Uncertainty Phobia

Who else is afraid of never ending voids like the ocean or space? Who else starts building a timeline of events when they can’t reach their boyfriend just in case it becomes a murder investigation?

I’ve been trying to pin down my fears and figure out why it causes so much anxiety, and I don’t think I’m the only one with these fears. I’ve decided that it is the uncertainty that I can not handle. I struggle with the unknown and unseen. Maybe I’m just going for a quick dip on a lake but on the other hand maybe there is a large and yet undiscovered carnivorous aquatic creature just waiting to prove me right. It is that option that makes me paranoid to step in water and paranoid when it’s 6pm and I haven’t gotten an ETA of when my boyfriend will be home.

Now that I know that is the cause of my anxiety, what am I supposed to do with that information. It doesn’t alleviate my fears to know why I’m afraid of something. If anyone has tips I am open for suggestions.

I’ve tried going to therapy, but I find that I can never quite say what is really bothering me in those sessions. We talk about relationships and self improvement, but because I’m not actively experiencing that fear at that moment I never get around to discussing it. It’s not like I had a rough and uncertain childhood or anything. I had and still have two very loving, giving, and present parents. Then again, maybe having all of that certainty in my early life left me unprepared for uncertainty as an adult. What is a parent supposed to do? Create uncertainty as a way of toughening a kid up? That seems like it would have the opposite effect and some additional trauma to boot.

So where does one start to heal from a fear acquired from a normal and well-adjusted upbringing? Perhaps my ideas on “normal” and well-adjusted” need to be explored.

And with that, I will keep you posted…

1 Year Update

I am supposed to be composing some interview or essay for class so I figured the best way to complete that assignment is to do something completely different.

Putting all things 2020 aside, my life has transformed in so many ways since this time last year. In a purely concrete way my life hasn’t made many changes. I am at the same job , still living with my parents, and same puppies (thank the gods). The changes I have made are more of the future planning sort and that means progress and forward movement (two absolutely terrifying notions for someone afraid of change).

Continue reading

Satisfaction Guaranteed

RAPID EGO DEFLATION EXPERIMENT, © Stephane Graff, 2009 | Ego ...

Why is it so satisfying to rain on a parade? Especially if it is an undeserved parade! It is probably one of my favorite things on this planet to watch someone walk around like God’s gift and then immediately watch them deflate as their ego is not stroked. The other day this guy at work walked in claiming to be “on fire” because his clients were all showing signs of progress. I am glad that people are making improvements and even more so when multiple people do so, but this particular co-worker only does half of his work, makes life more difficult for the rest of the office and frankly he gives me the creeps. So the instant he started talking about how “on fire” he was I just went to town.

Continue reading

Why am I so Breathtakingly Odd?

I am in a service industry where I frequently talk to customers on the phone. At the end of one such interaction I told a customer to “Have a good day.” and then said “Love Ya”…

Now imagine that at the end of a perfectly normal conversation you told a stranger that you love them. AND THEN imagine that the person not only said it back, but then had an appointment at your office the following day and walked right up to you and said they “Really appreciated the reminder calls. Keep ’em coming.”*wink*

Image result for hide gif

Ocean Rant: Why the open ocean should be avoided at all costs

This will be a quick rant about why the ocean is the worst place for humans. For the full effect please read this post in a high pitched, frantic, and panicked voice.

  1. Some humans can swim, and can even swim well enough compared to other humans, but compared to other animals that are born in the ocean we are basically large infants. None of our senses work properly in the ocean. We can’t breathe, smell, hear, or see properly. We are slow and have zero innate weapons with which to defend ourselves in the event of being attacked. We are basically defenseless babies in a vast bath with billions of death traps.
  2. Everything in the ocean would prefer if we were dead. Not one thing in the ocean would mourn the loss of a human. Even dolphins and seals, which we were taught were like ocean dogs are actually oceanic ass holes and would be far happier picking at our bones rather than being a part of a fun new facebook post.
  3. The tiniest animals can kill us. The Box Jellyfish and Blue-Ringed Octopus are both tiny nearly invisible animals that if bumped into will deal such a deadly blow that we could be paralyzed within minutes of touching them. Animals with no brain and just a basic nervous system can take down a fully grown adult.
  4. There are massive animals that also can kill you without even meaning to. Sharks don’t want to eat you most of the time, but their taste tests usually involve severing a few major arteries in order to really know that they don’t like the taste. Humboldt Squid travel in packs and they have powerful suckers that can take apart your scuba gear as they drag you slowly further beneath the surface. They also have beaks that can bite through Kevlar.
  5. The ocean has had millions more years to evolve than land animals and we have no idea what is going on in 90% of that ocean. Just knowing how much water is out there and we have no way to see it all is terrifying enough.

 

This is not to say that I don’t love the oceans. I probably watch way too much Shark Week, but honestly the ocean is one of my favorite subjects to study. That is why I am so sure that it is the LAST place humans belong. I have a great respect for the oceans, but from a distance.

Chapter 2 – It’s important to have goals

I am the most stable, as a person, that I have been in a long time and it is time to start taking action when it comes to a new career path and making strides towards my life goals. One such life goal is to eventually start a family. Part of the problem associated with that goal is that it involves a level of social interaction that often leads to awkward situations. I’m not saying that I’m a shut in. I go to punk concerts and pro wresting events just like anyone else, but what I am saying is that within the scope of these events I never look at or speak with any one outside the 4 or 5 close friends I do everything with. The other issue with this particular goal is that though I do miss the feeling of being in love and having a partner to share my life with, I hate the act of dating. Going to a food place and meeting a person with an idea in mind that by the end of the night one might be compelled to mush faces together is the strangest ritual. I have known some of my closest friends for decades and we barely even hug and now i’m supposed to decide based on an hour or so of conversation whether or not I like then enough to try it again until we are so tired of trying to impress one another that we stop talking all together and mush faces? I am not about that life. I also don’t know how I’m supposed to have the courage to go on any dates if all my dating avenues are via apps where nearly every message is “Hey Babe, you have the most beautiful eyes…” (I don’t. They are brown and generally unremarkable through the medium of selfies). AND all the truly genuine and sweet men on these sites can’t take pictures of themselves to save their souls and instead look like serial killers taking pictures in random locations as part of their alibi.

 

In short, I think I’m ready to start dating after two years of strong opposition, but I have no idea how to dip my toes back into these strange and dangerous waters.

Part 2 , Chapter 1…

When I was growing up my Dad and I always used song lyrics and movie quotes to carry on conversations. One would start off with a normal statement about the weather or the dogs and it would become this complex web of facial expressions, silly (and poorly executed) accents, and above all the disjointed lines from movies that really had nothing to do with each other besides sounding vaguely similar. This is not to say that we don’t have our own original thoughts and use our own words. We did and still do, which can get us into another brand of trouble better left for another story. In this brief story, however, I would like to address one movie quote in particular from one of the all time greatest rom-coms, You’ve Got Mail. SPOILER ALERT just in case anyone has thus far not seen this movie, but to be honest if you don’t already know the outcome of a movie with Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and a picturesque New York setting then you probably need to take a good hard look at your life. In this movie, Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) owns a children’s book store called The Shop Around the Corner. It was her mother’s books store before hers and she was raised learning from and loving the store as a part of her identity. She eventually runs into trouble as a large chain book store Fox Books opens up just blocks from her location. At this point the character interactions assume the interactions and general plot line of Pride and Prejudice and carry the movie to it’s inevitable romantic ending. One could be forgiven for never looking deeper into the minor characters, but there is one character in particular that I admire above all else in this film. Her Name is Birdie, as played by Jean Stapleton. She is a wise and calming force and amidst the chaos of The Shop Around the Corner going out of business she says “Closing the store is the brave thing to do. You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure. But you’re not. You’re marching into the unknown, armed with nothing.”

 

In the last year I changed careers, tried to start a business, failed at that business, lost my roommate, sold my house, and moved back in with my parents. All of this on the cusp of Thirty. I have really been beating myself up about being a failure of an adult. I can’t help feeling that I missed some developmental milestone and am missing key ingredients that go into being a successful and self sufficient human. Listening to Birdie’s words, however, makes me feel that instead of being a failure, I am an adventurer. I am an explorer of my own potential. I am my own personal Soul Scuba Diver and I have only scratched the surface of what I am capable. It doesn’t fix everything and it certainly does not mean that all my doubt and sadness is gone, but it is another tool in my belt for those times when I would rather not do or try or be.

Speechless


 

Warning: The following post is fueled by pure rage and therefore may contain some grammatical errors and misplaced punctuations. I apologize in advance.


Today my co-worker said, “Foreign f@!#. She needs to get smacked by her
husband.”tumblr_lfml23eiNE1qa1tl9o1_250

 


I have no words to describe the anger that rushed over me the instant I heard that said aloud. I was so angry I was shaking and the only words out of my mouth were “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”

It doesn’t matter what situation brought on that disgraceful speech.

 

To make matters worse, which at the time I did not know was possible, in seeing my amazement and disgust with the filth that just evacuated his face hole… he tried to pass it off as a joke and that I was too sensitive to understand. He said “You have to get thicker skin. This is the culture we are in with this industry, and people will make jokes like that all the time. Welcome to logistics.”

I give zero shits about the industry I work in and/or a person’s sense of humor. At no point is it acceptable to suggest that a woman needs to be beaten by her husband to teach her a lesson. AT NO POINT IS THAT OKAY!

He has a daughter. This pathetic burlap sack of testosterone and rotting teeth…. This shitastic sub-human craptrocity that even Gandhi would slap…. This Neo-Nazi trapped in an elephant’s body has a daughter?!tumblr_lbvabxXijT1qbi71b

Man of the House

What does it mean to be the Man of the House? I ask because I am currently listening to my boss having a very loud conversation about being the Man of the House and what that means to him. He is using phrases like “I don’t care what your wife says” and “I was raised on the bible”. So to him it would seem that being the Man of the House means that the Lord Jesus Christ gave his almighty powers of male dominance for him to enforce the law upon all lesser creatures in his life. These lesser creatures include, but are not limited to, women, anyone younger than him, the impoverished, anyone of a different race, the entire LGBT community, all other religions, Obama (any democrat for that matter), and anyone with a different opinion than his own.

This is exactly the sort of speech one would expect to hear from a petulant child throwing a tantrum. He is ignoring the woman who disagrees with him and won’t give him the answer that he wants. Instead he turns to the male option and pressures them by trying to show them how a real man would handle their women. His version of a “real man” would never have “women.” He may find GIRLS willing to put up with his bull shit, but after about 5 minutes of him whining about not getting his way they will leave. He is the man of his house because there are no women. They have all run away and fled the scene so as to avoid contact with him.

He defines being a man by having women do what he says. Every day his wife picks out his clothes for the next day, irons them, and packs him a lunch. The last time that was done for me I was 5 (and even then I could dress myself).

I define being a man by being capable of choosing your own wardrobe and packing your own lunch. A man should be thoughtful and kind and should recognize that those are qualities that show strength and not weakness. It is so much more difficult to be kind and it requires a level of maturity that some people (men and women) never reach.

Any child can throw a tantrum. It takes an adult to have a discussion, and an adult to recognize the difference.

009SAG_Stephen_Lang_003