30 Days of Getting Your Ass Kicked: Day 2

" By tossing out the old and unworkable, we make way for the new and suitable. When the search and discard impulse seizes you, two crosscurrents are at work: the old you is leaving and grieving, while the new you celebrates and grows strong. As with any rupture there is both tension and relief. Long seated depression breaks up like an ice-floe. Long Frozen feelings thaw, melt, cascade, flood and often overrun their container (you). You may find yourself feeling volatile and changeable. You are.

Be prepared for bursts of tears and laughter. A certain giddiness may accompany certain stabs of loss. Think of yourself as an accident victim walking away from the crash: your old life has crashed and burned: your new life isn't apparent yet. You may feel yourself to be temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking."

 

This is my favorite section of the whole of The Artist's Way. Today was a day where all that depression broke up like and ice-flow. There's a challenge on Superbetter that asks to take a risk. Just a small step forward towards what you've been working on. I realized this whole past year, starting when I turned 25, has been a long period of recovery. I've been trying to work on my art by working on my life and its had mixed results. Today I was vulnerable, even if I only read my whole story back to myself. I pinpointed so much of my misery back to one relationship. And its hard because nobody means to do that much damage to someone. But it just happens. It was odd because she was the person who gave me The Artist's Way and she's the exact kind of person the book encourages you to get rid of. It not to say that all my misery came from her, but when you take the step to change, it shakes up everything in your life and the sensation of feeling so changeable is once in a blue moon. 

 

I came to all these decisions and revelations largely without anyone knowing. I worked a long shift today, wished all the guests a Jolly Saint Patrick's day and high fived everyone all while processing a major shift. When I drove home after cutting this person out (on my lunch break) so many of the criticisms I used to apply to myself were gone. I mean this whole year I've been waking up at night feeling like I haven't done enough. 25 is still such a scary age today when you consider that Orson Welles was 25 when he made Citizen Kane and now I'm close to 26 but today I looked back at the year, thought about my standup, the friends I've made and I felt like "Oh I did pretty well". And what this has to do with the toxic person I said goodbye to is this: with this person I was always feeling like I needed to do more, but not for me, to show her how great I am, but this whole feeling of not being enough melted away as soon as I decided once and for all that this person didn't matter. 'I am enough' is what I found myself thinking. All the self doubt and soul searching was part of the process. So what? I took a year to breath and recover, smell flowers, travel, meet people, do comedy, blog, cry, punch walls, and so on. I'm okay with what I've done...I think...

 

My friend Charlotte had a hand in helping me wipe this person off my FB. She wrote me a message from my perspective. 

  

Hi my name is Greg and I hereby promise myself to not try to look her up again

I'm a cool dude and I don't need no girl who aint got time for me, cause you can be sure as hell i aint got time for them

btw im awesome and my name is greg.