Baggage - December 4, 2004
You may have noticed, I carry it. A lot of it.
Learning to live while hauling baggage hasn't been easy. I will admit I have faltered because of this. There have been times in my life when luck was the only thing that pulled me through the bottleneck of self-loathing. When I got stuck, there was always "Just push harder." This is my mantra, and it's sad but it works. I put my blinders on and push harder and further, and from some unknown place inside of me the strength is always there. It might be a really great place. I wouldn't know because I refuse to accept I am great.
I had a lot of blessings, but I never had the benefit of careless self-evaluation. Looking clearly into the kind of ugliness that inhabited me for a long time was not a pleasurable experience, so I avoided it at all costs. Avoidance may have been an easy way out. It never made me a better person, but in times of need, survival has a mind of its own. It chooses the well-traveled path.
I've noticed that because of my childhood, I am a different person, and I am beginning to enjoy this. I think differently. I have no need for material things, fake or frivolous pleasures, etc. When life is boiled down to a base level, real things rise to the top. You have no need for the rest.
On the down side, I feel like a child again, learning or even re-learning things that others find to be elementary. I have to accept the way people are and why they do what they do. I have to accept certain things about myself. Certain realities. Eventually I'll have to put down the baggage and make a life for myself. I'll have to make myself happy.
Last night while out drinking at a bar called "The Gold Star," I noticed a piece of graffiti in the bathroom. It read, "In the end it will all be so simple." It pissed me off at first. I thought, why the fuck can't it be simple now? But after a drunken minute of pissing and thinking about it, the true meaning of the words hit me. It is that simple; I'm too busy ignoring myself to notice.
And then the most wonderful thought occurred to me; I am great. Right now.
Posted by at 9:07 PM
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