So I’ve taken a 3 month hiatus from writing here, and apparently, it’s upset a few people. I’ve received a couple emails here and there inquiring about my status, my health, sanity and if I still had a heartbeat. Some wondering if I’d gone blind or been debilitated from use of my hands, rendering me useless at a keyboard. Others assumed I’d found some new love and didn’t have anything to cry and pout about. The answer, honestly, is that I didn’t think anyone really would miss these rants, these diarrhea thoughts spewed out of me onto the canvas of the internet for anyone to read. I was personally getting a bit tired of feeling like I was dragging my own ass through a sea of negative thinking and emotion and had to take twenty steps back and reassess what it was I was doing. To be sure, I was consistently setting myself up for failure, walking over emotional landmine after landmine, knowing that as cathartic as it seemed at the moment, was only prolonging the same feelings of despair and depression. At the same time, I was allowing anyone who clicked a link to follow me right into it. It got to a pathetic point, where I was spending more time talking about my self-induced misery, then looking for a way out of it. I guess everyone does that to a point, dwell in pity, sift through misery, drown in their sorrows. I was just really good at doing it consistently. Yes, there were times and days where it made a difference to me, made me feel somewhat better, in that moment. But that relief would fade, and it would start all over, again and again and time again. It wasn’t until I stopped writing here, that I forced myself to simply be human and deal. By dealing, it was coming to the realization that I wasn’t happy. Happy being me, happy being a son, a father, a friend, a person. That might have been the toughest challenge I’ve faced in my life, tougher than the loss of a love, tougher than losing a best friend. Looking yourself in the mirror and admitting that there was nothing you like about being you. It sucked, it was dark and scary and ugly, and had no place for anyone but me to analyze, internalize and begin restoring. So that’s what I’ve been busy doing, falling in love, with being me. It sounds very weird to say, even more so to read in print, but it’s been the best thing to happen to me, at a time when it mattered the most.
I can say that I’ve always depended on other things or people to find happiness. I’ve walked through life allowing other people to set my mood, allow me to feel a certain way about me, or them, or life in general. It’s been the antithesis of my life. I’m finally at a realization that, and I’ve said it before (but never embraced), that I have to be the one that determines my happiness. I have to be in love with me before I can love anyone else the way I want to love. It took a long time for me to finally pinpoint all of this and thus began that last 3 months of work on me; loving me through eating better, working out consistently, attending some parenting classes to learn how to be a better father, renewed passion for the guitar (and actually making time to practice), renewing old friendships and embracing the time spent with people, making actual plans to go somewhere for no reason other than to go, planning a vacation, putting away money for that rainy day. It’s been a renewal, and to most people, you’re laughing at this seemingly mundane list, but it has honestly been the difference between the guy who needed things and people to be happy, and this guy, who honestly loves being him (or me). So I’m back, back to being awesome in my own skin, stoked to be me. This morning I actually looked in the mirror, after finally getting ready to leave for the office, and was stoked to see the confident well dressed young man ready to take over the world looking back at me in the mirror. Can you say that today? I really hope so, I want my friends and readers to be stoked, to be the best you, you can be. I know that I still have a ways to go to hit that point where nothing bothers me, my feelings can be a little less traversable to impact in the face of commentary not meant to be personal, all without the help of chemistry. The bottom line today is, I’m stoked on being me; as a father, a son, a friend, a person.
Stay Blessed-
No comments:
Post a Comment