Don't we all have mornings where we look in the mirror and think this: I look like absolute shit. Well, I suppose I don't know if you do, but I do, for sure. Had that thought this morning. And yesterday. I suppose we all have some sort of old mental tape that plays over and over in the mind. Maybe the tapes are different, but they creep up on us at the strangest times.
Mental tapes. Maybe some girl wakes up terrified of work because when she was little her father told her she would never succeed and every day, she battles this demon (coworker). Some kid at the U.S. border wonders if he'll ever see his parents again because throughout his entire life, the outside world has stripped him of relatives, one by one, with no fucking warning (coworker). Some older woman (my grandma) collects canned goods because when she was little, there was no food in the house. Some man ferociously cleans his car at the self-service wash, even though he already did it once that day, because when he was little, his father lost it all gambling, and the message is clear to him: the work is never enough (friend). And deep inside me, there are still the remnants of myself as a little girl, depressed and full of self-hatred.
The tapes play on; they creep up on us in the strangest moments. Some people are never aware of these tapes. Others are. Awareness can be a beast...over time, I've worked to fight against these negative mental tapes, and there's been great progress, but I suppose we all carry the deepest ones with us for years...maybe some of us hold on to them our entire lives.
These days, I mainly battle self-esteem issues and fear. What makes me most afraid? It changes, but lately, judgment of my life and body, and the fear of being stuck. Trapped.
But there's something miraculous within all of this -- with all of these highs and lows, with all of these battles within us -- these pains can bring us together, when we share what lies beneath.
And so, I share with you.
C.A. MacConnell
