pt2

“The oldest scars run the deepest”

“You bring about your own greatest fears”

Thank you for everyone who has reached out over the last few days; it means a lot to me. The two quotes above are pertinent to what I have been feeling the last week. 

My mom kept a lot of stuff from when we were kids; we were sorting and clearing it out this week and I found lots of interesting things. There were lots of journals; lots of interesting things in them too. This was one of them.

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

It can be scary to be left alone. 

That was all there was to it. I was eight when I wrote that; probably right around when I started Kung Fu, actually. I don’t know why I wrote it or what I was feeling when I wrote it. But I was right. It’s scary to be alone. “Old scars run deep”. I don’t think I would have ever admitted that today; that being alone is one of my greatest fears. I think I’ve always tried to bury it because I didn’t want it to be true? Like, it’s not cool to be afraid of being alone, yknow? Reading that little journal note took a toll on me. It made it real and I don’t think I was ready for that. Especially not in the state of mind I’ve been in lately; it made me reassess pretty much… everything I’ve done? It’s like everything that I’ve ever done, every decision I’ve made, I did it because I was afraid of being alone. Because I couldn’t admit that or acknowledge it. 

And yet I’ve gone and pushed myself away. Its not the first time I’ve done it; probably won’t be the last. “You bring about your own greatest fear”. It’s next to impossible for me to socialize. As a matter of fact, one of my personal goals this year is to have a “socialization event” atleast once a month. The criteria for that? Get out of the house, see someone, do something. Have I done that? So far. But like, literally the bare minimum. I’m not sure why this is; another talk to have with the counsellor, I guess. 

It’s like a “dehydration on a deserted island” predicament. There’s all the support and connection at the Kwoon and yet.. I’m scared of being alone. Like I haven’t earned my part on the team or I haven’t earned the connections that it provides and I’m pushing “aloneness” on myself as self sabotage. I imagine it comes down to perspective? I’m working on it. 

pt1

I haven’t been okay lately. For a long time now, it’s been getting bad again. But this last month especially. It’s been hard. At Thursdays meeting, I thought it was interesting how, when discussing priorities, it was said that sometimes we have to prioritize staying alive. Interesting in the fact that I described my current state of affairs that way only a couple days prior. 

I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety. With lacking motivation to do anything and the apathy of not caring how I have been deteriorating. I have been fighting and burning very precious energy to try and do the basics. It has been a lesson in mindfulness, if I need to find a silver lining. There have been times in my life where I’ve wondered how someone can be so oblivious to their own health and perceived appearance. Now, I find myself having to battle to shower, to eat properly, to take meds, to wash my hair, brush my teeth, to drink water, to go to work, to respond to texts, to care about my productivity, to walk upstairs, to get out of bed, to plug my phone in at night, to clean my car, to fill my car with gas, the list goes on. 

I’ve been largely unable to do basic human activity 101. Like having to do these things has become an insurmountable wall. I’m scared because it isn’t going away. I’m scared because there’s a piece of me buried deep down that doesn’t seem to care about being better. Like all I’m doing is faking it until I one day make it. Like I’m putting on this appearance of trying to get better but there’s a part of me deep inside that doesn’t actually care if I do or not and I don’t know how to fix that? It’s talk for the counsellor, I guess. 

My ability to focus on Kung Fu has been very limited lately. I haven’t been to my classes in about a month; I don’t know how I can go. I don’t know where to find the energy at the end of my day to even log in. It feels like an extra pile of guilt on top of everything. I have to remind myself of my circumstances It circles around to priorities, again. Staying alive is number one right now. It seems like a pretty trivial pursuit of mastery, but as frustrating as it is, I am recognizing that sometimes yesterdays 3% is today 90%. 

As far as Kung Fu goes, I’m not in a great place. Clearly, I’m not in a great place, period. But my numbers and IHC commitment has been lacking lately, and I apologize. My approach to mastery right now is finding a way to build enough baseline that I can start finding a way to building my numbers and martial prowess. It feels like a real 20 steps back but I’m realizing this is a result of neglect and blind progression on my part.