Sand Castle called pity

While I might not even make it into the top five or so blogs, I have the most enthusiastic readers and that makes me very very happy. Thank you all so much. Here’s a link to the koufaks best writing. Here’s the email address wampum @ nic-naa.net. (subject line add: Koufax) Want to say something else, I’m probably the only blogger who truly loves lurkers. Lots of people only want to read, can’t think of something to comment about, or just don’t want to. I truly understand. This will be my last post until Tuesday–I hope 😉 Put in a page about the very sad life and death of Terri Schiavo. It is cross posted at BIO Cranky updated on the awards; please read that also. Read everything in BIO, it’s good for you.

Would also like to thank the amazing Anna of Pixel Forte for saving Courting from death, and thus saving my life!

Good things that happen to me make me nervous. I spend a lot of time waiting for something to go wrong. When things go as planned or better, I wonder why. Yet nothing horrible usually occurs. Understanding that this is irrational helps but doesn’t make the feelings go away.

I wish that I were a person who could settle for something, anything mundane. But I have been practicing my Academy Award speech for Best Actress most of my life and have never had any desire to be an actress. I want glitz, I want glamour. I want to live a cloistered life far from people.

I had taught myself contentment yet for the past several months I have been feeling restless and scared. I feel awkward as I push to the stars only to find myself mired in mud. The mud miraculously disappears leaving me outwardly cleansed and inwardly inflamed and fuming.

Life used to be so much easier. I could delude myself into believing in tomorrow. One day I realized that today is tomorrow. Each day on earth should be lived to the fullest. But what is the fullest? Many people seem to believe that if they had they had my life they would do this, that, anything but what I do at that moment.

Other peoples opinions were just that, opinions that I could take, leave, make light of, ponder or ignore. Now they seem to matter too much. I want to spend my vacation reading, walking and doing a great deal of nothing. But this person insists that I do this, that person insists that I do something else.

For various reasons I haven’t been able to relax since I arrived here. When I come home with few pictures and great stories I will be an obvious disappointment as I have been so many times in the past decade.
“This is Pia. She could have been somebody. People used to think that she was.”

Yeah I was a contender, but I was never certain what category I was contending for. I guess I still am, but I spend so much time trying to live up to expectations that I accomplish nothing but fall down the slippery slope. It’s as if I’m going through a second adolescence but without the safety net of a loving family.

There is somebody in my personal life to whom I can never ever do anything right. While I know that’s not my problem, and I own my own life, foibles, fables, accomplishments and all, a part of me, a rather large part of me, still wants to please a person who truly believes that life is a series of chores, and joy is something to be earned and doled out in small quantities.

Everything has a caveat; everything has a dark side. It is those things that I’m supposed to focus on rather than the joy. When we talk I’m supposed to listen to the lectures, listen to this person’s problems but I am not allowed to talk back. I know the easy solution; the one every therapist and self help book recommends, cut the person out.

But for many reasons that I don’t feel comfortable spelling out here I can’t. Yes I didn’t plan this trip properly. But I have been feeling so drained for so long that I just couldn’t. Is that a crime? To this person it is.

I could win the Nobel Peace Prize and to him/her it would be a minor accomplishment, not something worth celebrating. Because I probably didn’t suffer enough to truly earn it. Well hell, I never set out to be Mother Teresa

I used to feel accomplished; now I no longer feel worthy. I feel as if I’m betraying him/her by writing these words in my blog named Courting Destiny. It’s better known than I am now.

I understand that this person only sees me through his/her eyes.
“I want you to come over. Without you here I won’t feel complete. I need you here to make it a real celebration.”
Yet what about my needs? My wants.

Oh but that’s different. I don’t have a child; I don’t have a spouse. My needs and wants are less important. I’m not contributing to society. When I bring up my needs and wants, I am cut off. Last night I called to talk about some good things. Somehow the conversation quickly changed to the direction he/she wanted it to go. Out of dire frustration, I screamed “shut up.”

How dare I do that, how dare I talk about good things that happen to me when I am so unimportant? Don’t I understand that unmarried people without dependent children and no money woes have no problems. Not that this person has real money problems. Compared to 95% of the country he/she is doing just fine. But if five percent of the population is doing better, then he/she is doing poorly.

I sound as if I’m exaggerating; I wish I were. I have spent so many years hearing about his/her problems and my negative traits, I have become enveloped in them. They have begun to become true. Yes I know that is wrong. Yes I know that I and I alone control my fate. But I have the type of personality that picks up the vibes around me and places them deep into my soul.

My writing has been suffering and my writing is the only thing that makes me feel whole. I went away to try to find some perspective and instead I have become much more deeply immersed. This person recently told me that I must have made the worst social worker in history as I have no empathy. I know that not to be true, yet….

When I come home everybody will tell me what a mistake I made. I should have gone here; I should have done that. “What do you mean your hotel has no sand beach. How can you possibly…? And of course the hotel must have a courtesy vehicle to take you…” My vacation, other peoples wants and needs. Can’t even take a simple vacation without disappointing half of New York–that is an exaggeration.

I have been writing deeply personal, deeply revealing things lately; it takes a toll. I needed a break; I got a nomination.

To anybody else that would be a cause for rejoicing. To me it’s a cause for soul searching. Why me? I have only worked twelve to fifteen hours a day, surely I should have put in another three. My writing can’t be good, it’s mine after all. Every other person is better. Not true and I know it

The one thing that I have always believed in is my ability to put words together, but lately they sound like letters strung together for the sake of stringing them together. It goes back to childhood of course. But I am just too tired to continue.

I feel so sad that I can’t be content, that I can’t simply relax. Why do I even care what other people think? And damn it, yes, I had no idea that an oceanfront hotel didn’t have a sand beach. It really really wasn’t something that even entered my mind. That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have to hear about it constantly from other people. But I will, yes I will.

My mistakes must be talked about for forty or more years; my accomplishments must be negated. It’s some kind of rule that nobody showed me in the handbook to living my life.

I don’t feel it proper for me to have a pity party in Courting, but sometimes I just can’t do proper. I don’t do middle aged well. I read some blogs filled with advice and faux wisdom, and all I can think, is what do you know? Do you honestly believe that because you turned a certain age and lived a certain life you have the right to tell other people how to feel or to act? I have the credentials and would never be so certain of myself that I would deem to tell others how to live. One size doesn’t fit everyone.

I thank all of you who care so much and cheer me on. It means a lot and helps make things better. And please don’t hate me for whining. I just need to reclaim my center; get my confidence back, stop feeling so vulnerable, and I will very very soon.

I can promise you that; oh yes I will. Just give me three more days of going to the beach, and I will be back better than ever. That’s all it really takes me–great beach time. I’m easy that way, and nastier than the snarkiest bitch alive when I can’t spend a day covering my feet in sand.

Do have some great surprises awaiting. At least I think I do.

And no this post wasn’t about you, you, or you. It was about me, me, and more me–have always been harder on myself than anybody else could be.