Watch Your Step

Hop on the bus. We are going to take a little daytrip over to Serioustown.

After a number of hurty and self-hate-inducing things occurred recently in my life, I was quickly brought down to earth by the same things happening in the lives of my friends. It seems that self-repugnance and general feelings of idiocy and deserved solitude are going around when perhaps they should not be. So I feel that I need to share something with you.

I am the kind of person who only understands my own fault in any given problem scenario. If I go to a restaurant and the service is shitty, it is because the server hates me. If one of the store's orders doesn't ship, it is because I somehow placed the order incorrectly. If the milk goes bad, it is because I fucked with its tai chi.

I know. This is fucked up. It is totally fucked up. Also self-centered, in a twisted way. But I am not coming from a place of selfishness. Who would want ALL THE BAD THINGS? Not me. HOWEVER.

What I do know is that if these scenarios were being played out in my friends' lives, I would be all, "You are not perfect, because you are human. But you are lovely and beautiful, because you are a good person. It is the circumstances of your life that are fucked up. It is not your fault that the rain fell on that parade today."

I think, sometimes, that it is like an impressionist painting.

Ugly

This? By itself? Is an ugly kind of fuzzy blur of gray. It is how I view myself. My fucked up problems. Because I am right in the middle of it, all close up.

This, though?

Beautiful

Is the Cliffs at Etretat. The first image is part of it, viewed close up. I KNOW. I AM BEING SO TRITE WITH THIS. But for real, when you are inside of it all, you cannot see the big picture. You see some tiny piece that seems insignificant, fucked up, and ugly.

But on the outside? Everyone else sees a masterpiece.

It may seem, to you, that you have fucked your life up big time. That your window to the world is broken and shuttered. And yes, I initially wrote "shittered," and that works, too.

But guess what. Chicken butt.

No, no, no, I am trying to be serious. OK, Guess what. Your view of you is too close sometimes to be accurate. You need to step back to see the real you, except for you that is basically impossible. This means you need to depend on your friends-- the people around you who LOVE you, not the other people around you-- to remind you what kind of person you are. And when they tell you that you are beautiful, that you are trying as hard as you can, that you are the kind of friend or partner or sibling or parent or kid that anyone would be lucky to have, that you should not be so hard on yourself, that you make everything you touch turn to flowers--

Well, you should listen to them. Because they are standing about five feet back, and that is the optimal viewing condition, right there. Just out of arm's reach. You can't hit them, but they can blow kisses. Because I know you don't want to hear this, but they are going to fucking tell you, for Gods' sake, and you are going to listen,

Dammit.

And just so you know, I wasn't just writing this to be my own cheerleader. This is for you.