Limbo

 For the last month a half, I've been doing so well.  The best I've done, well, probably ever.  I've been "useful".  I've been healthy.  I've been honest.  Dare I say even happy.  What's that?  I have even started to believe that I'm worthwhile.  My life is...worthwhile.  I haven't needed any one or any one thing to make me feel that way.  I've made me feel that way.  And with one simple prayer: God, keep me healthy today so I can be of use to you. Was I getting complacent?  Did I not really believe I deserve it?  May I've become cocky.  Could be a combination of all of it, I really couldn't tell you.  All I know is that this week I hit a backslide.  I made the gym once and half-assed it.  No good reason why.  I missed two days of work.  No good reason why.  I haven't called my sponsor.  You get the idea.  But WHY?  Why is it that every little broken commitment in my world leads to a succession of big broken commitments?  Why do I think that one failure is representative of a sort of cosmic predetermined outcome of every other potential success?  It makes no sense.  If anyone says "insanity" I could strangle them. I never miss Wednesdays at work.  I never miss a big deadline but I did this week.  This week after getting a ginormous payraise, after getting my first expense report check mailed to me, expecting a hefty retro check at the end of the month, discovered some "unclaimed property" with the state, shopping with the 10K I'm getting in December in my mind, and am finally seeing a light at the end of tunnel of debt I've been suffocating in for the last few months.  I knew the financial strain was only temporary but I am coming to believe that due to a low-income upbringing and a series of semi-unconscious beliefs that I step on my own neck just as I am about to be able to come up for air.  In anything I do (or don't do) there is the fear of failure looming over my shoulder. And then that great motivator Fear pulls up centerstage.  I wince and pray silently, "Please don't let it be too little, too late and give me a chance to get it together tomorrow.  Just ONE MORE chance to pull myself out of this mess and I won't let [You, myself, both of us?] down.  I hold my breath and wait...and then I open one eye and peer around..."Am I still here?  Everything still intact?"  Whew.  Missed a bullet.  But I have to punish my own insolence.  There always has to be one problem left untouched so as I don't become too convinced of my deservedness (not a word, by the way).  I find idle time to reflect and reflect I must, for in it I can carve out patterns of misery I've made or left.  And as I let my pride become awash with a strange, pleasurable sense of lowliness...a romantic melancholy of my deficits...I can hold my past/present/anticipated future up to any other person of my choosing and see where the edges line up.  Invariably, they don't.  That other person of my choosing always looks to have gotten more slack, to be way ahead of where they should be-where I thought they should be-where I thought I should be.  I can't be jealous anymore.  I don't grimace in contemptous demand at the [perceived] injustices of the world any longer.  I just use it to fuel my own incompetence and I find new patterns: I add up the things that make it all seem like simple addition that I am where I am right now.  Makes perfect sense.  At least I can say I knew it. With concern to finances, I've always had a firm belief that money comes to me easily.  And it does.  I've always found a way out of money jams.  I always get what I want.  But relationships---romance---that's another story.  All that is about to change (I hope).  Old habits (beliefs) die hard, though.  I start out strong, full of excitement, vigor, positivity.  Not long after that the cracks begin to show.  My insecurity, close cousin to Fear, wriggles to join the conversation.  It takes everything in me to fight it back...as is the case right now.  It hasn't even been two weeks and my psychotic Insecurity peeks in.  It whispers in my ear, "He's looking at that girl."  Okay, he's looking, and?  "He is more intrigued by her than you."  Maybe.  "He probably thinks about her and you are too stupid to know any better."  And why wouldn't he?  She's pretty, she's young, she's smart, she's fun.  Wait, I'm those things too.  I get confused.  I can't trust my judgment because Insecurity has me upside down.  So I investigate.  I observe.  I stealthy asks questions that could be passed off as conversational...or controlling.  Not good.  Not good at all.  Shit. We battle ourselves every day.  It's not just me, I know it's not.  I want to put away the chewing gum I've used to patch up the holes in my life and mind.  It is time I learn to do it the right way with some compound and a putty knife.  Ha.  Maybe by the time I get good at that, there won't be any new or old holes left.  I can be complete and imperfect at the same time.