too much stupid theory
I've noticed that I get the night crankies. Just like my hair, I start relatively smooth and good natured and end up snarled, nasty, and tangled by the end of the day. I bristle and pick fights, I mope and wade through self pity. I snipe and kvetch. I feel cooped up and discontent, but I don't move from the computer chair. I feel lonely and wretched, but I don't sit out in the hall or call a friend. I finally cry myself to sleep (and I've started going to bed earlier, just so that I can avoid this whole thing).
I wake up and the world is beautiful again.
There's this recurring theme, though, which bothers me, and which I fear is more than just a symptom of the night crankiest. It's this feeling that I should ideally hold myself to the highest standards of thoughtfulness and forgiveness. And not only should my ideal self embody all those things I find virtuous, my ideal self would be so good that she would look past the faults of others, always. Did you get that? That's the important part, right there - I should be so virtuous and so good that I can look past it when other people are not.
I expect everything from myself and markedly less from other people - because its the sympathetic thing to do. To not be anal about other people, to not be nitpicky and critical of them, to not be unforgiving, to not turn up my nose. Bile rose in my throat when I listened to a man tell me explicitly that the people around him didn't live up to his standards. I wanted to throttle him, and say "Can't you just accept them and love them for what they are?" because that is what I think he should do. It's what I think I should do. How imposing that would have been, how wrong that would have been to say. It's my instinct, but I feel it's wrong to feel like that. My ideal self never would have judged him so harshly for saying that. My ideal self wouldn't have notched him two steps down in my esteem-o-meter.
I'm afraid that it sounds snooty - the idea that I'm capable of living up to this ideal, but no one else is, so I'll just be accepting of your failures. It shouldn't. I don't really think I'm capable of living up to it, I just think I should. (Really, deep down, I think you should too. Saying that is unfair, and not saying that is snooty.)
I expect everything from myself and nothing from other people so that I should be continually surprised by the good things in other people. It doesn't sound like such a bad plan. But deep down, I do expect things from other people (and in turn am so deeply disappointed when they are not there). I have no pet peeves, and expect you not to either. (Ideal self wouldn't expect this and would accept the fact that you do get annoyed.) I expect you to be as open and as easy to please as I am, I expect you not to be bitter, not to be abrasive. I try so hard not to, but I can't just let that slide.
Some of the girls say I shouldn't look the other way like this. That I shouldn't even bother forgiving people for those bad things - cause they're serious bad things and I don't need to be friends with people who offend my sensibilities like that. They warn that I could be treated like a doormat. They remind me that I have good things about me and I shouldn't be holding myself to insane standards like this - they say it isn't fair to myself. They rub my back with words and I start to feel a little better, and I start to lighten up and smile a little. They say that I'm okay. I am okay, I am okay. I need to just relax and be human. I will rock in their arms and I will know that I don't have to do everything and I will be okay.
I guess the danger in being as unrealistic as I've been is that it you will crack and fume and it will not be pretty.
Did any of this make sense?
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My nipples are flaking and dry. Winter has turned me into a lizard - now all I need is my hot rock. I rubbed my fingers over the stretch marks on my stomach, and said lazily "I have fire in my belly," and it is true (they look like flames), but just not figuratively speaking.
2000-12-03, too much theory
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