When I am fighting with myself

When I am arguing with myself, when I’m at my most stubborn . . . this line from some Sarah McLachlan song often goes through my head . . . “What is it in me that refuses to believe . . .” Like when I refuse to believe that I can’t change something just because I so desperately want it to be different. Sometimes I don’t even get as far as refusing to believe in something, I just refuse to acknowledge it despite solid evidence. It would be more like saying “Fuck the world” . . . if it wasn’t just my own situation I usually fucked up.

These flights of irrational fancy get more vivid when I draw up the script around the impeding outcome. I like my hypothetical situations; it’s so great when I have even imaginary control over all variables. I do tons of dry run-throughs when I get myself in a sticky situation. The worse the situation is, the faster and the more horribly bad or over-optimistically favourable the imagined outcomes seem to get. My mood swings up and down accordingly, and I’m more jittery than a bunny on crack.

Laughing when I’m stressed is definitely less useful in real life than in the movies. Have you noticed how often film heroes are required to laugh off an impending doom, to appear in control as they sneer at their possible destruction? Well, I find that people are usually offended that I haven’t grasped the gravity of the situation. Giggling fits after your friend almost chokes, for instance, or when a teacher demands you to explain yourself. Not quite the thing. Yes, I know I should be sombre and appalled right now, sorry, let me just work myself into it, right after I kick my own ass. No, no, I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m earnestly trying to reform my self, or at least my range of displayed emotion . . .

When I really cock it all up, when I am truly taking myself down . . . sometimes I wonder if I do it on purpose. A little voice in the back of my head logically points out how immensely dense the rest of me is, or at least how dense I’m acting . . . Is this some Freudian thing? Do I want to be miserable? Sometimes I wonder if I create disaster just so I get to deal with it. I either excel at cleaning up my own mess; or crash, burn and wallow. Hey, either way it gets interesting, and I finally get to put that hypothetical situation generator in my head to good creative use. Or do I just want to elicit some real, deep emotion? Sometimes this world seems so damn flat.

That logical voice in my head keeps me away from most obvious mistakes like running out of money, most kinds of bodily harm, and the kind of guys that really aren’t good for me. Also, the prickly and unpredictable overearnest rest of me keeps away most other kinds of guys . . . as well as other assorted people that can’t deal with a different (or often several different) takes on life, and opinions of suitable conduct . . . So I guess I do generate a lot of trouble out of nothing, or find some lesser known way of throwing a wrench in my own works.

Basically, the last thing I want to be is bored. It follows that the last thing I want to be is normal, right? Right?

P.S. My spell checker claims that ‘jitterier’ is the preferred way to label my excitability ranking against that bunny on crack. Does that seem wrong to anyone else?