Does you ever feel like you're sick of being the strong one, tired of always keeping it all together? I'd like to think I'm not prone to melodramatic meltdowns, but sometimes I really just wish I could stop caring. I wish I could just let go and stop fighting so hard, stop fighting so hard to lose weight, stop fighting so hard to get a job. I feel like I keep failing at both of these things, even when I give it 110%. Add in trying to save money for a house, and just doing day-to-day things where it seems like all we get is bad luck, and then kicked while we're down. Sometimes I just want to give up. I just want to curl up in a ball under a warm blanket and not care if the back account goes into overdraft. I want to not care that I'm fat. I want to not care if not showing up for work is detrimental to my career. I just want to stop putting in any effort at all, because it doesn't seem to make a difference.
But of course it makes a difference. Not caring at all would make things even worse, and that's what keeps me trying. It just really sucks sometimes that you have to fight so hard just to stay afloat. Not fighting hard to get ahead, just fighting hard to stay at baseline. It's like life's balance point is at rock bottom, and you have to constantly struggle to stay away from it. So that even when you are treading water at a ferocious intensity, you are just barely keeping your head above water. It's rather sad.
I don't know why some people are prone to better luck in life. Maybe people are just really good about not talking about the bad things, only the good things, so it seems like they've got everything going for them when they really don't. Who knows.
It's really infuriating to just want to let go, and let things be how they will be, not have to exert myself for what seems to be just average. But every time things get really bad, and all I want to do is get under that blanket and stay there for at least a month, I tell myself that that isn't really an option. And it's not. Doing nothing sinks you further into the hole, making it even harder to get out in the long run. And I don't want to do that. So yes, perhaps sometimes I'm only trying half-heartedly, but I won't ever just completely meltdown and let go.
I read a blog the other day that sounded a lot like I do right now: oh woe is me, everything sucks, life hates me, feel bad for me, pity me, I keep trying and failing, what am I doing wrong, why doesn't life just work out like I had planned, I just have to laugh and keep my head up. I could have wrote the thing myself. And to be completely honest, I hated it. Not the blog itself, but I hated hearing that that's what I must sound like. Nobody wants to hear that crap. It doesn't do anybody any good, not the person writing it, and not the people reading it. It's not inspiring (at least not in a positive direction), and although it may be cathartic to the writer, it's a lot more like wallowing and bemoaning, and that doesn't make anything better.
Upon reading that blog, I decided I didn't want to sound like that ever again. It was pitiful and not the person that I wish I was. I can't promise and say I will never sound like that again (all my ranting above was an effort to get it out, have my cathartic moment, and prepare to move on), because I don't ever want to sugar coat how I feel. But I really hope I can get away from that. Maybe I should really get on board with the whole lemons to lemonade thing (maybe it never stuck because I don't like lemonade?).
Back to the buttons and the bones. The image I got was not some morbid factory making ivory buttons out of femur bones (ok, well it was eventually, but not at first). I pictured someone buttoning up a jacket, folding themselves in, and making cold weather not just bearable, but enjoyable. I pictured someone (figuratively of course) buttoning their bones together, sticking true to who they are, not letting themselves fall apart and standing up in the world. I pictured someone mending themselves from the inside out.
"They want to make buttons out of my bones." They who? The world? The world wants you to stick with it, to keep fighting, to keep standing, to not let yourself come undone. I've got to stop thinking that the universe is out to get me. As much as I falter in any belief of a greater power out there, I'm definitely not that important to have the whole world against me.
So I need to button up my bones, become a person I can be proud of, and stop blaming luck and the world for my problems. It's no simple task, not in any sense, but what's wrong with having a lofty goal? If I can accomplish 101 goals, what's one more?
Creative Writing Prompt #181: What images does this line in one of Gregory Corso's poems spark in you: "They want to make buttons out of my bones."
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