An Addict's Pennance

I want to be punished. I don't want things that give me pleasure. Friends, good food, a warm bed, hot showers.

I have been invited to join a business venture in something that I enjoy. Something that would also be quite reputable. In an industry I admire, using a lot of the talents that come naturally to me. That I've honed, and that bring me joy. Writing among them.

Besides the 'normal' (if there is such a word) factors that would slow someone down when being excited about going into a business (e.g.: the need for capital, proper research, thought-out plans with various contingencies), there is another conflict. I'm not excited about it.

Its fun to think about. Its great to long for it. But to think of it as a possibility feels undeserved. I shut down. I get gripped by a cocktail mix of anxiety, apathy, irritability, mistrust, and regret when I think about it. I don't want to commit energy to something that could potentially fulfill me or make me happy because, contrary to personal evidence, I don't believe it will fulfill me or make me happy.

So I make myself out to be this suffering martyr. "I cannot enjoy life because I'm paying for my sins." Very romantic. Very self-indulgent. That is what bothers me. Not that a goal is out of reach, not that I lack the capital to simply throw myself into a project and see where it leads. What bothers me is that I feel unworthy of prospects that might make me happy.

Its a lot like flirting. Its fun to flirt, fun to dream and hope for a meaningful relationship. But when things begin to involve any kind of commitment, other people seem to lose interest in me. I was about to write that last sentence the other way around, stating that I lose interest out of subconscious fear or unworthiness that translates itself into apathy, lack of attraction, or boredom on the surface. But it just hit me, just now, that it has been the opposite. I do step out. I do open myself to where something might lead, even if I'm not convinced that they're right for me, or any variation of the "the one" philosophy. And something happens, the littlest thing. A rescheduled date, a week or so without return communication, things that I interpret to be a sign of the same disinterest and apathy I sometimes put on others or on things. And then I violently recoil.

I turn back into a shell and surround myself with things that hurt me in order to reinforce the idea of undeserving. In order to run away from the here and now, and simply archive the presently perceived rejection as part of a macro-cosmic order of things pertaining to the undeserving. The accursed. Again, eager to romanticize reality. It is like a religion used to explain war, or a drought, or a childhood/genetic makeup that results in addiction, or heartbreak...anything except the combination of accountability for choices and the fact that some things, like weather phenomena, just happen.

Perhaps that's what I like about diet and exercise so much. It isn't what I crave, and involves a light amount of physical stress, pain, and self-denial. It would feel like being punished.

Things could have turned out differently. I might have ended up dead, or in jail. Forced into a rehabilitation center. Somewhere that someone else's orders and not my own discipline or motivation keep me clean, and learning, strengthening my body, mind, and spirit.

I'm too exhausted to examine these thoughts. To identify the assumptions and look at them from different perspectives. And I think that's okay. I can print this out and go through it later. Its likely an important step to just put all of this down. In any case, for better or worse, this is how it happens. This is what I write. This is the day that I have.