What does it mean to embrace a beautiful, sh*tty life?
I figured out that life is made up of beautiful and equally sh*tty moments. It's crazy, one moment I could literally feel SO good. I mean NOTHING can get me down. I'm walking taller, I feel solid in my foot steps and not a care in the world. Then, like a switch, I find myself feeling scared. I start to ask myself questions like, "Why are you so happy? What makes you so special? You live with your mom and you're a single mother." Then as quickly as it came, my smile is gone. This beautiful moment has now been replaced with the most sh*tty feeling.
Why? Why does this happen? There has to be an evolutionary reason for why humans like to feel sh*tty. I'm told all the time that without the sh*tty moments you wouldn't know how beautiful the good moments are. I get it. The Yin and Yang. But I can't help but wonder, what if I started to embrace the sh*tty moments? Would they turn into something better? What if I let myself be taken over by the overwhelming feeling of self doubt, self loathing and self hatred? What would happen? Would I explode? Would I be able to make it out alive?
I've been practicing letting my world fall apart. I start feeling those negative thoughts enter my mind and I let them take over. I let the, "You're a failure", "You're a drug addict", "No one likes you" voices do their thing. I casually let them slide on into my thought process. I don't run from them. I don't take a shot of tequila. I don't smoke a joint. I don't do a line of cocaine and I don't watch TV to hide from the horrible little voices. Isn't that what they are? Just little voices? They're not so big and tough. I feel like I can take them. I'm bigger and stronger than them. So I sit down, I straighten my back and I just listen.
What are they saying anyway? Once I started to pay attention to them, it turns out they're other peoples voices. They're voices of my friends and family, they're pictures of my instagram feed, they're all of these outside sources that aren't ME.
Then I start to hear MY voice from deep within the crowd. I hear my voice saying, "So what if I live with mom, I f*cking love her more than anyone", "So what I used drugs and alcohol everyday. I've been sober for over a year", "So what if no one likes me, I like me".
I'm noticing that everyone has something beautifully, sh*tty to say. Especially about my parenting capabilities. They like to say how I'm not dressing her warm enough, I'm feeding her too much, or I'm holding her too much. I know these words that they are saying mean well, but they just annoy me. I know I'm not doing everything beautifully, that's the sh*tty part of reality. Nothing is ever perfect, especially while being a mom.
It's exhausting this mother thing. It's exhausting doing it sober. I want to be like the others that get to quiet their voices. Just open up a nice bottle of wine and POOF no more doubting yourself. I want to run. I want to dance and be free.
But I'm not. I've finally decided to take the hard way out. It's easy to run. It's easy to stay numb and not care. It's easy to find strength and confidence while drunk. That's the most confident I've ever been, was while I was sh*t faced drunk, not giving a f*ck about anyone but ME. There is no ME anymore. I have a baby, two babies actually. I have the one that I birthed, then I have the one inside of me that I've been silencing for too long. I have two little girls to care for now.
I have my beautiful daughter and I have my sh*tty self. My daughter is so pure, so untouched. I'm so rough and wrinkly, you can see the age on my face. You can see every drink I've ever had, every line of cocaine I've ever snorted, every guy I've touched. But I ask myself, is this beauty? Is beauty embracing the sh*tty things I've done?
Can I somehow make peace with the fact that I care now? I hate caring. I miss not caring.
Can I somehow make peace with all of my thoughts I now have? I hate thinking. I miss not thinking. Can I silence all of these thoughts without the help of drugs, alcohol and sex? I'm not sure. But I'm trying it out. I hate it, and I love it. It's confusing. IT'S ALL SO CONFUSING!
I'm going to continue to let my world fall apart and not try to put it back together and make it pretty and shiny. I'm going to let the dust and grime do their thing. It's not up to me to keep it all together. My together isn't always TOGETHER.
I like simplicity I'm figuring out. I like wearing the same clothes everyday and not washing my hair. I like to be opened. Meaning, I like to express myself with curse words, I like to get dirty, I like to play and laugh, I like to cry and be recluse. I like being all over the map. Not just one or two things.
We are complicated creatures. We are beautiful and we are sh*tty. That has to be my motto now; I am beautiful and I am sh*tty.
I am beautiful in showing myself compassion and being vulnerable. I am not sh*tty, I've done sh*tty things.
I'm going to say it again. I am BEAUTIFUL and I've done sh*tTY things.
