Me First

When I wrote Fuckit at the end of last year, I had no idea what it really meant.  I knew that I was tired.  I knew that I was angry.  I knew that I was sad.  Mostly I knew that I was tired of being angry and sad.  So, while I was writing the blog post, I started thinking about all of the things that made me feel out of control.  I wrote down everything that had happened to me or that I had seen and wanted to control, but couldn't.  I just couldn't.  So I wrote it all down, put it in a bucket, doused it with lighter fluid and burned that shit in the middle of the street at 12:01 on New Year's day.

That's kind of a long prelude to my point, but it will have relevance later.  At least I hope it will.  When I wrote Fuckit, I had been through a year of shit.  Not just a year.  A lot of years.  Probably five or six.  Maybe, more accurately, closer to 35 years.  But I was at the end of it all.  I knew I was and I looked to a lot of different people to validate my thoughts and my feelings.  And out of nowhere, there were people validating my thoughts and feelings.  Likely, those people were there the whole time, but I never saw them until I was ready to see it.

You might wonder what that means.  Being "validated".  It means that enough of the meaningful people around me saw how much I had been giving to others' ideas, to misguided intentions, to absentee friends and lovers.  They saw that I was ready to let it all go.  That I FINALLY needed to give some of it back.  To myself.

In those very volatile days at the end of December, I found a lot of signs that pointed me back towards me.  I realize that sounds as vague as "validation" sounds.  But there were people there.  Reminding me that I have been investing too much in everything around me.  Not the important things either.  I had been investing in the things that I have NO FUCKING CONTROL OVER.  Things like other people and their shitty outlooks.  Things like people who don't take responsibility for their actions.  Things like people who are awful because they don't get laid enough.  I have no control over those things, but because I have a vibrator and a big heart, I thought I could own it all.  All of it.

I had no idea how exhausting it was to try to own everything, until I could barely get out of bed in the morning.  When it's in your nature to take care of others, it's really hard to find a way to take care of yourself.  It's really hard to put yourself first.  It isn't natural.  It feels selfish and awkward.  When you are a caretaker and an advocate for everyone else, you forget that you need care and advocacy too.  So much so that it feels like charity when someone cuts you some slack.

Anyway, back to the fuckit bucket.  I waited until the New Year to burn it because that was my way of pissing on 2014.  That year didn't get the privilege of seeing me set it's bullshit on fire.  It was also exerting my dominance on 2015.  Kind of like I was saying "Look bitch.  See what I did to the last year?  You better be nice."  It probably seems crazy.  Like Girl Interrupted crazy.  But it was the final move in a four year mind fucking game with myself.  It was my way of finally taking control of what I could control:  me.

Me first.

-Inner Peas