Procrastination Post Before the Rainy Scooter Ride

I need to get crack-a-lackin' to work, but I'm BAGGED! My friend and I climbed the stairs; she did 19 floors, I did 25. Blah!

And it's RAINING. And I don't want to scoot in it. Not scooting in it costs $5. Not good.

But it's apparently not raining at the airport, so if I wait a half-hour... maybe no rain? Maybe? Heh. Living the life of possibility, that's me.

We got to talking about people, the friend and me. I spoke of someone I perceive to be the kind of person who insults everyone and then laughs, like it's a big joke, so you never really know if they're actually being mean. YOU know the type. We all know those people.

I think I used to kind of do that, but I never meant to insult anyone. I think I just always made backhanded comments without realizing their full impact. This person I'm speaking of knows exactly what they're doing, they're just that type. Whether they realize how hurtful the comments actually can be, I don't know.

I'd prefer to believe they're ignorant of the hurts they dole out. I suspect they're the kind of person who somehow thinks their life's tougher than anyone else realizes, ergo they have more steam to blow, that kind of thing. It still really sucks and I despise that behaviour, but I'd still prefer to think they're not being vindictive on purpose.

I know that the older I get, the more I realize what a dick I can be sometimes. I suspect we all see our faults larger than maybe we should, but I'm deliberately looking for my faults these days, because I'm tired of being who I've been and it's been staring studiously at myself that's allowed me to grow as much as I have been.

That job, last year, I'll always be grateful I had that experience. I never, ever want to be a toxic, poisonous, selfish person, and I found myself becoming one last year because I was working within such an environment. Truth be told, I was headed down that path anyhow as a result of life's challenges the past few years, but the person I was working with really tuned me into being a negative person since she was the best ever at negativity and self-victimizing

It's taken me three years, nearly four, to work through all my post-head-injury bullshit and the depressions that came on its heels. Last week I caught a documentary about head injuries that has made me a little more conscious of all the things I've been quietly percolating on lately, like how much I've changed since my accident -- mentally, emotionally. I had NO business going back to work when I did. I should have taken months off of work. Months and months and months. I wasn't myself for several months, arguably the last few years, really, and now I'm learning much of who I'd become with the moods, impulsiveness, and lack of focus were probably a result of my head injury.

Sigh. I'm only really feeling like myself again now... and it's been a long, hard haul to this point. Wandering back alleys before a concert a couple weeks ago with a good friend, I quietly brought up that I knew I've been not nearly as good of a friend as I wish I had been these last few years, that it's been a hard, long road, and I'm grateful my friends have been patient through it all. My friend quietly responded that it has been a "long, long wait" that wasn't always rewarding, but he always figured I'd make the trip back.

That's another thing my other friend and I were chatting about just now, how hard it is to stay yourself and stay positive when life's feeling like a grind every single day because of life-inflicted challenges or injuries. People keep saying "Oh, it's a hard journey, you have to suck it up and keep the faith" but that's just such bullshit when every single day is a challenge you need to steel yourself against.

Like, there's 24 hours ahead of you, and 18 of them will be spent consciously aware that your body a) feels wrong, b) hurts, and c) nothing is changing; yesterday was the same and tomorrow looks like more of. Then the next day is the same, and the day after that, until one day you realize it's been 500 days, or 1,000 days, or more since you've felt good and ready for anything life had to throw at you.

I spent 3-4 years in that cycle, daily facing unknown variables of pain. Daily having to wonder if my choices for the day ahead -- a walk, a bike ride, a concert -- would result in migraines or blown knees or what. It's no wonder I'm, even now, still learning to reconnect with who I used to be before I became this poisonous, negative, chronically injured and down person that was brought on by endless injuries and pain.

Even still, I have my bad days. Even that's starting to change. This month is the first time EVER that I've been able to go to concerts and head-bang or mosh or whatever the fuck you want to call it and NOT have migraines the next day. First time ever. :) Very, very, very happy. Can you imagine just knowing, for instance, that concerts are one of your favourite things but the only way you can see them is if you consciously accept the next day will be spent in a migraine? That's par for the course for my life for the last 15 years... until now.

And even if life can be hard still, and I still have battles worth waging, I'm a better person, and better in every single possible way. There is NO way in which I am worse than I used to be. None. No way in which I have failed to embrace change or growth.

In every single way, every single area of my life, every single aspect of who I am, I am better. Without question. Every week, every month, I am still improving. I threw the brakes on last September and stopped becoming a person I disliked, and every month since, I have grown and improved.

THAT is a powerful thing to know about yourself. So while I still have hard days, while the road and struggle I'm on seems long and unending, I am always able to stop, think about things, and comparatively assert that I'm making progress everywhere. Nothing is done, nothing is complete, no end is in sight... but progress is all encompassing in my life.

Sigh, yet still it rains. Allwright then. Time to shower and then go ride through a shower. What fun! But I'll be doing it as a better person, right? So there's that. :) SNICKER. Yeah, whatever, sunshine, eh?

No matter how good a person I become, I'll always have time and space for self-deprecation. Life's too short to take yourself too serious. ;)

And YAY for the projected end in sight for the Obama/Clinton mudslinging. FINALLY.