Some Stern Advice to Self

SNAP OUT OF IT.

Ever have to give yourself some harsh advice?  I know, I know.  If you know me, you know that I am frequently giving myself too-harsh advice and being over-critical and way too hard on myself.  But sometimes, ok maybe alot of the time, I allow myself flights of fancy that feel really good and exciting, but end up hurting when reality can't hope to live up to fantasy.

Remember that old house I wanted to buy and fix up?  My dream home?  Sigh.  Like that.  Or, remember how I wanted to start a school of performing arts?  Or, remember how I agonized about not getting to live in the best apartment in the building?  Its like I allow myself all this daydreaming, imagine how life COULD be IF ONLY...., but the If Only almost never seems to be within my grasp.  Or at all realistic.  And all these burgeoning hopes and fledgling dreams have to be put down. And every time it feels a little bit like slaying an innocent.  A bright-eyed, hopeful, simple innocent, who never even sees it coming.  It's like I have my very own George and Lenny inside my head, and nobody wants to kill the big guy, he can't help it, you know?  It's just his nature.  What was he really guilty of?  Of loving too much and too clumsily?  But if you don't shoot him in the back of the skull there will inevitably be more accidental casualties, right?  Big rough hands that don't know their own strength, big hands that reach for things they shouldn't, things that are too delicate, too fragile, too precious.

So in the interest of self preservation you shoot that childlike side of you in the back of the head. 

And move on.  A little saddened.  A little jaded?  And alot lonlier for a time.

So.  Snap out of it.  Get a grip.  Knock it off.  Wake up.  And move the fuck on.

Nobody needs a melancholy, moody, taciturn mother fucker moping around feeling sorry for themselves!  So let it go.

In the interest of self preservation.  I mean.  I've never been one for too much dignity or pride-- I make a fool of myself most of the time, but there comes a point, right?  Where you have to straighten your spine, gather what's left of you, and exit the stage with what little grace you can muster, am I wrong?  Know when to cut your losses.  Is that the saying? 

At any rate.  Snap out of i,t Beth.  No moping this time, no deep swinging moods.  Just smile.  Take it on the chin and have a stiff upper lip and all that jazz.

Smile.  Smile and keep moving forward, because what's the sense in grieving over a thing that never really WAS in the first place?

It's self-indulgent, and it is silly.  You're making an ass of yourself. 

And it just isn't healthy.