20 December, 2010

Are you there, Santa? It's me, Brianna.

Santa used to be an awesome idea to me. He even visited my house (like, seriously, Santa & Mrs. Claus at my house, when I was like, 4. Awesome.) and I believed in him for a WHILE. Some little part of me likes to believe in the myths about Santa or Santa-like figures. I know it's not true, but it's nice to let little flights of fancy take me.

This year I'm wishing for Santa to bring me something that I don't think any being could give. Just one little thing:

I want to love me.

I don't think I ever have. It's a hard thing to realize, especially these days when I'm spending a lot of my time telling other people why they should love themselves and why they should treat themselves with respect. I don't respect myself. I am hard on other people because I know I can't meet my own standards, but I know they can. My standards are high, but that's not why I can't reach them. I can't even meet the standards of people who have no standards.

I have moments where I think, hey, maybe I'm not that bad, but then I get a second alone or I look in the mirror, and I remember. I constantly compare myself to other people only because I am so desperately hoping that beneath all of their positive features that so overwhelm mine, they'll have some negative feature that I just barely rise above.

A person on Facebook that I know through someone else, and admittedly, have since defriended (along with the other person I knew them through), said something that really frustrated me. I (after a night of Old-Fashioned's) commented on their posting of their GPA a joke about mine being higher (which I don't even think it is) and saying how, thanks to American feel-good society, I feel superior. Anyone who knows me even in the slightest knows that this is bullshit, and that I would never say that in seriousness. 
Their response? "What is it you do, again?"
I responded in honesty - I know I am nothing special. I explained that I work in corporate (soul sucking though it is), sell sex toys, go to a community college, and hey, btw, I was totally joking. 
Their retort was irritating - they went on a long-winded bit about how they were glad I was joking because otherwise, they'd have to inform my school that they need to "incorporate into their curriculum" the meaning of the world "validity". 
I, being the kind of person I am (classless and mediocre), called them a dick and defriended. I'm not the kind of person who takes well the implication that one education is better than the other - no matter how great or how horrible a teacher is, it's really the student that matters. 

On some level I know that my education is no less valuable. The person has more years in school than me, yes, and has a more prestigious title on it, but ffs, I paid for my education nearly on my own - work has paid for some, but that's basically a part of my salary, I worked hard, and I get decent grades. I also work full time and have a second job. So what if I went to a community college? That doesn't mean that my grades mean less. 
However, it's still been bugging me. It bothers me that I let that person into my life. I see it as a failing on my part that they had the opportunity to make that jab at my "validity". It makes me angry that they think their contributions to the world (what with their taxpayer-funded degree) are more important, or more worthy than mine. It makes me want to wipe them from my memory, because that little needle of their egotistical waste, that small bit of classist bitchiness, is going to stay in my head forever. 

Just like everything that people say to me to degrade me, to downplay my successes, to emphasize my flaws, to encourage my inner hate to blossom into rage and loathing, this will stay with me. When I am down, it will push me further into the dark recesses of my own cesspool of rage. Not depression, not self-deprecation, but instead a hatred of myself so overpowering that I can't overcome it, because I know what other people think of me and what I do and have done. I know what failures and sins I have produced. 

It's in little things - my car breaking down made me feel like a waste because I had to get rides from people, and it affected my work schedule. Our finances not being stellar makes me angry at myself for not making more money or for not saving money I've spent. When TGW has a bad day, I feel as though it's my fault because I am not able to be that wife that can make her husband happy no matter what. When my family has something go wrong, I hate that I can't solve their problems on my own. When a due date is missed at work, I blame myself for not somehow fixing every little failing on my own, for not being a better admin, for not supporting my people in the best possible way I can, and making THEM succeed.

I need a Christmas miracle. I need to have a revelation. I need to be filled with spiritual wellbeing. I need love to overwhelm me. I need to not be this person, this waste, this endless sea of slick, oily bitterness. 

I need to love me. But I truly do not know how.

2 comments:

  1. I have no idea. Everyone always says you have to love yourself before others can love you. You have to be confident. yadda yadda yadda. They don't tell you how.

    I was reading blog posts from 5 years ago. All I did was complain. (well not really but a lot) I"m not sure what happened but I don't do that now.

    How did I get content with my life?

    I always used to think my life could be worse. This [insert bad thing thing] could be worse; it could be [think of something worse]. so I guess I always had that. (example. going to the neurosurgeon and waiting for hours to discuss my MRI results, I could have actually had a major brain thing that requires surgery.)

    I hate that you feel this way. I think people realize you do and then don't get as close to you because people want to be around positive instead of negative

    Just try to start small and focus on a good thing that happened that day and maybe even write about it somewhere instead of focusing on the bad (TGW having a bad day, a missed deadline, etc.)

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  2. It's funny to me, in a way, when you talk about reading your old posts - I know we've discussed it before, but I absolutely HATE reading anything I wrote, even just weeks ago. The only things I can go back to read are my poems, and even then, it's like my mental red pen goes insane.
    (I really want to backup my old LiveJournal posts, just for record, but I just can't do it. I tried quite a few times, and it ended rather badly.)

    I appreciate the suggestions. I am trying, and I have so drastically improved from how I used to be, but it's difficult, and I feel like I fail at trying to improve, you know?

    I know it is part of the reason people don't want to spend a lot of time with me. That's part of the reason, every so often, I completely shut down and cancel everything and don't spend time with people. I am working on it, though - and if that's why people don't want to hang out, I just wish they'd tell me. It's better than having weeks of wondering if I said or did something wrong that wasn't just generally my unpleasant personality.

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