I Am Awesome
Posted by Moose on January 14th, 2009. Filed under: My Brain Needs a Drink.Typing that title made me cringe so far into my abdomen my spleen disappeared. Reading it back makes me want to hit DELETE DELETE DELETE until I’ve erased every post back to May of 2006. Why is that? Because it feels narcissistic? Because my default setting is modest demurral and pleasing self-effacement? I would never hesitate to tell my friends they’re awesome. So why can’t I apply the word to myself? Oh, wait. I can. I just did. TAKE THAT, MODEST SELF-EFFACEMENT! HA!
Here’s where I admit something that will either have you nodding in heartfelt agreement or send your index finger inching toward the phone to punch in the number for the funny farm. “She lives behind a blue door in San Francisco and she hears voices. APPROACH WITH CAUTION.”
Do you have little voices in your head? Aggravating, self-righteous voices that tell you, in great detail, everything you’re doing wrong? Like piping up three minutes after you’ve finished a delicious chocolate old-fashioned with an annotated treatise on the effect it’ll have on a certain pair of thighs? WELL, WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS PICKING UP THE DONUT, HUH? Keeping quiet, that’s where. Because the voices like donuts too. Almost – but not quite – as much as they like making me feel bad for eating them. The voices are complete bitches really, the girls you never call again after they unleash their steaming heap of bitterness upon you for some imagined slight. I would never subject anyone to the kind of abuse that went on in my head. It wasn’t even particularly creative abuse, mostly just exclamations you’d hear from a toddler who’d picked up a few colorful new vocabulary words. Only with less glee and more invective.
Sometimes the voices would fool me. Instead of a petulant teenager wearing too much gummy Bonne Bell lip gloss, the voices would sound like a be-spectacled professor with a PhD in something fancy like Chinese poetry, so when the gentle, tweedy voice says, “That really wasn’t very good. Why do you even bother?” I’d believe it. And it would take me awhile to realize that IT’S THE SAME VOICE. IT’S JUST WEARING GLASSES.
After realizing the little voices weren’t doing me any favors, I spent a few months excising them from my brain with the keen scalpel of rationality. Actually, it was more like training a monkey. Go slow, be patient, don’t kick it for filching a banana. Or calling you stupid for the 17th time that morning. Really, if you’re going to be insulting, can’t you think of something more interesting? Like calling me an untrained baboon with a hefty waft of armpit funk? If the voices were entertaining, I might have kept them around longer.
Either the voices exhausted themselves and passed out in a drooling stupor or my exorcism worked, because they’ve been fairly quiet for the last few years. But occasionally I’ll do something that perks them right up, complete with smug grin because they’ve been called to serve their purpose! FINALLY! After behaving in a really humiliating manner a few months ago toward someone I really liked – the kind of manner that requires me to dive behind the nearest sturdy tree should I ever see him on the street – I spent three weeks smacking myself on the forehead in preparation for the internal (and sometimes external) “You IDIOT!” So I had to retrain myself to take a deep breath and pull my hand down the second I recognized the eager voices. Because, yes, maybe I was an idiot. But I’m a charming idiot and I make the best damn brown sugar cookies you’ve ever eaten.
In the immortal words of Cheri Huber: “If you never got any dessert, how eager do you think you’d be to walk into that kitchen and whip up a festive little treat for everyone else?” If I’m kinder and more compassionate toward myself, odds are I’ll be kinder and more compassionate toward others. Narcissism wins again!
Therefore:
I am awesome. I’m fun, bright, kind, and cute if you catch me in the right light. I’m a good person and I have the neck of a swan.
I’m also reactive, selfish, passive-aggressive, and sometimes a major pain in the ass. And I have the eyes of a mole. But these traits are necessary to keep me from being a paragon who might stun casual passersby.
I am awesome. So are you. Hello.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:00 am
I think you’re awesome too!
Why is it so hard to be confident in our own awesomeness?
January 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am
You ARE awesome. And brilliant and fantastic and terrific and super. And if you need a witness on the brown sugar cookie thing, I’ll back you up.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I think when your voices left you, they came over to settle into my head. Mabye we can work out a “shared-occupancy agreement” between the two of us?
I’d like to have some vacation, too.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Oh dear. I want to say that you and I are sooo alike, but I have a feeling everyone who reads this post is thinking the same thing. You’re lucky you got over yours. I still do this regularly, although I’ve become good at counteracting with some rational thoughts. This takes practice, for sure.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
My voices say things like, “are you wearing pants???” And then I look down to make sure I’m wearing pants. SERIOUSLY. This happens with alarming frequency. I guess the good news is that I’m always wearing pants.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
you are super awesome, lady!
January 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I’m always talking to myself too much, and too loudly, to pay any attention to the voices in my head.
The fabulous drag performer Coco Peru has fabulous advice. She was talking about herself but I’ll paraphrase: “Moose has been very good to you. You need to be good to Moose!”
Yes, you ARE awesome! It takes some practice, but keep repeating that to yourself until you genuinely believe it!
“Because I’m good enough, and I’m smart enough, and doggone it – people like me!”
January 14th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Like everyone else, I totally relate to the voices. And I think your conclusion is dead-on.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
You are awesome. So am I.
Go figure.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
We = awesome. Amen.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
how funny we have to talk ourselves into it. why is that? (I have to but it is short lived, quite honestly. it’s sticking more, lately)
January 14th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I think more people (and probably mostly women) need to learn how to be nicer to themselves. I would never let my voices say the things they say to other people! So why do I let them get away with saying it to me?
Good job! And I want to know where I can find this brown sugar cookie recipe. Yum.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Yep, I totally relate to this, and I also think you are super awesome, even if you are mentioning cookies that I can’t eat, AGAIN.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Sometimes the voices can get you in trouble. (Read this to understand: http://rutabagamama.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-miss-you.html) Thanks for this, I needed to laugh about it too.
January 15th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hi Awesome Awesomeness, bake me cookies.
January 15th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I’ve said it here before…I love me some Moose.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
You’re awesome… and witty… and a great writer. I admire you for being able to write about this issue so succinctly. Unfortunately, I don’t have voices like that… which means I have a big ass from not having a voice to command me to put down the doughnuts.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Moose, I heart you. I’m glad to hear that you’re doing your best to heart yourself as much as everyone else does. My negative self talk is also delivered through a series of hissy little voices, delivered in tones of Grade 8 bitchery relived. I’ve learned that the voices like to step in as a preemptive strike of sorts, to prepare me for the types of criticism I MAY receive for various behaviours and decisions with a dress rehearsal. It’s perhaps the most useless defense mechanism ever because a) sure, people MAY criticize me, but they rarely do and b) if they do…um, so? So, I’m basically just saying I HEAR you on the voices thing. But please tell your voices that I told them to STFU the next time they harass you, OK?
January 15th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Damn skippy! We all need a voice that keeps us from getting too full of ourselves, but we also need a voice that tells us We Are Awesome!
January 16th, 2009 at 10:55 am
You clearly are awesome. I think you need some new voices that are aware of that fact. Preferably with Cockney accents (because how funny would that be?).
January 17th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
You are awesome. I’d be more awesome if I’d mail you the damn package that I’ve had for you in my car for the past two months.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
You really really are awesome. And thanks for saying we are too. We all need to hear it.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
One of my life resolutions is to tell my friends (like you; hi!) how wonderful I think they are on a regular basis. And no sunshine blowing allowed. Just pure genuine awesomeness, and sharing said awesomeness with those who are awesome.
Awesome.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 am
Would I hang out with someone who wasn’t so awesomely awesome? Um, I think NOT.