Stripped

There are so many things to do out there and I feel like I can't do them. It's more than I feel like I just don't have the energy to get up and do things, it's a fear that I will be made fun of. A fear that I won't fit in and people will notice and I will have a miserable time that will weigh on me for years. I've tried putting myself out there and it's usually resulted in less than good things; maybe I'm putting myself out there in the wrong way, I really don't know. The negative results have scarred me. They've made me doubt myself in ways I didn't when I was younger. I've disliked myself as far back as I can remember, but I don't ever remember things being as bad as they have been the past few years. 

Do other people feel like there is so much do to and yet nothing to do at the same time or is that just me? I don't know. I don't know where to start. I don't even know if I want to start. Is there a reason for me to start? Everything turns to jelly inside me. I guess I don't know if I can start sometimes. 

I wish I could focus in the way that I used to. I'm still sharp, don't get me wrong, it just sometimes takes a while for me to get going. Sometimes it's a question of motivation. Sometimes it's pure laziness. And sometimes it's the draining notion that I will be dead one day and all of this will just be nothing. I will be nothing. Sometimes I can't get my head around that. I drag myself up and through the mental fog, assigning small goals to myself. I need to try and achieve the smallest thing each day. I know that logically folding laundry is not a large goal but some days after how tired I feel emotionally and physically when I finish it, it's like I've climbed Everest alone and have set a world record. 

There are times when I worry that I'm not living up to my potential. And what's even more terrifying is that I don't even know what my potential is. What if I've misread the signs? What if I'm fighting and struggling toward a goal that is unattainable? IS everything I do a waste of time? Existential dread begins to fill me and I need to lie down. I hate critical thinking. Actually, I don't. I love it when its engaging and I can focus it on problems that have tangible solutions. I like seeing the results play out in front of me, I like to be able to touch them.  I have a slight obsession with keeping things. I'm not a hoarder, I just like to keep, I don't know records that things have happened? That I've done something. I want, no I need to prove to myself that I can do things, that I'm not as big a waste of space as I think I am. Getting into this habit has been really great, even if it's not rewarding all the time. It gives me somewhere else to try and focus potential when my thoughts clear and it's not like I'm being weighed down with the weight of the world.

And while on the subject of potential, I wonder if I've lived up to the ones people have set for me, like if I have lived up to the ideals they thought I would be. That's the most challenging thing about writing my books and my blogs, creating my art and all of it. Sure I'm creating it for me, but I'm also doing it for an audience. I want people to like what I put out there. I want people to see it and think that I'm talented or smart or wonderful. Every time I put a blog out and it doesn't lie up to my expectations it weighs on me I pride myself in doing these and when things fall short I wonder was I not good enough? Did people not like it? Is it not what they wanted to see from me? And I wonder if I've imposed all these standards on myself. I'm torn between obsessing with the fact I'm a failure, that I'm not good enough or that their standards are too high for me. Who's got the higher standards? Maybe they're neck in neck. Either way, I think that's why I've been sticking to the safer topics of Delectables with Dan. It's something I know people like and I won't be too disappointed in the numbers. I love doing them and they're a great distraction from certain things and I'm doing them as a part of something greater that I really want to take off. I'm worried it won't happen. I fear that all of this will just be a giant mistake. There's still so much I don't know and I have so much to learn about baking and the industry.