~It Is All Inside My Head~
Sometimes it really is the simple things that are the hardest to see and hope is the hardest to feel. I am one of those people who tend to over-analyze things and turn them negatively. From a simple compliment from a friend (What does she mean my hair looks good? Did it look bad before??) to advertisements on television, I am always and forever searching for a double or deeper or less than nice meaning. Never just taking words for how they are said, I often spend hours dissecting sentences. I suppose that makes me who I am as a writer.It gives me the ability to write a sentence or a word and twist it to say what I want. Sadly, and more often, it also feeds my doubt's hunger and leads me to take words and compliments that are most likely given kindly and turn myself on myself. What is it that makes me this way? What creates such low self esteem and doubt? I can blame any number of things but blame won't get me to finally change.
When I used to work at a house for drug and alcohol dependant parents I would teach life skills. I can't tell you how hypocritical I felt when I would stand before 10 people,men and women, showing them ways to improve themselves especially when it came to not being so self-critical. I would learn as much as them if not more. One thing I read once is that whenever a negative thought comes to your mind to immediately follow it up with a positive thought. So, if I am thinking that I don't do well at staying on the point,for instance, I should then go on to say to myself that at least I am aware of it. And, by the way, there is nothing wrong with spontaneity. OK, so it all sounds great but you have to have a solid ground, a need and want and ,damn it, energy to keep pushing those dreadful thoughts and actions back to a positive place. Although I do believe that being positive is healthy, I also have learned (and this is sad, I know) that when I get my hopes up I fall. Better to have low hopes so that if I excel beyond mediocrity I will be happily surprised. Still, that is no way to live...Having a constant, nagging, negative voice is an awful way to live and a miserable sound to hear. I would rather hope with all my might for something and believe I can get it only to not come close and be let down than to be the person I have been who is forever thinking, "I can't do it, I won't do it. I will fail. If I do better than failure that that is a plus." Just typing that out made my dark clouds burst into depressing rain in my head. Being positive,while damn scary, is worth the hope that warmsme from the inside. The feeling of wanting something and not getting it is worth way more than wanting to prove myself right by failing. Who ever in all the world has said these words? " Wow, thank goodness I never dreamed or strived for what I wanted. What if I got it? That would have been awful. But not as awful as if I had failed...Failure would have killed me..."Sure, I may fail. I may get really mad and say I will never dream or try again but I really doubt that anyone or anything will keep me from what I really want... I may not (for example) write a novel that is as good as I want it to be BUT what kind of book will it be if I continue to think,"I'll just do it half-assed because no matter how hard I try it will be that way anyway." What will I miss by not trying? Who knows, you may be reading the blog of a future well-known writer. And if I am not...If all I do in my life is write this and my poetry, have my kids and my husband, I will have had a beautiful life. No more of that dark, unfriendly voice that lurks in my head waiting to eat my hope and vomit out fear so that I freeze.... Failure is not as bad as the pain of constantly worrying about failure....Anxiety will shorten my life, constantly foreshadow it with negativity and make life unlivable. What do I have to lose by wishing, hoping and dreaming? I am not going to die if I fail. I will not melt and no one will stop, stare, point and laugh and hell, if they do then I feel bad for that person!
No, I don't imagine that any day soon I will be making a living walking the earth sharing positive passages or pushing my new found hope on others. Right now its enough just to feel hope...Maybe with words I can help others. If I can hope......If I can form a sentence, a poem, a book that makes my reader say, "I know what she meant by that" or "Wow, I never thought of it in that way before!" or "She has a beautiful way of saying things." or even, "She is nuts. She says some weird stuff " then I have done what I have always wanted to. If I reach only one reader does my writing mean less than if I write for a million and one people? Will the weight of my words be less just because I don't publish? So many writers die having never had another human read their work and yet their writing goes onto be loved,cherished (or hated). Emily Dickinson for one example. I am so happy to know that I have the power, the freedom and, oh my God, am I going to say it?, the talent, to write out what is inside of me and put it here, there and maybe someday, in a novel, for you to read. Its all inside my head~The ideas, the images, the words to make you think! I just need to get them onto paper....
Thank you all for reading and supporting me through all of my self-doubt and ups and downs. I'm sure the downs are not gone but maybe I can pull myself up with this new outlook :)
~Stacy J. Roosa
When I used to work at a house for drug and alcohol dependant parents I would teach life skills. I can't tell you how hypocritical I felt when I would stand before 10 people,men and women, showing them ways to improve themselves especially when it came to not being so self-critical. I would learn as much as them if not more. One thing I read once is that whenever a negative thought comes to your mind to immediately follow it up with a positive thought. So, if I am thinking that I don't do well at staying on the point,for instance, I should then go on to say to myself that at least I am aware of it. And, by the way, there is nothing wrong with spontaneity. OK, so it all sounds great but you have to have a solid ground, a need and want and ,damn it, energy to keep pushing those dreadful thoughts and actions back to a positive place. Although I do believe that being positive is healthy, I also have learned (and this is sad, I know) that when I get my hopes up I fall. Better to have low hopes so that if I excel beyond mediocrity I will be happily surprised. Still, that is no way to live...Having a constant, nagging, negative voice is an awful way to live and a miserable sound to hear. I would rather hope with all my might for something and believe I can get it only to not come close and be let down than to be the person I have been who is forever thinking, "I can't do it, I won't do it. I will fail. If I do better than failure that that is a plus." Just typing that out made my dark clouds burst into depressing rain in my head. Being positive,while damn scary, is worth the hope that warmsme from the inside. The feeling of wanting something and not getting it is worth way more than wanting to prove myself right by failing. Who ever in all the world has said these words? " Wow, thank goodness I never dreamed or strived for what I wanted. What if I got it? That would have been awful. But not as awful as if I had failed...Failure would have killed me..."Sure, I may fail. I may get really mad and say I will never dream or try again but I really doubt that anyone or anything will keep me from what I really want... I may not (for example) write a novel that is as good as I want it to be BUT what kind of book will it be if I continue to think,"I'll just do it half-assed because no matter how hard I try it will be that way anyway." What will I miss by not trying? Who knows, you may be reading the blog of a future well-known writer. And if I am not...If all I do in my life is write this and my poetry, have my kids and my husband, I will have had a beautiful life. No more of that dark, unfriendly voice that lurks in my head waiting to eat my hope and vomit out fear so that I freeze.... Failure is not as bad as the pain of constantly worrying about failure....Anxiety will shorten my life, constantly foreshadow it with negativity and make life unlivable. What do I have to lose by wishing, hoping and dreaming? I am not going to die if I fail. I will not melt and no one will stop, stare, point and laugh and hell, if they do then I feel bad for that person!
No, I don't imagine that any day soon I will be making a living walking the earth sharing positive passages or pushing my new found hope on others. Right now its enough just to feel hope...Maybe with words I can help others. If I can hope......If I can form a sentence, a poem, a book that makes my reader say, "I know what she meant by that" or "Wow, I never thought of it in that way before!" or "She has a beautiful way of saying things." or even, "She is nuts. She says some weird stuff " then I have done what I have always wanted to. If I reach only one reader does my writing mean less than if I write for a million and one people? Will the weight of my words be less just because I don't publish? So many writers die having never had another human read their work and yet their writing goes onto be loved,cherished (or hated). Emily Dickinson for one example. I am so happy to know that I have the power, the freedom and, oh my God, am I going to say it?, the talent, to write out what is inside of me and put it here, there and maybe someday, in a novel, for you to read. Its all inside my head~The ideas, the images, the words to make you think! I just need to get them onto paper....
Thank you all for reading and supporting me through all of my self-doubt and ups and downs. I'm sure the downs are not gone but maybe I can pull myself up with this new outlook :)
~Stacy J. Roosa
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