Bass and the Movement

Such a swell and crisis of emotion around me these last few weeks. But now as the clouds part I see things with much more clarity than I really ever have. The kind of real honest truth that makes me know every other time in my life when I thought I really knew something, I only half knew it. Since graduation my life has been in upheaval. My friends retreated to their respective corners of the globe, my world fell apart when my wallet was stolen, I experienced an unprecedented tidal wave of men wanting to date me, and most scarily – I started applying for real jobs. The gravity of this was something I was not prepared for and it knocked the wind out of me. I’ve had jobs before, I’ve been in this career for a while – but now I’m a professional, now I’m accountable. And now what people expect from me is performance at the level of excellence because that’s what it means to go to school and learn to do something. I’m no longer this rogue kid who blew everyone away with her talent and intelligence – Scores of coworkers and employers baffled and amazed by the abilities coming from someone so young. I’m still young, yes, but that constant ego boost of being amazing and talented beyond what was expected of me may well be over. Maybe to that degree of intensity. It was scary to think of just being good enough and being like the thousands of other social workers that just graduated from a school in NYC this spring. But I look around and speak to my peers and they aren’t having jobs thrown at them the way I am. I should have all the confidence in the world. Everyone I interview with loves me. This frightened me too. I started to question my judgement and what I really wanted to do and I started turning down jobs – yes plural, yes in this economy, yes in a field where our professors said we’d be lucky to piece together per diem jobs. In addition there was the issue of how never in the history of my life have I been able to commit. Every job, every relationship, I’m always on to the next thing in my mind. Nothing was ever stimulating enough. I could never hold it together and feel sane long enough to stay. I always went into a very dark place. Confusion about whose fault it was – mine or theirs. Regardless I was in pain for such a long time and couldn’t find continuity in my life anywhere – friends, lovers, interests, jobs, family – I couldn’t stand still and I didn’t know what the monsters were that gnawed at my tired brain when I was alone in my room. This sheen of anxiety on the face of everything I saw. I couldn’t see through it to really see how my pieces fit in the world and most often decided I just wasn’t meant to live. And faced with this new journey – this seemingly permanent commitment – I panicked. Things grew dark again. I broke off dates, my commitment to boxing, and any ties I had to my confident self. Since graduation I decided to make time for more therapy, more friends. I need to develop these broken, scared parts of myself so that they can catch up with the rest of me and my potential. From these weeks of intensive introspection and socialization, I’ve deduced that I don’t have a history that is conducive to allowing me to trust myself. I could go into how and why but it’s all really in this journal everywhere anyway. The point is, I got it. The lights clicked on and things slowly but surely are making more sense to me. I’m allowing my self fragility and vulnerability and fear. I’m allowing my childhood to be what it was and trying to understand myself in the context of it. I’m giving myself a goddamn break. Easing up on my aching psyche has really effected some serious change. I can’t quite explain it, but the cobwebs don’t quite veil my eyes like they used to. It’s a slow process, always, but I see progress. For the first time in my life real, legitimate progress. I’m still full of fear and pain and sadness that I haven’t’ even touched yet, but just knowing that is some kind of power I can’t even explain. One by one the inner workings of my parts are revealed and I turn this awesome capacity for empathy that I have inward and use it for myself. When I get muddy and perplexed at my own reflection and the course of my life and wondering do I even have a life at all – I have a knowledge that this is normal given what I’ve been through, and instead of hating myself for being so unclear, I allow it, I accept it. Mindfulness is a fucking beautiful thing. This is a permanent kind of thing. I’m always going to fight depression, I don’t know many intelligent people who don’t, but I believe in the power of understanding your pieces. I believe in the uprooting, cleansing, gutting force of what it is to know yourself truly. Of giving yourself a fucking break.