The Decade I Broke Up With My Worst Self

I began 2010 with a sense of urgency to reckon with my worst fears. 

I have a drive to create - to translate what I imagine. I spent my young adulthood imagining myself as a creator - a filmmaker or a writer. But I failed to create anything that lived up to what I imagined. I even changed my major from Biology to Theatre so I could create something - anything. I didn't live up to that in the 2000's. I was a failure.

I was more than a failure as a creative. I was a social failure. No one in my theatre program liked me. I don't blame them - I was standoffish and put on a snooty air. I was unable to read people as well as books. I acted foolishly at best and callously at worst.

In 2009, I wrapped up my year stage managing a production that happened in spite of my choices. I was toxic to my colleagues who scolded and yelled at me in response to my daftness. They didn't want to work with me. I felt frustrated. For the next production, I applied for the assistant stage management position. I said if they assign me to "Construction," a crew team I wanted least, I'd transfer into another program. When the crew lists came out, I saw my assignment:

Construction.

They didn't have to say what I understood by that decision - I am not fit for leadership. I am not fit for what I aspire to do. I didn't know whether I could do anything.

In that final semester of 2009 I took Acting 1 - a required class. I felt terrified of acting - I'm a behind the scenes person. The class ends with a performance of a scene directed by the students in Directing 1. We, the Acting 1 class, auditioned for the directing students. I had a terrible audition for the directors (from Look Back in Anger) that only yielded two callbacks (the minimum callbacks for each actors was two). A directing student cast me as "Bullfrog" in their scene from the play Catfish Moon.

I practiced and dug into my role. I acted on stage in December 2009. I performed. Our performance yielded...applause - enthusiastic applause! I acted on stage and not only did I not suck but I was ok! 

I did something. Even more: it was better than nothing. I made something - through acting I made this character.

I decided to remain in the program. I decided that since many of my colleagues didn't know me well enough, I would take responsibility to share my better attributes (my sense of humor) and project any anxiety into constructive giving (bringing dessert for folks during Tech Week, for instance). I decided to work on every production my program had that semester.

I wasn't leaving - I wasn't quitting.

I wrote more. I struggled with my social acumen - failing to date, for instance - but I took responsibility for my actions. I accepted my mistakes with sincere remorse. I never repeated those mistakes.

I slowly became the person I imagined myself as.

At the beginning of 2010, I had few allies or friends, no real creative output other than my creating writing materials, and felt like a failure. At the end of 2010, I had more friends, professors who believed in me, and I completed that year with a staged reading of my play The Five Stages of Baldness which was well received.

Now, at the end of 2019 - 9 years and 11 months later, I have meaningful friendships and a fiancee. I have a life in writing and filmmaking with a portfolio of finished short films shown at film festivals and on Vimeo, in addition to my published poems. I have a day job career that fulfills me in serving others. I have a personal life of traveling to the places I've always wanted to visit.

I feel humbled by my decade. I worry about celebrating it too much, however. Part of me feels justified in celebrating how my life changed because I changed my life and I took responsibility and agency. But part of me feels like this post comes off as a brag because it will fail to encompass the completeness of "how" I changed or how bad I felt or was. I have accomplished many of my goals but there's so much more that I'm proud of than just accomplishing goals.

By breaking up with my worst self I didn't spend the decade just accomplishing tangible goals or traveling or writing. I broke up with my worst emotional self. That's what I truly take pride in.

I'm proud of my travels. I'm proud of my creative output. But I'm proud that I'm not toxic towards women - that I'm not insecure about dating women or that I feel like every woman exists as a potential girlfriend or wife for me. I'm proud that I worked on my social illiteracy and found tactics to become more literate through clear communication. I'm proud to see a therapist to deal with my anxiety and with the fact I can't control everything in my life.

I'm proud of the moments I stood up for myself to individuals who acted poorly or maliciously to me. I'm proud of the moments of kindness and compassion I could impart.

I'm proud of who I became by breaking up with my worst self.

Trials and Errors of Not Having Time for Everything: Fall Update 2019

"I don't have time for everything" is a phrase easier said than embodied.

I began the year aspiring to embody that statement. Embody means I live and breathe that statement. It means I act according the principle of that idea. It means when I have rumination I say to myself "how does this help me right now" as my therapist advises and move on. Embodying means I do not stress about the tone of someone's statement because stressing over the tone of someone's statement isn't something I have time for.

Despite my best wishes, however, I do make time for it.

As I write this update - a belated one - I struggle to see success in embodying the "I don't have time for everything" ethos. I also know my widow's peak receded more and blonde streaks (and white streaks) have emerged.

It's difficult to fully flip and embody this statement. I look at this year as experiments to reach that ideal. Action requires tactics. It requires trial and error.

Trial and error means continuing seeing a therapist - a positive thing.

Trial and error means asking myself "how does this help me right now?" as my therapist recommended.

Trial and error means writing gratitude statements almost everyday.

Trial and error means communicating early to others when I'm overwhelmed and preventing situations when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Trial and error means writing for myself more frequently.

All these trials and errors helped move me into a better space. Yet, this positive development forward frequently recedes. My mental walls remain thin and all it takes is one villain (or villainous force) to knock it down. Then every worry I didn't have time for returns.

Then I start over.

But I do start over. It's worth it to continue this struggle. It's worth continuing struggles that will bring something better.

This year has given me a lot to enjoy and relish. I went to Scotland! I have fun times with friends! Game nights! I've shot personal film projects! I'm about to shoot a narrative project!

Also: I got engaged! I'm getting married!

All the exclamations!

To embody "I don't have time for this" means I need to enjoy the exclamation points of my life. Giving time to worries means turning those exclamation point moments into period or question mark moments. I do not want that. I want to focus on earning those exclamation points moments and living them up.

A Thirty Year Old Problem: Self-Worth

What am I worth?

I begin my 30th year working on living up to an affirmation: "I am worthy." Worthy of what? Worthy of self-acceptance?

For many folks I'm their friend or best friend. For them and especially for my family, I'm definitely worth something. This notion "I'm not important" makes no sense to them.

Yet I struggle with a perception of my worth. Why? Because even though I'm 30 and have a lot accomplished in my life, I wrestle with defining my own worth in my own terms. I wrestle with looking in a mirror and thinking "you're not so bad."

For so many years I defined worth as one defined by others. I can no longer do that. I'm 30. I have to define what matters to me and how I work to live toward those ideals.

I have to say: I deserve to be here.

I have to say: I am worth a lot because I exist.

Ideations of Importance

When I began therapy, my therapist asked if I contemplated or thought of committed suicide. In college, I did. After I stage managed A Number in college, I remained frozen the next morning because I knew if I woke up I would get in my 1996 Ford Contour and drive to Savannah for one last walk. I would walk into the ocean on Tybee Island, with a note on the car. I would not walk back.

The Tybee Island ideation persisted throughout my junior year of college. College felt socially overwhelming and my theatre experience - in hindsight, an experience I consider the best decision I made - exacerbated a feeling that I will never make my mark.

Those ideas changed when I accomplished things. I abandoned the idea that I should not be here because with tactics I could accomplish my goals. Therefore, I spent my twenties working on my goals and accomplishing what I could as a way to cope with anxiety.

I'm glad I accomplished those goals. Those goals fulfilled me. I would never regret what I accomplished in my twenties.

When not working on those goals, however, I fell into a maelstrom of anxiety and self-hating. I couldn't sit still with myself. Every mistake I made from middle school until now would haunt me. Last year, I would wake up to use the bathroom and instead of falling asleep lay as my mind raced in a fury of anxious thoughts. My only solution was to wake up and distract myself with a movie or book.

Through therapy, this anxiety subsided in a large way. Though intellectually I knew I matter to people, in therapy I unraveled this deep sense that I feel unworthy. That I do not deserve happiness and that I am unimportant.

Unlike college, I do not have suicide ideation, but I still have two frequent ideations. One is silly: participating in an interview on WTF with Marc Maron about my career and what I've done. The other is less silly: imagining how will people react if I die, or who will come to my funeral.

These ideations reflect an overarching insecurity: that I'm unimportant. I want others to know I'm important. I want to show the world that my story and my stories deserve recognition.

What I See

I don't deserve recognition, however. "Deserve" is a strong word.

Instead of thinking in what I deserve or placing the entirety of my worth on how people (or at least certain people) view me, I have to define my own worth.

I have to accept my own worth based on my own values and ideals.

I write this post to accept this challenge. For my twenties, I wrote about how I set goals and accomplished them. Accomplishing these goals served their purpose in broadening what I'm capable of doing.

But last year I began writing about emotional goals and how I need to focus on my emotional development, or "self-care." I need to accept that I have worth.

Why do I have worth?

Because I act on the ideals and principles I set define as positive and good; or how people should act. While imperfect, I accept responsibility for how I act; I treat others the best I can; and I am sincere in my growth.

I have worth because I'm a human being. I cannot act well to others under the belief that all people deserve dignity in the library and in the real world, then act poorly to myself.

I have worth.

I accomplished many goals in my twenties and I plan to continue those travel goals, filmmaking goals, and life goals.

But I also need to accept myself. I have to work on removing toxic beliefs and curtail insecurities to accept my worth.

I Don't Have Time for Everything: On 2019

Blonde is coming.

For many folks blonde hair equals fun and delightful. For red heads, as we age our hair lightens across a spectrum until white. Blonde means old. Blonde hair for me is gray hair to you.

We all reach that point in our late twenties. We dig through our hair and find those gray follicles. It's nature's way of telling you that "you don't have time for everything."

Now I'm digging through my own beard and finding my once mighty red hair lighter and lighter. I look in the mirror and my normally strawberry blonde hair appears more blonde than strawberry.

I don't have time for everything.

I begin 2019 with this statement. I ask "what do I have time for?" I turn 30 this year, an age that strikes many with existential crises or thoughts of memento mori.

Yet I reckoned with these thoughts last year. Last year meant friends leaving, fears of death, and more realities of adulthood. Last year meant I had to define purpose, which I did with Covey's 80th birthday premise. Because this happened at the end of the year, purpose remains the word I consider moving forward. Last year I asked "what is my purpose?" Now I say "everything should have a purpose."

I don't have time for everything. Everything should have a purpose.

I begin this year with tangible and written goals ready to tackle. I also begin this year aiming to strengthen my emotional self. I can write my 2019 post on the goals I have for writing and traveling, but I write this post to talk about emotional goals. I write to discuss how I aim to perpetuate the tactics that helped me overcome deeply anxious thoughts and stress. If stress causes gray hair  then I need to make sure every gray hair, every blonde hair, has a purpose. Instead of stressing over toxic people, over things I cannot control, I need to accept I don't have time for everything. Thus, everything I worry about and focus on should have a purpose.

The typical New Years' Resolution for a lot of folks deals with diet and exercise. It begins with a workout goals.

Dealing with stress and emotional pain are my workout goals. Stress and emotional pain happen, but I want to perpetuate a workout plan I began last year with my therapist.

Workout Plan: Strengthening Relationships

Last year posed such overwhelming odds because folks in my support system I rely on departed. That's ok though. I have other wonderful friends and a supportive family. I'm lucky to have this where many folks don't. Therefore I want to strengthen and build this support system.

How do you plan to strengthen a support system?

If a workout plan needs tangible tactics, then I aim to try these tactics:

• Travel more with friends and family. I aim to travel with my girlfriend to Nashville in March. I'd like to have a nice day trip with family. 
• Game Night every month. My coterie and I enjoyed tabletop game nights last year and I aim to make this a monthly, recurring event. 
• Treat my folks on their birthdays. 
• More coffee chats with friends I can't see every month. 

Workout Plan: Focus on Myself

How do I accept myself?

I don't know. I really don't know. Last year pushed me in how I view myself. I had to ask "how can I sit by myself and not grow restless or anxious?" because every time I sat by myself with no distractions I grew restless and anxious.

So how do I create tangible targets for focusing on myself? Do I look in the mirror for hours?

No.

Through my therapist, I've worked on life affirmation statements but alternatively I want to continue tactics that allowed me to live and accept my own world: reading and writing.

I already read and write a lot, however. so let me be specific. I grew out of the habit of reading poetry around 2016 and novels in college. Last year I spent more time reading fiction, like The Three Body Problem Trilogy by Cixin Liu, Star Wars novels, Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler, and the great Harry Potter re-read.

What I realized is that fiction allows me to detach from myself. While not acceptance, it allows me to have myself alone for company.

I also realized that writing poetry, while not my ultimate artistic pursuit, helped me control myself. Writing, in general, helps with self-control as it helps one organize trauma and life experiences. I left poetry writing because it bore no consequence on my short films which I consider my ultimate pursuit. Yet, I started writing poetry again at the end of last year because I had an idea I felt served best as a poem. I realize I love writing for the sake of writing. I compulsively write because I cannot not write. Thus, not only do I aim to read more fiction, but I want to read more poetry and write more poetry just for myself.

Workout Plan: Gratitude Journal Writing

Last, to accept myself I know I have to accept that I deserve the good things that I have. I struggled with that last year as I felt guilty for my past mistakes. I felt these cumulative mistakes meant I am a mistake and unworthy of all the good things in my life.

How do I deal with it? How do I accept that it's ok to feel good? That it's ok to accept reward and happiness?

I'm not sure. But I aim to try by writing thoughts of gratitude in my journal. I write in my journal what I'm thankful for. It's often as easy as writing a statement of gratitude for my girlfriend or my family's support. It's often as ordinary as "I am grateful for warp stabilizer in Premiere Pro."

But ordinary things matter. Support matters. So to accept myself, I want to accept all the things that help me push forward.

Forward in 2019

What makes workout goals and my usual goals attractive is how defined they are. A tangible goal for a specific target can be accomplished. Accomplishing emotional goals poses difficulty because I am evolving. As I evolve, I have to reckon with what causes pain in a different way. 

Consequently, I cannot look forward to 2019 with hope that everything that ails me will revert or leave without returning. 

What I can look forward to in 2019 is a worthy fight to keeping my stress and my blonde hairs at bay. Every gray or blonde hair should have a purpose.