy enough for me to fall victim to believing that, that I even referred to myself in the third person right there.
But now, I’ll even admit, I’m a pretty good looking guy, as much as I ever have been, at least, and I also know that I will only get more attractive as I get older. It is all part of the Self-Pristination. I take care of myself more compulsively than I ever have been, I am able to slowly, but surely, wipe out all my other big flaws or self-conscious related things, and it also helps that I’ve pretty much grown into everything else fully.
And so it goes, and so it goes. A lot of small changes can go a long way, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at fooling everyone. For these past few years, coming from such a low place, that is all that has mattered.
If that was it for me, that would not be growth, though.
I realized recently, today, even, that I still have incredibly ugly episodes. I hate them. I can’t tolerate them. I feel like Swamp Thing, not just after them, but even in the moment.
Most often, when I have spectacular displays of my inner, personal ugliness, it is because of an emotional response. I can be very even-keel, and sometimes stoic on a surface level, but here’s the thing, I’m a very very emotional person.
I’m also sensitive.
And… I just feel a lot.
This is all exacerbated at my chase to be so wonderful, so lovely, so awesome, so shiny and spotless to everyone else, that when I don’t get what I want, or a response I am hoping to garner as a result of my efforts, that I immediately turn into a venom spitting cobra. I don’t want to say I can’t help it, but sometimes I want to be able to say.. I can’t help it. I know it might seem that my efforts to be this masterfully crafted jewel might be kind of phony, but it isn’t, because when I want someone to care for me, I care for them. And going back to that whole being a highly emotional person trait, when I care, I care a lot.
Empathy turned rotten can burn a hole to the center of the Earth. I am still struggling to learn how to use my empathy for good.
And that’s when I saw myself grow today. As soon as I saw it, I realized, I’ve already been experiencing this specific growth, but it took the most recent instance to be able to reflect, and also revisit my personal measuring stick, and see that I’ve been growing considerably in this regard.
One of my biggest fear with people, especially people I get reeeaaally close with is that the terrible, ugly James is going to come out so much from feeling spurned that the other person involved starts to identify all of James with Ugly James. I want to say I’ve seen it happen, but I don’t think anyone ever fully sees me as just Ugly James, but, at worst, expects it often enough to begin to shut me out. I get hurt a lot that way. I feel like sometimes I am wanting to be King Midas, but realizing that turning everything to gold is, in turn, damaging everything I touch.
That might be the root of why I want to be, or at least seem so pristine. I can’t only focus on that anymore, though. I will never stop doing that, I can’t, and it isn’t going to harm anything, but I saw Ugly James today. I was feeling like Swamp Thing, but then, I snapped out of it. I recovered, and I didn’t just try to turn that view back to my good side. I admitted that there was that angle where I become Ugly James, but maybe that side of me is just trying to put too much make-up on, or has bad acne, or something, and he’s just Pretty James when he’s hurt.
It wasn’t so much that becoming Ugly James was acceptable, or at least not preferable, but rather, that I accepted it, and because I could, I was able to rebound from it.
I don’t know if I did, but I at least tried to harness it into something good. I’ve been trying to.
Ugly James comes out because sometimes James just gets hurt, and he doesn’t quite know how to react softly. If you see him, he just wants you to care like he does.
I’m a lot less afraid of that chipped up, bacteria ridden part of me that you see under the microscope coming out, because everyone has some of that in them. I know it can show up, and I can choose to accept it, and move on from there.
Probably the most important thing I can say is that others, kind of like the wind, can influence and direct my mood. In the strongest gusts, they can tip me over and send me miles in the wrong direction, but only I can choose it. If I have to, I can put down my sails and paddle my way back to shore. That’s a powerful discovery.
I’m honestly amazed. I really have grown a lot lately.
Hopefully this third person reference thing doesn’t become a habit.