TheBanyanTree: Fall

[Pam Lawley]

I love reading what you write Neek!!  I can always relate  - sometimes
hugely, sometimes in just some small teensy way - but always!  I think that
must mean I'm an okay person...

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 1:50 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> Fall
>
>
>
> It hasn’t fallen quite yet, but there are signs it’s about to, and so I
> wait, impatiently. I’m not a patient person under the best of
> circumstances,
> and end of summer is not the best of circumstances. It’s hot. I don’t like
> hot. I do not like the giant wolf spider that was climbing up my office
> wall
> this week. By giant, I mean, to me. To you, it may have been tiny. But I
> doubt it. It was really big. And it’s because it’s still summer. I had to
> call for the guy in the next office to come over and save me. He did. He
> always does. This is why my office space is called a prime location.
>
>
>
> But enough about me. How are you? Are you faring well? Is life being easy
> on
> you? Or is it being a giant pain in the ass? You can tell me. I won’t even
> tell anyone else if you want it to be a secret. I’m good at keeping
> secrets.
> Usually. Not always. I’m not perfect, y’know. Just don’t tell me something
> so interesting or funny that I feel compelled to share.
>
>
>
> If you’re doing well, I am happy for you. If you’re not doing well, I wish
> I
> could change it. That’s how I am. I want to make everything better for
> everyone else, but I learned years ago that trying to is an exercise in
> futility. True, it may be the only exercise I get some days, but still.
> (That’s because of summer. I can’t exercise when it’s this hot. Once fall
> arrives I’ll have to come up with a new excuse.)
>
>
>
> So pardon me if I don’t try to make it better. It’s not that I don’t want
> to, you see, it’s just that I can’t.
>
>
>
> What I can do is tell you it gets better. I sound like a PSA, I know. Well,
> in theory it gets better. It doesn’t always, does it? I found that out for
> myself. Until I realized that I was the one stopping it from getting
> better.
> Not that this is your situation. Your situation is not your doing. But mine
> was. When you take on responsibility for everything and assume the world
> needs you running it, controlling it even, you can quickly find out that
> the
> world doesn’t really care, and that if you drop out of it for a bit the
> world will do just fine, thank you very much.
>
>
>
> And when I say you, I mean me, of course.
>
>
>
> This involved a bit of adjustment on my part. If the world didn’t need me
> running it, what was my purpose? At one point I thought it was to take care
> of all the mentally ill people. But it was just one mentally ill person
> that
> I was supposed to take care of, not all of them. Fortunately I figured that
> out before one of them killed me. It helps to be a fast learner, though
> fast
> is relative.
>
>
>
> It’s not true, despite what I learned growing up (by growing up I mean I
> got
> bigger physically, not necessarily emotionally), that I’m useful only as
> much as I can solve other people’s problems. Imagine that! And no, the
> world
> at large doesn’t need me coming to its aid. Why? Because the world at large
> doesn’t come running to my aid when I need it, and I get by just fine.
>
>
>
> Okay, sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn’t. But mostly it’s up to
> me.
> My mental and emotional state is up to me, and if I choose so, I can
> improve
> it. If that means I should take anti-depressants to keep the dark times at
> bay, I do so, and I don’t feel bad for not having the self-control to make
> myself “happy” without them. Yes. Some people still believe it demonstrates
> superiority to not rely on these sorts of things. Fine with me. Like I
> said,
> I’m my own problem.
>
>
>
> Occasionally it means I must avoid being bombarded with negativity. Not
> that
> I’m always a “be happy or be gone!” sort of person, but I do have my
> limits.
> Especially at a time when the world itself seems to be descending into a
> whirlpool of madness and sadness. When someone I barely know emails me for
> help because she’s anxious and doesn’t know how to deal with life and can’t
> leave the house, I tell her to seek therapy, and good luck with that, and I
> wish her well. I can’t take on everyone who needs help. I used to. See
> where
> that got me? (She is, by the way, a "be happy or be gone!" sort of person
> who can only deal with happy thoughts, so there is that.)
>
>
>
> At the end of summer I take stock of where I’m at while I ponder my next
> move. I’m in pretty good shape. I’m very lucky, and the next move is up to
> me. But it’s totally up to me, and if I don’t follow through, that’s me all
> the way. Life is not conspiring against me.
>
>
>
> Because this is the thing. Life conspires against all of us all the time.
> It’s how life works. The only question is, what am I going to do about it?
>
>
> Monique
>