Chasing My Tale

OK, last night’s post didn’t do it for me — made me want to yawn, needed some spice, some color. Writing clearly does squat if it’s not interesting reading.

Bars on my own personal jail … what are some beliefs that have done that or do that for me? The belief that as long as I don’t really try hard at something, I can always blame not doing well on not trying rather than on just not being good enough?

This is one that shows itself in many different ways in my life, things like “I could write a books/songs that people would love if I really tried,” and then having lots of good ideas & not doing much with them.

Or there’s the nasty, growth-killing “I’d love to try that, but people would see that I totally don’t know what I’m doing and I’d look stupid & incompetent & like a klutz, and that would be too embarrassing, so I’ll just skip it” … and so line dancing or ice skating or rollerblading or jewelry making or painting or drawing or acting in little theater or playing soccer or other team sports, things where I might come across as dorky or incompetent, all these stay out there and I watch them through the bars and wish I could do them well without having to work at it and show people I don’t know what I’m doing.

This sounds whiny to me when I say it, and someone in here disapproves of my exposing this part of myself to scrutiny, either by myself or by others, and this disapproval is just one more example of that whole “have to look good” attitude, another very sturdy bar in what’s left of my personal jail.

Someone in here just observed that we build our jails mostly for protection against the scary stuff we believe is out there instead of deliberately trying to imprison ourselves. It’s only when we take off some of our blinders and observe our lives without justifications, rationalizations, or making excuses that we see that we’re hiding out in a prison of our own making. Onward, fearless and bold (yeah, I wish) …

Hmmm … so our jails are sometimes (maybe usually) our hideouts from the world. This is going in a different direction than I’d intended to go, but exploring works that way, I think. So where have I gone to hide and then found myself feeling imprisoned? Marriage to or hooking up with the wrong person(s) for the wrong reasons … loneliness, mistaking lust for love, trying to use it as an escape from myself, as a drug, a fix for a life that felt fundamentally flawed, bad, hopeless.

Not exactly the best recipe for a fulfilling relationship, being angry at my partner because life still sucked, blaming them for not making me feel better (and choosing someone who did the same in my direction). Children throwing tantrums because they’re unhappy and want someone else to fix it, believing that if they can only find the right person, things will be all better without them having to deal with their own stinkin’ thinkin’ (as they say in AA), each trying to make their partner play the role of rescuer, nurturer, good mommy/daddy while they themselves get to play the role of spoiled, bratty, unhappy, demanding, lost child … this is not a jail you want to do time in. I guarantee it.

Ditto for other drugs of choice, other refuges that turn out to be jails … drinking, drugging, screwing around, looking for the perfect high or relationship or person or philosophy or religion or social group or leader to follow, or whatever might give a quick fix. The fear of growing up, of not being able to make the grade as an adult, of failing (at anything, at everything) … the beliefs about myself and the world underlying those fears … doing hard time in solitary, never realizing that I have the key and can leave at any time (scary thought, that).

The fear of freedom and its scary twin, responsibility; the fear of really loving and then having to deal with grief and loss; the fear of sadness, regret; so many fears. I think the most potent bars on our individual jails are made from fear; the fear itself, and the fear of facing that fear. Easier to stay imprisoned, easier to make excuses, easier to pooh-pooh the idea that we can ever be really free within our own skins.

Speaking of skin … this feels like a wrap. I can’t wait for the next exciting chapter! Ciao.