There Is No Spoon

I feel like everything I've been through in the last few months; every emotion, every plot twist, every argument and misunderstanding, has changed me in ways I still haven't quite come to terms with yet. It's an unsettling feeling to have. I feel constantly out of sorts - even in my dreamiverse - just because I don't really know me at the moment, I'm not entirely sure who this new person is or how she's going to react to certain things. I think I like her, she seems much more at ease with herself that the previous versions of me for one thing, but I haven't really had a chance to test that out yet. It's sort of like having The Joker in the room and not being sure if he's going to sit there quietly or blow your shit up. It could be either or neither or both simultaneously at any time. There's no way of predicting it.

Like I say, unsettling.

See, I've done depressed before, I've done self-loathing before, I've done fucked-up before, and there's an element of me that yearns for those incarnations of myself because I know the script for those characters. I understand their motivations, their hopes, their fears, their beliefs and their needs. I know how they operate. And this time, the one time that I think I have a legitimate excuse to be depressed or fucked up or self-loathing - I've rejected it. I burned off all of those persona's because they didn't work for me, but obviously something must take their place. So I now exist as something new. It doesn't feel like a good thing or a bad thing - it's just what it is. I'm very aware that I desperately want the last few months to mean something, to be profound in some way. I want to walk away feeling more empowered, more willing and able to face other challenges that will inevitably occur at some point; but, at the same time, I don't want to exploit events of the last few months for my own gain. That seems... disrespectful somehow. A man nearly lost his life, for me to walk away feeling good about that, in whatever way, seems horrific.

So what I've done is distance myself from everyone and everything. I sort of feel like a social anthropologist at the moment. Like I'm observing the world and my new self in the world through a scholarly eye - trying best to soak up what I can and learn something from it. I'm not sure that's a healthy way to be; to feel like you're apart and above* everyone else. Yet it feels necessary for the time being, that I have to be separate in order to absorb what I need and figure out how to be human again; but armed with deeper and wider insight this time. I desperately want to learn how to become an adult.

I've always been obsessed with the idea of becoming an adult. When I was younger (and by that I mean maybe up till a year or two ago) I thought that meant getting a mortgage, a husband, a 2 year fixed savings bond, and breeding. Now I believe these are just our cultural signifiers of adulthood, but to have them doesn't necessarily mean you are an adult. I will never fail to be surprised by the number of people ten, twenty, whatever, years older than I, all thoe who have those cultural signifiers but who do not behave in a manner that I believe to be mature, well-reasoned or adult-like. I hear tales of 40-something women sending text messages where they diss one another's vaginas (really), people in their 30's seriously considering fucking up another persons hair straighteners just to get a modicum of revenge for an event they feel justly annoyed about but unjustly justified in taking revenge for, men deciding to date a person, breaking up with that person, deciding to date them again and then breaking up with them again (and then dating them again). All in the space of a week and a half. And then arguing the point when the object of their indecision calls them a jerk (they are a jerk). All of these people are technically 'adult'. They all have homes and loans and cars and jobs. They get dressed every day and make a choice to exist in the world as a person who may be old enough to be legally defined as an adult but who is not an adult. And it's this revelation that has made it apparent to me that being 'an adult' is something different from being 'an adult'.

The idea of 'grown ups' used to terrify me. People who have it all figured out and know what they want and how to get it and have all their ducks lined up and can discuss mortgage repayment schedules and the importance of interest rates. I didn't really want that for myself. I didn't know what I wanted instead but I knew I didn't want to be like 'them'. So you find yourself stuck in a half life; a place with no real responsibility yet paralysed by this unshakable ennui. A sense that things should be different but the options on offer don't entice you at all. And then, about a year ago, it dawned on me that by keeping my options open I was keeping myself still, which meant I was unable to ever go forwards and become an adult, become human, become a woman. So I started making choices. Which has lead me to somewhere that I've never been before. I'm out of my comfort zone.

I know I've been harping on about my last relationship somewhat but it was one of the most profound and fucked up experiences I've ever gone through and I'm still dealing with the fallout (not helped by him still being in hospital and me going for days at a time unsure of whether he is alive or dead). I fell in love with someone who was eight years older than I and, on the surface, a lot more grown up than me. But he still had this vague notion of wanting to be a Lord Bryon or Dylan Thomas figure, believing the illusion that giving in to darkness rather than searching out the light is a glamorous lifestyle choice and not just really fucking depressing. (Here I point you towards someone else who was in love with the romantic notion of destruction and Byron and the like: Peter Doherty. The sweaty moon faced crack addict of your dreams. Or nightmares, depending on your levels of sanity). Watching someone refuse to make choices, refuse to take responsibility, refuse to be an adult and take all that to it's inevitable conclusion was heartbreaking. I know for certain I don't want that for myself or for anyone else (but I also now know I can't make that decision on anyone else's behalf).

So, here's the thing: I think I now understand the formula of growing up; you learn how to be you. First and foremost, that's the crucial part of the recipe. The bit that makes you able to take the next few hundred thousand steps. Without it you bimble along in this world that doesn't really exist. A world where you lie to yourself and accept the lies that others tell you. You take the red pill, take a bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge**, shake off illusion and embrace reality and everything that entails. You finally learn that 'there is no spoon' (there is no spoon) and that frees you, completely and one hundred per cent to just be you - accepting the awesome and horrible parts of yourself, learning that they are pretty much one and the same thing (because they are what makes you, you), and being ok with that (something no-one will ever really tell you but you really must believe - you being you is ok. It is enough. No-one should demand anything more of you than for you to be the most 'you' version of yourself that you can possibly manage. You are perfect. You are imperfect. It is enough). The next bit is harder and more of a slog because once you've realised you're Neo and can save the world and destroy God, you actually have to go off and save the world and destroy God. Which is effort. To put it into real world terms it's like me going 'that painting I was going to do would be really awesome if I painted it' but then just sitting down and twiddling my thumbs instead. Knowing that I am capable of painting awesomely andactually doing an awesome painting are very different things.

And I think that's where I am now; looking at the ingredients, looking at the recipe, and trying to find the strength and the energy to pull it all together. I've had so many revelations through going to therapy that have clicked so many things into place that I just can't see myself making the same mistakes again, which is good. I just don't feel good yet. And that's the one thing I wish I knew how to get back.


*I don't mean 'above' in an arrogant way, though around the time I was going through all this 'breaking open the world and seeing the light' shit when my best friend came out and showed me how easy it was to live without fear controlling you, it was arrogance I felt. I felt I'd been given a key to a secret kingdom and only a select few of us were brave or clever or special enough to enter. Most others chose to stay on the ground and I was living in the clouds, observing and shaking my head at how stupid it all seemed. The petty lives people lead when they weren't being honest or true to themselves. I knew better, I was above all that. I'd taken the red pill, everyone else had chosen the blue pill and had an easier but less fulfilling time for it. The arrogance on this occasion is absent, maybe because it's another persona that just didn't work for me. Maybe because it's a trait associated with youth and I don't feel like a kid anymore. Maybe, in this instance, I just have nothing to feel arrogant about.

** No-one has ever explained to me why God would want to keep you wrapped in cocoon of illusion. It seems to me that Eve had the right idea, rather than damn humanity she saved us. But then girls becoming women and realising their own power has always, and probably will always, be construed as a dangerous thing.