BOY it's been an interesting few weeks. In the real world, it's been an absolutely amazing time of tours and travel and creativity and friendship. In the ever-present 'Drama of Dakotah' however, it's been an intense session of self-assessment (flagellation) instead. I know I vent here quite a bit, and this isn't exactly that. I'd really just like to write some of this wackiness out so I can see it at a measurable distance.
A few posts ago I talked about how easy it is to make myself smug. I'm great at assuming I understand exactly how this incredible magical world works--so I don't have to participate in it. Well it's that and the fact that I'm always telling myself that my mind is a timebomb. Not only that, I tell myself that I have legitimate reason to think that.
Lemme break it down for ya'!
Not sure how often I've mentioned it here, but mental illness and cancer run absolutely rampant in my family. That scares the hell out of me. As a matter of fact, it often scares me so much that I'll spend huge amounts of time worrying if I'm losing my grip. I don't know what that feels like, so how would I know? I interpret every mental bump-in-the-road as the last straw before I completely lose it. No, it's not real. Of course it's not real. Am I strange? Sure, yeah! Eccentric even (because it sounds cooler.) Is it wrong? Hell no!
I often feel so wary of being vulnerable, so afraid of my imagined personal catastrophe that I shut down completely. I get lazy. I get emotionless. I get judgmental. I get defeatist.
It's tough for me to 'be okay'. It's something I have to work pretty hard on. For so long, my mantra has been "It's not about you". I stopped trusting my own feelings. My own desires, goals, and needs.
And that's gotten me exactly nowhere. I've been treating myself like the geeky kid from high school that I'm too ashamed to admit I hang out with. In reality, he's my best friend.
I'll be taking care of myself. You do that too.
Love love love, and I mean it--
Dak
