A fellow blogger (who will remain nameless) recently came to NYC for work and invited me to join her and some other bloggers for a meet and greet. I’d never met this woman, but we’ve started a blogging connection as I am a fan of her writing, and I make comments on her posts. She is gracious enough to respond and we’ve had a mini dialogue.
She invited me to a cocktail get together and I was really excited for the opportunity. It seemed like a lot of fun to meet this woman, and the other bloggers and put faces and personality to the voices that I read online. I worked to make it work in my schedule, which is complicated, and began to envision what it would be like to meet these people, and how the evening might go. And I thought about how thrilling it would be to be live and in person with more or less total strangers with whom I could bare my dark secrets and outrageous stories.
And then doubt set it. Unfortunately for me lately I have a lot of time to think. I enjoy thinking most of the time, and am proud of my intelligence. But then there are times that I really think waaaaaay too much. I began to worry about what the other women bloggers would think about me and my story. My blog clearly chronicles my infidelity and my completely dastardly and self-centered exploits. I know that people these days are very comfortable and often very supportive of alternative sexuality and new definitions of self, but I also know that many many people have a visceral reaction to cheating. Even though so many people have affairs, if you’ve been the victim of one, or know someone who has it often leaves a bitter taste and you can’t condone it. I worried that I would make things awkward and I didn’t want to do that and ruin a good time for everyone else.
In my doubt about my desire to go I allowed myself to be roped into family plans for that evening, and didn’t say no. Before I said anything to keep my options open, plans were made and I was no longer free to get away. And thats when I got really mad at myself.
I have come to learn that my biggest limitation in my life is my own self doubt. Before my affair and all the counseling that went along with it I used to be very confident, and always had a devil may care attitude about just about anything. It hid a deep deep well of insecurity and low self esteem, but I was superbly confident about the things I was confident about. Likewise, if something doesn’t involve me personally I can see it clearly and have excellent judgement about it. The minute it involves me personally though forget about it. My judgement goes out the window and my confidence goes right with it. I start making irrational choices and impulsive decisions, or worse, make no decision at all.
The counselor told me that it stems from my childhood and the general neglect I suffered. My childhood is far beyond me, and I am responsible for my actions, but still now I can see the mistakes happen and the doubt creep in where before it would have happened but I wouldn’t have been aware. Now I can see it though and often can’t stop it, the feelings and the action fill me with a special kind of rage that is aimed at myself.
Its a little like falling over a cliff and being unable to stop it, except you are the one flinging yourself off the cliff. They say that only you can make you happy, and that is entirely true. But what do you do when you can’t make yourself happy. When you can’t come to peace with yourself, and your very actions fill you with anger, and you’re the only one to blame? Its a frustrating place to be in, made all the more frustrating by the understanding that I did it to myself.
I work to avoid such behavior and I work to make things better for myself, but time and again I make the same mistakes. It feels a little like what I imagine being and alcoholic must feel like. You don’t want to drink. You know drinking is bad. Yet still you reach for the drink and poison your life. Instead of reaching for the bottle, I figure out a way to shoot myself in the foot.
Somehow I have to find a way to get back to the confident and take charge self I used to be since I can’t seem to come to terms with the me that I am now. The problem is that I can’t be confident in myself when I have come to be so judgmental of my decisions and my choices and I have so often stopped listening to my gut when that is precisely what I should be listening to.