The Weird Kid
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Burn
Mignon said I make boredom sound so evil. And whoosh whoosh, those words have been going around my head for days, a slow powerful turbine.
Yes it's evil. It hurts. It shames. It needs to be eaten and televised and library booked away, until I'm numb enough. And I am definitely over-reacting. But why?
I think I cracked it today.
Let me ask you, to help with the cracking.
Did you choose to be where you are? Who you are? Or did life deposit you here?
And, do you burn at all? My friend who left the auditorium when a classmate got up to sing a song off her recently released Christian album at the reunion said, "I shouldn't have to listen to her wailing," actually, painfully obviously meaning "I should have an album, too." Or me, who threw a popular magazine across the room when I recognized a photo of a college classmate, accepted to an internship there. "She is NOT a better writer than me."
If you don't burn, tell me why.
My blood is on fire. Every day, most moments. It itches and scorches. I can't sit still and I can't hardly smile.
But I think this is a good sign.
*Awaiting answers, knowing my bloggies have a particular abhorrence of pat answers.
Yes it's evil. It hurts. It shames. It needs to be eaten and televised and library booked away, until I'm numb enough. And I am definitely over-reacting. But why?
I think I cracked it today.
Let me ask you, to help with the cracking.
Did you choose to be where you are? Who you are? Or did life deposit you here?
And, do you burn at all? My friend who left the auditorium when a classmate got up to sing a song off her recently released Christian album at the reunion said, "I shouldn't have to listen to her wailing," actually, painfully obviously meaning "I should have an album, too." Or me, who threw a popular magazine across the room when I recognized a photo of a college classmate, accepted to an internship there. "She is NOT a better writer than me."
If you don't burn, tell me why.
My blood is on fire. Every day, most moments. It itches and scorches. I can't sit still and I can't hardly smile.
But I think this is a good sign.
*Awaiting answers, knowing my bloggies have a particular abhorrence of pat answers.
posted by Imez at 12:20 PM
7 Comments:
Hmmm, interesting question.
I don't burn. Sometimes i get a little warm, but not hot. One thing i observe as perhaps being different about me than from some people, is that i have little or no ambition. I'm retired, and i don't do much. I'm not writing a novel, i'm not curing cancer, i'm not in the board of any charity.
I hike, i play squash, i lunch with friends, i volunteer and i goof off.
Why this satisfies me, i have no idea. But i've never been happier.
Life has deposited me here, i have not chosen any path.
(The most unhappy i have ever been was when i was staying home w/Em for the first three or so years. I was so fucking bored that i just felt heavy and stupid all the time. Then my husband dumped me, and i had to put her in childcare and get a job. I wouldn't recommend that you get dumped, because that was intensely painful. But it made me change my situation, and that was good.)
Sometimes I burn... I tend to let things build up and then I make a decision to make a big change. Sounds like you're getting to that point yourself.
Moving's harder when your an adult and established, but it does shake things up. Applying to go back to school was another big (good) decision I made. Chosing the right boy to marry was another distinct, defining decision I made.
So yeah, I think I chose my path. Once I'm going along, sometimes I kind of take a back seat and ride. But I like what happens when I make a decision to alter my current course.
This actually happened to me just this week. I am SO SICK of being at home/working from home. I booked a trip back east to visit friends and family for two weeks. I'm taking work with me, so it's not all fun, but it's a definite change of scenery.
Burn baby, burn.
Of course I burn. If I can't accomplish something and someone else does I'm going to "burn". It's just human nature, I think. Then I get over myself and move on.
At the moment, I have a kitchen full of teenagers blasting music and making 36 boxes of pudding for an event at school tomorrow (pudding, I think), so I will answer, but I may not make any sense.
I do not burn. One reason (a big one) is the Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings that I attended in my early 20's. Another is the therapy I did regarding childhood sexual abuse. Also helpful has been education I have gained through books I've read. Finally, I've been blessed to be led (long ago, though no so much these days) by some amazing mentors in mental health. Oh-almost forgot; a huge part of the peace I have is my faith. I'm not a Jesus-freak or anything, but I have a strong faith in God and take comfort daily in his presence. Also, when things piss me off, I express that "heat" verbally (or physically, via screaming--not at people, LOL).
I burn. Not a shallow little flame, like a candle. I burn like a fucking forest fire.
Being a Christian, I'm constantly challenged by the ever-present debate of determinism vs. free-will. As much as people try to reassure me that God is present and He has chosen my path and that should be comforting because it means that everything is in the hands of someone powerful and concerned and I needn't worry and bla bla bla, I cannot accept it. I rage against the idea that life is determined for us.
And therefore, to think that THIS is the path that I've chosen for myself, sometimes makes me so UPSET and DEPRESSED because I KNOW that I can do SO much MORE. So I burn, and I sizzle, and I fume.
I thought it was just me being shallow and self-deprecating. Maybe it still is.
I don't seem to burn for myself any more. Just my kids and other people I like or love a lot.
I guess I equate that burning feeling with an extreme desire for x, y, or z to happen, and I'm at a point where, if I want x, y, or z, I'll work at it. If I don't get it, I just didn't work hard enough.
Can't think of a good metaphor for all that. Let me know if you do - you're better at that.
The choices I've made in my life have often been fueled by fear. Fear of disappointing, failure, abandonment, or maybe it is fear of success, and then I would be accountable, I would have to live up to something.
Who I am, my particular brand of melancholia, unfocused passion, and burning desire to be more, do more, have more, came with the package.
I don't feel the same kind of anger with others. It's all self directed, I get pissed that I don't make it happen, whatever it is.
What I think I'm going to learn and finally accept is that this life I live, what I do is enough, that it is its own marvel and that in looking too far ahead for too much I fall into those damn traps filled with poison spears.
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