If Its and Buts Were Cherries and Nuts…etc – Monday April 25th

To tell you the truth the Super Happy Fun Time Challenge isn’t going that great. I’ve certainly read a lot and exercised and done many things I’ve been putting off, but the rest of the list has been seriously neglected. I have a lot of excuses, but they’re not very interesting. I just have to keep at it and start over tomorrow. Who knew that eight little tasks would feel so out of reach?

 

Actually I have concentrated really hard on not complaining. I’m still at the ‘be aware of how much you complain and try to complain less then that’ stage. It’s very very hard but has improved my mood! I used to think that it was really important to vent, to get things off my chest. I’ve gone to therapy on and off for years. But therapy and out-bursts of wild complaining are not the same. My complaining can take on a life of it’s own because I’m good at telling a story (or…at least I think I am…) so I like to ensnare people with a funny anecdote. The next thing they know they’re listening to a 15 minute lecture about whatever wrong I have suffered recently. A polite laugh is like pouring gasoline all over a tire fire. Sometimes I can even hear my own voice, whining and strained, but I can’t stop.

 

It turns out there’s a trick: don’t complain in the first place. Keep your mouth shut, leave work at the office, smile when you want to scowl, fake it til you make it. It’s all true. I feel like I have made the most important discovery of my generation. Older generations, of course, already knew that complaining was like soul-poisen. But I grew up smack dab on the middle of the stand-up comedy era, when complaining was greatly admired if it could be made hilarious. I’m not saying that my complaining is hilarious…I would describe it more accurately as tedious…but I think my comedic role models may have been a bad influence on me.

 

Complaining also takes up a lot of conversational space that might otherwise be filled with witty banter. Or informed discussions. It’s so easy to fall back on a little whimpering, especially when you’re feeling too tired to read the news and usually feel to self-absorbed to be a very good listener. Maybe the spring time has revived something in me, maybe it’s just my heart healing a little more every day, but I just don’t feel like a sad sack anymore. Or not all the time anyway. I am getting so much better at identifying a problem and taking action.

 

Don’t get too excited. It’s only been a week. This blog can be an albatross around my neck when it comes to making sweeping proclamations about personal change. Nothing makes me cower quit like some one calling me out in my real life for something I wrote on my blog. I remember being in high school, and sitting in the chapel listening to a lecture by a published author. He asked if we had any questions and I tried to will myself to raise my arm and ask the thing that had always haunted my dreams of being a writer. When He finally called on me, I asked: “Aren’t you afraid of what people will say once you actually publish your writing?” He looked at me like I had a thick accent, or was inexplicably disfigured.

 

“Well,” he replied, “that’s what you have to do when you’re a writer.”

 

Oh yea. Good point. You can’t be a writer without people reading. So you have to suck up your fears and wild insecurities and just be relieved that anyone will read what you write, even if they remind you that you’re on Weight Watchers when you’re out to dinner. Or ask how your running is going when you haven’t stepped on the treadmill for four days.

 

When I write about hard things I always use “you”, it’s like I’m too intimidated to say I have to do something. Instead I pretend it’s some universal -ism that I’m bestowing upon my audience. “My dear people! Listen to my clever statements and bask in their wisdom and cleverness!” There are a few things I still have to work on once I get this complaining thing resolved.

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Comments

  1. Leslie Ann says:

    “…an albatross around my neck …” good one! I have been traveling for work. Sorry about the BFN (aka Big Fat Negative). I had a little panic attack last night when I realized I hadn’t checked on you in a while. You may have a point about those bad influence standup comedians. Witty banter is probably much more fun. That’s it for now! HUGS MOMMA!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. Jen Durham says:

    Great post! I think sometimes I am afraid of what I can write for fear someone will read it, but that is the point…… good thoughts!

  3. Hello! Thanks for commenting on my blog. I really love your voice. I feel like we could be great friends. I think you’d really like my other blog, which has a similar attitude as yours. I’m trying to make vast life changes there and am currently doing so with little to no (or negative?) success. I put that website in your website box above if you want to check it out.

    I also struggle with the fact that people might actually read my writing. Yesterday, when I put my miscarriage post up on Facebook, I was like, holy shit, if I do this people I KNOW (and see face to face sometimes) will read it. And they will not only know this thing about me and how I feel, but they will also know how I write. And knowing how I write felt like almost as much to share with them as knowing how I feel, which is strange.

    I look forward to following your blog!

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