Sometimes they lurk in the recesses of my mind, these tiny monsters of doubt. As I’m about to have my 38th birthday–on Sunday, Gentle Reader!–these little monsters rear their ugly little heads.
I’ve never been very good at being happy. No, I don’t mean that. I mean, I’ve never been very good at being good. That is to say, I’m not comfortable being successful. It scares me. I’m a self-saboteur. I have to actively allow myself the freedom to be successful, to be good at something. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when and where it started, but I think grad school had something to do with it.
But I have a birthday coming up, my first birthday without my mom, and it hit me hard last night. And thus, the cycle began: crying, then, the “I’m not good enough,” and then, the catastrophizing. I’m a catastrophizer. I make nothing into something, and then make it Really Into Something, so large it can’t be contained any longer. This is my gift to myself.
I reject it. I reject this gift and say, no. I call shenanigans on myself and declare that I will, I will be brave, and positive, and allow myself to be good. For my birthday. For me.
For mom.
The Postmodern Bluestocking 