If you have not watched "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", I'm not going to say it's a "must see" but it's definitely a cult classic. The first time I watched it was after I had been teaching a class where we had been discussing various drugs and their effects and some of the kids commented on how that film is especially crazy if you are high. Oh man the movie is absolutely mental, (no, I wasn't high, maybe I should have been to get the full meaning...) Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro are just cracked out on all kinds of drugs and throughout the film you are trying to figure out what the heck is going on. That's how I feel sometimes, except I'm not on a bunch of drugs, I just feel like there is a whole bunch of jazz going on around me and I sometimes get this surreal feeling about how it's so weird that I even exist and am in this story. What is my role in this story? What is going on here? Why did I wake up in Vegas and not know what happened, but my room is completely trashed and I have a HUGE room service bill? (That last one there has never happened to me, it happened to Depp in the movie, just checking if you are still reading...)
The title of this entry is for a purpose. I don't know if you have ever felt like this, but I feel a bit all-over-the-show. (thanks Brett Allison for that great phrase that I have adopted as my own ever since I heard you say it...) I am not sure if it's because it is the end of summer and it's time to get back to teaching, or if it's just this nebulous feeling everyone gets at different points in their life. "All-over-the-show" of course means "All-over-the-place", and it describes my brain lately.
If you have ever read anything from my blog before, you probably know that I like to think about things. I have that feeling again that sometimes I think about things so much that I don't get to the action stage. It's like I am afraid to make a mistake and so I think about it some more and then the time in which it was required to make a decision has passed and then I feel like I am floating through life in this uneasy, never-making-a-decision malaise. I still enjoy life, but deep down I feel like I have let myself down because I didn't just go with my gut. Often my gut is right. But, I seem to question my gut all the time lately.
I think it's important to not just impulsively act on all things, but I envy people who seem to just make good decisions after a short assessment of the question at hand. I envy that they stick with their gut and I don't know if it's the confidence with which they make the decision or i People who don't care what other people, or even their self-doubt thinks about the decision they made because, "Guess what, I'm making this decision, it's likely going to be right for my situation, so SCREW YOU self loathing and doubt..." I don't know that that sentence actually passes through those people's minds but that's how I interpret what I think they think, and then I loathe that I am not more like that.
I take had a great talk with an old friend I had a chance to visit with in Vancouver this summer. I was out visiting my sister-in-law Jill (who pretty much rules) and her boyfriend Corey. (who is a great chap!(he's not British, so I don't know why I used chap, anyway, back at the ranch...) Beth (Krista's mom) was watching the kids for me (thanks Beth!) so that I could go hang out and chill without having to parent for a weekend. While I was there, I had a chance to have dinner with my friend Angela. She's one of those friends that even when you haven't seen each other for a long time and there is a lot to catch up on, you just feel like you pick up where you left off, and it's a great time. She also is a friend who "says it like it is" and doesn't have time for beating around the bush, a trait that I appreciate. We were talking and she was reminding me of what she appreciated about me as a friend way back in the day ('94ish to be more to the point). It was such an encouragement to me because as she talked, she reminded me about some of the things I know I was good at as a human. Traits that I know I like about myself, but have kind of taken them for granted, and then forgotten about them. It's been a while since I felt like I have truly been on top of my game as a human. When Angela talked it's like she spoke some truth into my soul that needed to be dug up and brought back into the light. She reminded me of a time where I felt like I was on top of my game in life, but she also reminded me that I hadn't lost all that. I was so happy that in the midst of my already awesome time with my sister-in-law that I also received a bit of a truth slap from a good friend that was perfectly timed. Usually slaps aren't associated with good, but this one was, because it knocked some sense into me about me. I thank God for that slap.
Look, I think all of us need a slap like that from time to time, and I think we need to listen to the people closest to us, as well as long time friends. What's strange is that I truly believe the best about everyone around me, but I don't give myself the chance to believe in myself. In what God has made me.
I hope that you can start the fall with the understanding that you have some great things about you. You aren't perfect, neither am I, but dang it, we're special! Hahaha, I tell my student's that lame phrase, but I really believe it. I just have to start believing it about myself more than I have done. Self-loathing sucks. Let's all agree not to do that anymore.
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