I Will Not Bend, I Will Not Break.

I’m either on the verge of a breakthrough or a breakdown.

That’s what I keep telling myself. Maybe they’re the same thing. Maybe they’re somehow distantly related, third cousins that grew up in different corners of the country. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough or a breakdown. It’s becoming my mantra. The idea I cling to when everything feels so fucked that just breathing feels like an accomplishment. When eating a meal and keeping it in my stomach was the most I could do that day. Because every tired cliché tells us hardship leads to reward: the dark before the dawn, the final push on the homestretch.

Source: http://athleticbusiness.com

A friend recently surprised me with a letter. She reminded me that I can walk, breathe on my own, see all the beauty this world has to offer. She reminded me that I can hula hoop on a rooftop and sing at the top of my lungs. I’ve never mastered the mechanics of hula hooping, but I get the point.

She ended with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

Whether I want it or not, this world has given me freedom to choose my own path.

My life to-date has been a sequence of fortuitous events, or the culmination of somebody else’s efforts.  I went to college because my high school English teacher threw me in a van, drove me the 30 miles to Missoula and stood over my shoulder while I filled out my admissions paperwork. I studied Anthropology because my friends studied Anthropology. Relationships came easily. They fell into my life one after the other and I followed my passions with no thought for consequences. Fate was a convenient excuse. Fate let me justify my selfish and destructive behavior. When Fate wasn’t around to play scapegoat, I had alcohol to blame for my poor decision making.

Portland has been my first attempt at self-determination, and thus far I’ve bungled it marvelously. I’ve been dragging my feet waiting for the blue heron dream. I’ve been waiting for Fate to giftwrap the future and drop it in my lap, to present me with the perfect opportunity. You guys. Destiny is bullshit. Well, sometimes she’s a girl you meet at C.C. Slaughters, but that’s a different story.

My past, that knotted mess of good luck and bad decisions, is tangled up with regrets. I own the things I’ve done. I realize that I am capable of devastating cruelty. I understand now that no action exists in a vacuum. Every time I have hurt myself it has also hurt the people who love me most. But I refuse to be a one-dimensional character in my own life story. I’ve been an object, a pawn, a lover and a villain. Sometimes all of those things before breakfast. I think things start to get confused when we attempt to be both narrator and protagonist in our own lives. There’s a conflict of interests, things get muddled when we attempt to manipulate our experiences as plot-devices. I know that I have hurt myself just to keep the story interesting. I imagine I’m not the only one.

We’re conditioned to overcome adversity. Finish strong, get back on the horse, roll with the punches. I feel most alive during the struggle, even if I’m only wrestling with myself. To stop fighting or worse yet, have nothing worth fighting for or against, terrifies me.  Happiness has always been my greatest challenge. Nobody warns you how hard it can be when things are easy.

I think what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry. I’m sorry I keep throwing myself into the deep end just to see if I can still swim. I have decided to stop fighting Happiness, because in the end it’s some weird Fight Club mind fuck and I’m only beating the shit out of myself, alone in a dark basement. I’m going to accept that I am something worth saving. But more importantly, maybe there’s nothing to be saved from but myself.  

In the semi-eternal words of Tammy Curry: I’m a winner. Nobody can stop me, but me (and maybe exploding threshers, but that’s beside the point). And don’t forget:

Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/r2zQr

I love you creeps. 

-b