So i guess it’s time to talk. It’s been a long while since I’ve had anything truly memorable or interesting to mention in this space, as nothing has truly affected me in any meaningful way since the rediscovery of my family. It’s been a interesting journey, the last eight months, and I’ve learned things about myself and about others that I guess I never thought I would.
Change is neither good or bad, but it is inevitable, and how we react to and cope with changes we don’t like or that affect us negatively can shape the people that we grow into. I feel like I’m wiser and more resilient this year and that my ability to cope with and affect change in my own space has been improved.
Every year, I live a life of quiet introspection, whether seen in these pages or not. No event goes by, no words said, without a great deal of scrutiny and over-analysis by me. I have often spoken of a script I see the world dance and sing to, and how sometimes it is more accurate than even I believe possible. My brother Francis also believes in a phenomenon such as this, and finds the world around him predictable to a fault. Not so, dear brother. Not so.
Faith for me is a crazy thing. Now I am not talking about some mystical sky fairy or nebulous overarching belief system when I talk faith either, I simply mean a belief in a person, place or thing. I have always had faith in humanity, and that every person that I know is doing their best to muddle through in a world that seems built entirely to destroy the things we want and confuse our fallible senses. I’ve had that faith rocked a few times this year, and most notably had a cataclysmic failure of process with one person I have only known a couple of years. That is beside the point.
As always, and somewhat ironically, the point is me.
Faith in self. I have it, but I guess it’s been somewhat misrepresented. To read back on previous posts, I talk about how I am the only one that I can trust and that I have this wisdom and this strength that I want to share with someone one day. A lot of these posts talk about anonymous forces cutting me down and making things harder, but I missed something so important in all of my earlier musings. I missed a core truth that I have not yet internalised, or even properly rationalised, but something has been sabotaging me that I should have known for years.
Me.
You know it’s strange. I was checking out a guy the other day at work, and my mind went into this crazy sort of spin. I immediately began attacking myself for even thinking that I deserved to take this guy away from the potential love of his life. That incident was close to midday and I was still attacking myself as I walked home at nearly seven that night. During that time, I had gotten to the point where I was tearing shreds off myself for being so selfish as to believe that I could just ruin someone’s life by becoming involved in them.
So you know what I did? I began to write an open letter to myself. The letter was one of the blackest pieces of writing that has even come from my mind in the time that I have been literate. This letter’s sole purpose, in my mind, was to discourage me from ever following my desire into action again. I’m pleased to suggest that I’ve since deleted the letter, because on reading it back I nearly ended up throwing up.
The vitriol that I hold for myself is sort of disturbing. Nothing in the letter was untrue necessarily, but the way that it was written and the aggressive tone that was used still nearly give me the shakes.
In any case, the point I am trying to raise is that we are our own worst enemy, and considering the resources I have at my disposal, I can be a pretty mean enemy to face. Thankfully, that which is evil can be turned to good with the right resolve and resources. A little luck never hurts as well.
Just so happens I got my break today.
Dreams (the sleeping kind) of ending my life, horrible nights of insomnia and melancholy and a spiralling stress level have been completely wiped out by some really good news. I’m now a student again. What I thought was a fruitless struggle against impossible odds has paid off and some external force has seen it in their mercy to grant me a chance to make a difference again.
Apparently a chance is all it takes. I feel a fire and determination in me that I haven’t ever experienced before. Things are clicking and making sense in a way that I’ve never before understood. All of the doubt and misgivings that I have had about returning to study have seemingly evaporated and are being replaced by some wicked ideas.
I am my own worst enemy, yes. But I am the one in command here. I have learned so much over the last ten years. That’s right, ten years ago I was in the same position starting study. On November 26, 2002, I finished my HSC and began my tertiary education. On November first, 2012, I got word that I get another chance.
I was lost then. Smart for my age, but naive. I have ten years on the kids that will be joining me now. I know what needs to be done and how to do it. I know how hard it is to get out of bed of a morning, how hard it is to tell your friends you have to miss that movie or that social engagement because you don’t the money or the time. How hard it is to study for the assignment or exam when you’d rather be doing anything else.
I also know how hard it is to be lost in a world where I can enact real change. How hard it is to go to work every day in a sub-par dead end job with no challenges when I can be so much more. I know what the alternatives are and they are so much worse than that.
My resolve will waver. On that note, I am sure. I’m not a superhero, and I don’t have a strong support network of friends that I can draw on. But what friends I do have that do have time for me will help, and I can do the rest.
One thing I have learned over the last ten years is that I can commit to anything, even if it is onerous or hard. I can get up at 5am in the middle of winter to be at work, I can miss a movie or a social engagement because I picked up a shift for someone else and I know I can prioritise my time to get study and assignments done because the subject content matters to me so damn much.
I am in a state capital. The opportunity for me and my students is limitless. I can be the seat of real, meaningful change in the lives of these people. All I have to do is find the commitment to make it happen.
I feel that will not be a hard battle.
When I lack purpose, I guess I begin to drift. Every day can become another pixel in the computer screen image that is my life. I have trouble remembering interesting things that happen to me or relatable stories to tell people because to me, they are not interesting. I drift through my days doing the barest minimum needed to survive. I mean, I try at work, because I like to make other people happy. My vestigial sense of making a difference rears it’s head here and that serves only to exhaust me while managers and supervisors praise me, thinking that’s what I want. Their satisfaction at my work is more important. Their lives are easier because I am working, and that was the only motivation to try harder and succeed.
My sense of purpose has seen a resurgence in my energy levels and my dreams. I had a dream last night so profound and memorable that I was still reeling from it on waking today. I only remember it in pieces. A blonde guy hugging me from behind. Kissing me on the neck and telling me that I was special. Not a sexual dream, but so intimate. I have never dreamt of anything like that before.
It gave me a sense of hope that another aspect of my life might see some turn around at some point as well. I am not ready at this point to say that I deserve any person. Part of me still thinks that anyone that is nice enough to spend the time it would take to get to know me deserves someone better. But I realise now that I don’t get to make that decision for everyone. And so all I can do is better myself so that I can be the best me that I can be for them and my future students.
“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”
-Maya Angelou
FallenPhoenix
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