It’s 3:50am and I’m wide awake. Because I’m on vacation.
I have five days left. It will only get worse. But now that I’m on a more normal sleep schedule (for me), I’m all kinds of productive. Today I loaded up the bike on my trunk rack and took it to the shop for an overdue tune up. I took out my car radio and installed an iPod adapter. I attached picture wire to the back of a door so I can hang it on the wall after I paint something on it. And then I put on the first coat of oil ground. I hope I only need one more coat. I hate oil ground. It’s nasty, sticky, terrible stuff that never dries.
I remember when I lived in Texas and I had... rooms. A house with rooms. One of them was the art room, and I could just shut the door and the cat would have the run of the rest of the house. Not so in a one bedroom apartment. Maybe this is why I’m still awake. It’s almost that time of night where she gets some invisible B12 shot and runs around like a cheetah, tearing up my bathroom rug along the way. Picasso once said that if you get a hair from your brush stuck in your paint, paint a bird’s nest. He probably never woke up to find a cat-shaped furball with green bath rug yarn in his painting, and I hope I don’t either.
Not that I’ve figured out what to paint in its place yet.
But it’s not just the sleep schedule motivating me, or the fact that I discovered tonight that Comcast plays 70s music on channel 953. (They do!!!) There’s a very dark cloud that’s starting to move away from me, just a little. Maybe just enough for now. Partly because of me, because I work hard at not staying in dark places for any longer than necessary (with varying degrees of success). And partly because of a very small but significant gesture from someone I didn’t even know was paying attention.
The last two posts have been about finally learning that I’m worth making an effort for. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but it’s something that has never been obvious to me until very recently, which is why the revelation came through a lot of anger and hurt. There is a much bigger picture than just what one person did or didn’t do in my life. Much bigger. There is a history of making the same choices, picking out the same people, but most importantly, a very long history of me doing the same things, setting the same patterns in motion over and over again. And that’s the most important thing, what I’ve been doing.
The fact is, when I get into a relationship, I assume that I will have to do all the work. I assume that they will not make an effort with me. And so when the door is cracked open, I go barreling through it, slamming it against the wall and knocking my new boyfriend unconscious. And then I do everything, all the reaching out, the appreciating, the compliments and the affection and the communication and the pushing things forward. All because I don’t trust them to do it, and all because I never thought I was worth it.
It’s not that I keep picking selfish guys to date. Some of them are far from it. It’s that I don’t give them the chance to show me that they’re not, because I’m so afraid I’ll find out they are... because it tells me yet again that I’m not worth it. And so the cycle continues. Or at least it has, until now. There is a reason for this that is many years old, that I don’t want to get into here. The bigger picture. The first person to not make an effort with me, and put all his effort instead into another relationship, teaching me that I must be lacking something important.
It taught me that there must be something wrong with me that I wasn’t worth the effort. But Paul, and a boyfriend from long ago that I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time, taught me that I am worth it. And in the process, I learned that I have always been worth it. That the problem was never me at all. And all I need to do is start acting like it, and give someone a chance to be awesome.
There have been some bad relationship choices in my life, no doubt about that. Pick a guy that’s not really into you, and you have a challenge on your hands. Some people like a challenge. But many who pursue a challenge are doing so to rewrite history. Because if you can win the love of this emotionally distant, somewhat indifferent, not-so-into-you person, you can prove to yourself that you’re so worthy of love that you can create it out of thin air. You can prove to yourself that all the hurt you got before really wasn’t deserved after all. Your personal history says that it was you, but if you can perform this miracle, you can rewrite it, and finally have a reason to love yourself.
But if you choose someone who loves you, appreciates you, is loyal and can be completely trusted, then your personal history can’t be rewritten, meaning it will probably repeat itself, and it’s unbearable. You must have deserved the hurt you’ve been given, and you have no chance now to prove otherwise because there is no work to do. Not with someone who already loves you. And if your personal history stands, you certainly don’t deserve such happiness that comes so easily. And how long until they figure this out and leave? Because surely they will. Sure, you may enjoy the attention at first. But if they’re too good to you, you eventually get bored, get uncomfortable having what you don’t deserve, and leave.
And maybe you even go back to some unhappy ending you were still hanging onto, keeping you at arm’s length from that real love, back to some unresolved challenge where you may have a chance to perform that miracle and rewrite your history. I say this because I’ve done that too, and it ended in disaster. But that’s another story for another time.
The point is, most suffering is self-induced. The need to replay the same relationship over and over until we get a different ending is a need to prove to ourselves that we never deserved that unhappy ending in the first place. And we need to prove this with hard work because nothing else gives us a reason to believe we deserve better except a miraculous result. What you have to do instead is just decide to believe it, without proof. That’s it. And then start acting like you believe it. That’s the most important part, acting like it, because that’s what makes it true. I have nothing to prove to myself anymore. I don’t need to rewrite a history that never actually existed, right? Because it was them, not me. Never me.
It doesn’t keep happening because you deserve it. It keeps happening because you keep looking for it, so you can change it. But once you pursue a person rather than a challenge, and you stop trying to prove something to yourself, the whole world opens up, and you finally get out of your own way.
Chasing the challenge is something I’ve done more than once. Sometimes I chose a really bad person. Other times, I chose a really good person at a really bad time, because if I could change someone’s entire direction in life, I could prove to myself that I wasn’t powerless after all. I also assumed he wouldn’t work at it, because I knew what I was getting into, and so I never gave him the chance. Because I had to do all the work. That’s the only way I knew how to prove to both of us that I was worth it, which my past made desperately necessary.
Making all the effort to prove your worth effort you will never get, because you’re making all of it and not giving them the chance. That’s a mess. That’s what gets you taken for granted, replaced and maybe even cheated on. And it has, all of the above.
I don’t have anything to prove to myself anymore. And so I’m not trying. I’m just leaving the door open for that guy who already knows how awesome I am to walk through himself. Now THAT is a vacation.
I have five days left. It will only get worse. But now that I’m on a more normal sleep schedule (for me), I’m all kinds of productive. Today I loaded up the bike on my trunk rack and took it to the shop for an overdue tune up. I took out my car radio and installed an iPod adapter. I attached picture wire to the back of a door so I can hang it on the wall after I paint something on it. And then I put on the first coat of oil ground. I hope I only need one more coat. I hate oil ground. It’s nasty, sticky, terrible stuff that never dries.
I remember when I lived in Texas and I had... rooms. A house with rooms. One of them was the art room, and I could just shut the door and the cat would have the run of the rest of the house. Not so in a one bedroom apartment. Maybe this is why I’m still awake. It’s almost that time of night where she gets some invisible B12 shot and runs around like a cheetah, tearing up my bathroom rug along the way. Picasso once said that if you get a hair from your brush stuck in your paint, paint a bird’s nest. He probably never woke up to find a cat-shaped furball with green bath rug yarn in his painting, and I hope I don’t either.
Not that I’ve figured out what to paint in its place yet.
But it’s not just the sleep schedule motivating me, or the fact that I discovered tonight that Comcast plays 70s music on channel 953. (They do!!!) There’s a very dark cloud that’s starting to move away from me, just a little. Maybe just enough for now. Partly because of me, because I work hard at not staying in dark places for any longer than necessary (with varying degrees of success). And partly because of a very small but significant gesture from someone I didn’t even know was paying attention.
The last two posts have been about finally learning that I’m worth making an effort for. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but it’s something that has never been obvious to me until very recently, which is why the revelation came through a lot of anger and hurt. There is a much bigger picture than just what one person did or didn’t do in my life. Much bigger. There is a history of making the same choices, picking out the same people, but most importantly, a very long history of me doing the same things, setting the same patterns in motion over and over again. And that’s the most important thing, what I’ve been doing.
The fact is, when I get into a relationship, I assume that I will have to do all the work. I assume that they will not make an effort with me. And so when the door is cracked open, I go barreling through it, slamming it against the wall and knocking my new boyfriend unconscious. And then I do everything, all the reaching out, the appreciating, the compliments and the affection and the communication and the pushing things forward. All because I don’t trust them to do it, and all because I never thought I was worth it.
It’s not that I keep picking selfish guys to date. Some of them are far from it. It’s that I don’t give them the chance to show me that they’re not, because I’m so afraid I’ll find out they are... because it tells me yet again that I’m not worth it. And so the cycle continues. Or at least it has, until now. There is a reason for this that is many years old, that I don’t want to get into here. The bigger picture. The first person to not make an effort with me, and put all his effort instead into another relationship, teaching me that I must be lacking something important.
It taught me that there must be something wrong with me that I wasn’t worth the effort. But Paul, and a boyfriend from long ago that I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time, taught me that I am worth it. And in the process, I learned that I have always been worth it. That the problem was never me at all. And all I need to do is start acting like it, and give someone a chance to be awesome.
There have been some bad relationship choices in my life, no doubt about that. Pick a guy that’s not really into you, and you have a challenge on your hands. Some people like a challenge. But many who pursue a challenge are doing so to rewrite history. Because if you can win the love of this emotionally distant, somewhat indifferent, not-so-into-you person, you can prove to yourself that you’re so worthy of love that you can create it out of thin air. You can prove to yourself that all the hurt you got before really wasn’t deserved after all. Your personal history says that it was you, but if you can perform this miracle, you can rewrite it, and finally have a reason to love yourself.
But if you choose someone who loves you, appreciates you, is loyal and can be completely trusted, then your personal history can’t be rewritten, meaning it will probably repeat itself, and it’s unbearable. You must have deserved the hurt you’ve been given, and you have no chance now to prove otherwise because there is no work to do. Not with someone who already loves you. And if your personal history stands, you certainly don’t deserve such happiness that comes so easily. And how long until they figure this out and leave? Because surely they will. Sure, you may enjoy the attention at first. But if they’re too good to you, you eventually get bored, get uncomfortable having what you don’t deserve, and leave.
And maybe you even go back to some unhappy ending you were still hanging onto, keeping you at arm’s length from that real love, back to some unresolved challenge where you may have a chance to perform that miracle and rewrite your history. I say this because I’ve done that too, and it ended in disaster. But that’s another story for another time.
The point is, most suffering is self-induced. The need to replay the same relationship over and over until we get a different ending is a need to prove to ourselves that we never deserved that unhappy ending in the first place. And we need to prove this with hard work because nothing else gives us a reason to believe we deserve better except a miraculous result. What you have to do instead is just decide to believe it, without proof. That’s it. And then start acting like you believe it. That’s the most important part, acting like it, because that’s what makes it true. I have nothing to prove to myself anymore. I don’t need to rewrite a history that never actually existed, right? Because it was them, not me. Never me.
It doesn’t keep happening because you deserve it. It keeps happening because you keep looking for it, so you can change it. But once you pursue a person rather than a challenge, and you stop trying to prove something to yourself, the whole world opens up, and you finally get out of your own way.
Chasing the challenge is something I’ve done more than once. Sometimes I chose a really bad person. Other times, I chose a really good person at a really bad time, because if I could change someone’s entire direction in life, I could prove to myself that I wasn’t powerless after all. I also assumed he wouldn’t work at it, because I knew what I was getting into, and so I never gave him the chance. Because I had to do all the work. That’s the only way I knew how to prove to both of us that I was worth it, which my past made desperately necessary.
Making all the effort to prove your worth effort you will never get, because you’re making all of it and not giving them the chance. That’s a mess. That’s what gets you taken for granted, replaced and maybe even cheated on. And it has, all of the above.
I don’t have anything to prove to myself anymore. And so I’m not trying. I’m just leaving the door open for that guy who already knows how awesome I am to walk through himself. Now THAT is a vacation.
