Out Loud Diary (Heretofore known as OLD News)

Guess I am doing better. Better than what that last post might let on.

But I only guess, hard to tell for sure.

My life is seeming pretty full, that should be good, I think. But I am just not sure that I like what it is full of. Some of it smells like shit. Job for sure could be better. Doing nothing = feeling like nothing. More often than not anyhow. As my wise old sister (wink, wink, she ain't that old) once said, "Sounds like a pretty toxic environment." Understatement. Consider me a friggin' biohazard why don't ya? I think I am leaking onto people around me.

Then there is this current self-esteem issue. So old to me, so wrinkled. I thought I had banished it to the basement of my life like that dude in Austria did his first daughter and all their creepy incest kids. Only it SHOULD be there.

Damn that boy for unlocking that dark dark door, and letting old issues out of their dark dark room and up that dark dark stair and into my life. Which, at moments now, feels awfully dark dark. A certain sense of self that has taken me years to cultivate, I would have liked to think was unshakeable--it was, after all, well-nurtured by several years and a couple of exceptionally lucky relationships with people who truly built me up and treated me well. We loved.

Damn me for letting him, because here I am, shaken. I mean, I am practically fizzing.

I keep doing all the cardinal no-no's. Respeaking conversations, reliving moments, rereading messages, picking apart my every word, move, attitude, feeling, trait and quality. Generally kicking the shit out of myself. Even WITH that smart, rational voice that normally tells my friends not to do that coming through loud and clear in my brain. But I can't stop.

I am suddenly and compulsively doubting me. Everything about me. My sense of humor, my nose, my sense of style, my body, what books I read, my kindness, my opinions, my hobbies, what I have done and what I want to do in life, my lifestyle choices, my hair, my goals, my intelligence, my glasses.

What I bring to the table. Suddenly it doesn't feel like much.

Despite people all around me, things all around me, and my whole life behind me that suggests otherwise.

This is me according to you.

And all the while I KNOW I am too damn smart to let this get to me like that. And my mature, been through a lot worse, been through this bullshit before self is fighting it. Keeping busy (except when the black hole that is my work is in the picture, an unfortunately huge portion of my life), working out, TRYING to eat right, get involved in even more new things, spend as little time as possible sitting and picking myself apart.

I do all right. I am not mopey, I have great friends and great family and a great time, most of the time. But every once in a while, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a night, sometimes for only a few seconds, I really want to cry and not understand and sort of understand and want to know why and not want to know and always just wish it was away...away...away.

Every so often, I am just dying.