Friday, May 14, 2010

The Plan

I like people who are out of control. I think it's because they're boldly showing outside what I feel most of the time inside, but don't have the energy to make a scene about. I always wanted to be a punk rocker chick, but "I wasn't angry enough" I always said. It's not that I wasn't angry enough, but that I didn't have the energy to get up and throw tantrums and do drastic things regardless of the consequences. I'm too tired and too smart. I see all outcomes of my choices and it keeps me from flying off the handle. It's kind of like killing yourself (morbid I know, but stick with me). Your life is crap, and you want to make it better by ending it. Fine. Jump off a cliff. Just make sure what you do is actually going to kill you, because if not, you're going to end up a vegetable with some creepy nurse changing your diapers. I don't take drastic measures because it's like - if things don't go absolutely according to plan, I could end up with a life way worse than what I have now.

I think sometimes we have to let ourselves need something that's bad for us. I don't have to give examples. I'm sure you can think of your own.

Right now, I'm kind of in the middle of something. You know that lame magic trick (and in the 1800's it was a toy they bought for children) where you have a card, and on one side there's a bird, and on the other side there's a cage, and if you spin it really fast it makes a blurry picture of a bird inside of the cage? I feel like on one side of my card, there's depression - this dark, deep, sinking pit of ocean that keeps dragging me under and makes me think that dying would be better than doing the nothing that is my life. On the other side, there's hope. Things could be better. I get energetic and want to change everything. But I feel like I'm not one side more than the other side. Someone is spinning my card and I'm a bird in a cage, not any more bird than I am cage.

I want to stop spinning the card. It should be obvious which side I hope the card lands on when it stops spinning.

The problem I'm having is the same problem I've been having since high school. The difference is that in high school, I was far more energetic and willing to do something about it than I am now. Back then, I decided the issue was comfort. I, like everyone else, have a tendency to do what is comfortable rather than what is good for me, or what is fun, or scary, or challenging. I think if I honestly had my way, I would spend my entire life watching movies, playing video games, and eating snacks. I would never leave my bed. That's what is comfortable to me.

So I'm going to make lists, and plans, because I love making lists and plans. Originally the plan was to make a list of all the things that make me afraid, or really uncomfortable, and to go down the list and do ALL of them. But now I'm thinking that I need to make lists of whatever it is that gives me an extreme emotion. Fear, happiness, disgust, embarassment, excitement, sadness... and go out and do all of them. Experience all of them. My particular brand of depression isn't sadness or anxiety - it's numbness. Comfort. I just sit around and do nothing. I feel nothing, think nothing, do nothing. The opposite of that is to feel lots, think lots, and do lots. So that is what I will do.

(Please note, that there will be nothing on these lists that would actually be harmful to me. When I say "extreme fear" - to me, that consists of spiders, roller coasters, calling in for pizza and telling my parents what I think of them. I'm actually afraid of a lot of really dumb things. So don't fear for my safety, haha.)

Maybe I'll post later when I come up with some actual lists. For now, I'm content to have a plan to make a plan. It feels good, like a solid step in an otherwise shaky walk. Thanks for reading my ceaseless babbling. :)

-Jesse