Monday, December 03, 2012

Writing stuff down so then I can't get locked in an argument with myself again

Potentially, that sounds a smidgen odd as title but I've just reread Carpe Jugulum and I can kind of understand Agnes and Mightily Oats arguing with Perdita and "Bad" Oats.

You see, the thing is, when you're single and don't live with close friends or family and also lack close friends and have apparently acquired a whole host of trust issues along the way which don't combine well to make making close friends an easy task, you end up having to be ridiculously aware of what sort of mood you're in and you also have to be your own cheerleader to talk yourself out of one of those moods.  And that, quite frankly, is frigging hard work!  You end up stuck in this awful, horrible vicious circle where you try to talk yourself out of it; nearly succeed and so relax for a bit; decide that you're going to have a tantrum and sulk about whatever anyway; attempt to talk yourself out of it again; realise that you're bored and fed up of being your own cheerleader; sulk about (apparently) having no-one apart from your mum to offload onto; sulk and whine again because this is a stupid situation for a 31-year old to be in and generally exhaust yourself like an overtired child.  And you know what was probably at the root of tonight's pity party?  I had a busy day in what is still a new job.  I forgot to factor in the usual crunch of mental gears when swapping from admin to kids' club. A minor thing really, and one I can easily learn from but for any number of reasons, I instead chose to make it the focus of a “you're crap, why are you doing this?" moment which lasted for about 5 hours, on and off this evening.

FIVE HOURS?!?!?!?!

This is where the being alone thing is a complete liability because there's no one to call you out on such a silly waste of time and mental energy.

I'm not a perfectionist.  Things don't generally have to be "just so". However, I am competitive and generally still guilty of holding myself to impossibly high standards at the same time ("I must be top of the class").

Moral of tonight's story?  I need to learn to be much gentler on myself at times!