Ok, so: Self-esteem belongs on, like, a kind of spectrum, right? There are good days and bad days and most of the time, you want to land somewhere in the middle. Right? That seems like a pretty healthy way to approach things.
Versus this less-useful model — aka, my own:
That’s me. I feel like I can jump back and forth between one of two extremes really quickly. And I’m aware of it, which is suuuper irritating, since I know it’s all in my head and likely not based in reality whatsoever. I really wish I was better at spending time in that middle, “I’m okay!” zone.
It’s not just me, right? Is this a millennial thing? Or a sensitive artist-type thing? Or an annoying neurotic thing? Or just a “me” thing? I’m not the only one out there……. right? Right?
I’m not gonna lie, at this present moment in time, I’m hovering pretty hard over “I suck, I’m the worst,” but that’s just because i just spent like two hours trying to figure out how to convey via photoshop doodle that the second picture up there is, like, one of those “on-off” switches where both of the buttons can’t be pressed at the same time, like, either you get one extreme or the other, and I’m not sure if that’s coming across clearly enough, but I can’t figure out a better way to express that sentiment. AND a good 95% of those two hours were spent trying to draw one of those old-fashioned toggle switches, which I think is a more accurate visual representation of the metaphor I’m using to explain my own emotional psyche, except it turns out that old-fashioned toggle switches are kind of hard to draw on a laptop paint program using a trackpad. And, you know, I worked really hard on it in the hopes that it would be meaningful to someone else out there reading this, like I would draw this picture that made instant sense to everyone and maybe quietly spoke some kind of universal truth to the world and brightened everyone’s day a little thanks to my hilarious wit and self-deprecating sense of humor. And then I stepped back from my laptop and I had this moment of incredibly crushing clarity where I realized I had spent two hours of my life using a computer paint program to draw something clinically kind of insane and maybe a little vaguely pornographic. My brilliant, universal metaphor looked like a tube-shaped penis protruding from a wristwatch, because it turns out it’s really goddamned difficult to draw a toggle switch, and there is just no way I’m going to show you that first draft, because it’s humiliating, and also makes no sense. This entire paragraph makes no sense. I have no idea why I’m still typing. I should clearly delete it. I went to college, right? I went to COLLEGE. Something is clearly wrong with me. I can’t believe I spent two hours making that stupid drawing instead of reading “The Goldfinch” or going to bed an hour ago like a responsible adult. (AND I HAVEN’T EVEN BOUGHT “THE GOLDFINCH” YET SO CLEARLY I AM NOT EVEN A “REAL WRITER.” WHY DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG???)
Okay, fine. FINE. Oh, my god, I hate me.
What I was trying to draw:
What I accidentally spent like two hours making:
SO YEAH. I’m leaning pretty hard towards “I Suck” right about now.
On the other, I’m about to hit “post” on this and there is definitely leftover food in the fridge that I feel pretty great about taking down, so — yeah. Jury’s out on this. Check back in ten minutes. There’s like a 40% chance I’ll be feeling kinda awesome.