Everything I hated about myself in the past, I'm having to learn how to love. If there's anything that the past few years have taught me, it's that I'd rather tackle the rest of my life from a place of self-love than of self-abhorrence. But that doesn't make it any less terrifying. I guess in a sense I am a creature of habit...and that's why?
My dizzying compulsion to over-empathize and to make squalid attempts at mastering a God-like omniscience of all things under the sun; beating myself up for not understanding why I deserved the bad things (at some times) or the good things (at others); allowing destructive, verbally abusive people to hijack my inner monologue one too many times; playing frenzied versions of the blame game (attributing my blunders to the failings of others vs. punishing myself too harshly for the failings of others); this mountain of guilt and unworthiness that I'm particularly wired to feel as someone who is just as much a product of privilege as she is a product of dearth -- which drives everything that I do and manifests at times like a twisted penchant for pain...none of this gets me anywhere. Somehow I have to redirect all this energy towards a more self-soothing endeavor.
Soren Kierkegaard, a bona fide Danish stud muffin, said that life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. So, yea, I can connect the dots of my past to groom myself to be my present and future utmost. But to a certain extent and that's it. I can't try to connect the dots of my future because I will never understand everything -- nor will I be able to control the journey or the outcome as much as I'd like to. And I'm gradually accepting this because I'm realizing that the more I yearn to, the less I give myself the wiggle room I need to live faithfully and fearlessly.
