Just Like That

Funny how weeks can pass, in which I can be utterly destroyed by my own self-loathing, and then one day, akin to the the title, it's gone.

Yesterday was awful; today I feel fine. Not only was yesterday awful, it was the coronation day for the King and Queen of Awful at the end of the Awful Festival (sometimes called Mardi Blah), which is indeed a whole lot of awful. Today I laughed spontaneously even before I got out of bed, a feat that normally involves a couple hours of YouTube and two tall coffees.

Now if only I could be more efficient, so that I don't keep losing weeks to this mess. You know, one weekend a month I barricade myself in my apartment and just despise myself. Kind of get it out of my system before it backs up and oozes all over everything like raw sewage for the soul.

In a way, I guess, I already have. It used to be I'd have an occasional couple of good weeks, surrounded by months of crap. Now it's a couple of bad weeks every once in awhile, surrounded by months of pretty good, or at least tolerable. Not that tolerable is the preferred adjective for life, but it sure beats awful. Besides which, when you work as much as I do, it doesn't pay to waste a good mood on your job. I say, save it for your career.

I don't know what brought about the reversal this time, but I'm determined to find out. Fortunately neurotics tend to be hyper-analytical.

I think it had something to do with dissociation. This is a technique I've been using whereby I become my shadow self for a period of time (usually 2-4 hours) and then mercilessly mock and bully the snivelling little toad I've become. I figure the better I become at this, I should be able to bully that little turd out of existence.

Last evening's tirade consisted almost entirely of me shaking my head at myself for failing to take the bad things life is dying to give me in stride, and of letting myself become this sad, passive little nothing in the process. Just because life gives you lemons, you don't have to make lemonade, especially if your stomach is as easily upset as mine. I mean, you can refuse the lemons, or you can chuck them at life's car. (Kind of a distended metaphor, but bear with me.)

Or it could be that, in reviewing the notes I'd made for my sitcom, I also laughed out loud at what I'd written but forgotten about. Now if only I can do a Grinch thing and make my ego grow three sizes too big I'll be ready for my career in television.

I've used the shadow self in seemingly negative ways to good advantage before. I start out bullying myself then talk myself out of the bullying, thus making friends with myself. On the very worst days I send the shadow self to work; by the time he gets home the meek me is nowhere to be found, since he takes an awful lot of maintenance to survive, kind of like a parrot. Now I need to use my shadow self as a kind of agent-publicist. Will it work?

As they used to say on radio: "Only the Shadow knows..."
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