Trickcyclist revisited

My youngest sista Billie (12) has an amazing comedic ability. On the weekend, she was recounting a shaggy dog story about herself. Her ridiculously bright  imagination would conjur up the most outrageous incidents (it reminded me of reading Voltaire’s Candide, where the most optimist and enthustiastic young man encountered everything that could possibly go wrong in his life). With each new woe or misfortune that she made up, she would shrug her shoulders and repeat like a mantra in her funny old man accent, "Other than that… I’m fine".

 It went along the lines of:

Anyway, I’m so fat, I can’t touch my toes, or wipe my bum….. but other than that, I’m fine.

OK, so I was diagnosed with the plague and have cankers all over my body…. but other than that, I’m fine.

Alright, so I fell down the cliff and my dog died…. but other than that, I’m fine.

So, I lost all my worldly possessions and I can’t remember my name…. but other than that, I’m fine.

I have made an appointment to go back to my shrink for next Tuesday. It feels as though the lexapro isn’t touching the sides. Do you remember that Ween song? "Spiral Menangitis gets me down". I often get that tune in my head and sing Suicidal Ideations gets me down. Just have to let them float in and float on out. Observe the messages but don’t act on them. A detached response to all of those "What’s the point", and "What is the meaning of all this" thoughts.

I have to confess to a colleague tomorrow about my social phobia so I don’t have to lie to her to get out of the dinner invitation she made me for Friday night.

Study has been one good thing in my life. Two out of the three subjects I am taking this semester are really interesting. One is about Adult Educational Psychology. The other is about Identity and Culture.

The identity and culture subject again made me reflect on how we are all made up of millions of iterations of our former selves. We get stuck on ideas of who we are. We get stuck in our own narrative about our life.

Writing a diary sometimes can produce the opposite effect. The last diary I kept here, I started to create a new self, one that took risks and was adventurous, that could leave everything behind to pursue an idea a story.

Perhaps that was just a manic episode for me, gallavanting around the globe to meet other diarists. When push came to shove, I collapsed when I left behind my friends, family, home, job, partner, belongings. I had nothing but time on my hands to be alone, to think, to reflect, to obsess and to refine my identity.

I have been stuck there since. My identity now is one that defines me at once as broken, wounded, gullible, romantic, cynical, magical thinking, violence and war hating, distrusting of people, betrayed, used, alienated, feeling disconnected, without community or communion with another person.

Other than that… I’m fine.