abandon self-pity, ye who enter here
Christmas alone -- it's like a story I'm telling myself about myself. I went to the grocery store last night after I got off work and bought some groceries so I could cook for myself today. I had this little premonition that if I only ate the things from the freezer that Hoot and Andree left for me, I'd be depressed today and feel sorry for myself. So I bought everything I'd need to make a tofu scramble this morning and then some split pea stew later. Cooking makes me happy. I also bought myself a Christmas orange because I've always associated oranges with Christmas.
So many of these little lonesome activities could've sprung that feeling of self-pity to life, but it was the Christmas orange that did it. I sat down this morning after making coffee and saw my Christmas orange sitting here on this yellow table. I thought "That's my Christmas orange." And I was immediately swamped with this notion that my lone little Christmas orange, my present to myself for my solitary Christmas, was the most pitiful, dejected thing on the planet. Without even trying, I imagined my mom, my dad and my grandmother (three very disparate people who still love me very much, each in their own, strange way) -- I thought "Wouldn't they be so sad to think of me sitting here in this strange house all alone with one little Christmas orange as my only spot of joy." My imagination laid it on thick. I actually started getting misty! Then I snapped out of it.
Self-pity is a particularly masochistic type of misery. Most of the tools of this torture are happilly supplied by our culture at large, but we're the ones who take those tools and turn them on ourselves. Our culture tells us that we're owed something, we deserve something, there's a way things ought to be, etc, etc. Our culture tells us to expect certain things. It tells us, for instance, that at Christmas there should be magic and gifts and people who love us. It tells us that being alone is the worst kind of awful. It tells us that we have every right to feel absolutely miserable -- suicidal, even! -- if we don't have all these things we think we're entitled to. It sets us up.
But we're the suckers who fall for it. I sat at the table and looked at my orange and let this little flood of cultural conditioning wash over me, convince me that there was something inherently depressing about a single, navel orange sitting on a table on the morning of December 25th. I let myself get caught up in this little story of self-pity, poor me and my poor little orange, it would break my poor little grandmother's heart to see me here like this, all alone. Oh, bullshit!
Sure, self-pity is a measured sort of misery. We are, after all, in control of it. If we want a little drama, a little jolt of emotion, we can start dreaming up stories of how we've been wronged in some way or another. Shouldn't be too hard for anyone, no matter how otherwise happy and well-adjusted, to find *something* to feel pitiful about. We could tell ourselves these little stories and maybe get a nice cry out of it. But then we run the risk of making a lifestyle of drama and stories about ourselves, never letting those little facades fall away to expose the objective reality underneath. An orange is a nice fruit, something sweet, something to eat and throw away the peels.
To abandon self-pity is to become extremely empowered. To recognize that you deserve better than the crappy little stories you've been telling yourself about yourself and everything around you. To realize that there's something vibrant and joyful underneath that story. Maybe the story is easier, because you're telling it to yourself, you know what twists it will take, how it ends. But to step outside that self-created storyline -- to experience the dazzling reality of the world first hand! Scary and exhilerating no matter what it brings!
I'd rather eat the orange, even if it turns out to be sour or rotton, than cry over my stories about it.
So many of these little lonesome activities could've sprung that feeling of self-pity to life, but it was the Christmas orange that did it. I sat down this morning after making coffee and saw my Christmas orange sitting here on this yellow table. I thought "That's my Christmas orange." And I was immediately swamped with this notion that my lone little Christmas orange, my present to myself for my solitary Christmas, was the most pitiful, dejected thing on the planet. Without even trying, I imagined my mom, my dad and my grandmother (three very disparate people who still love me very much, each in their own, strange way) -- I thought "Wouldn't they be so sad to think of me sitting here in this strange house all alone with one little Christmas orange as my only spot of joy." My imagination laid it on thick. I actually started getting misty! Then I snapped out of it.
Self-pity is a particularly masochistic type of misery. Most of the tools of this torture are happilly supplied by our culture at large, but we're the ones who take those tools and turn them on ourselves. Our culture tells us that we're owed something, we deserve something, there's a way things ought to be, etc, etc. Our culture tells us to expect certain things. It tells us, for instance, that at Christmas there should be magic and gifts and people who love us. It tells us that being alone is the worst kind of awful. It tells us that we have every right to feel absolutely miserable -- suicidal, even! -- if we don't have all these things we think we're entitled to. It sets us up.
But we're the suckers who fall for it. I sat at the table and looked at my orange and let this little flood of cultural conditioning wash over me, convince me that there was something inherently depressing about a single, navel orange sitting on a table on the morning of December 25th. I let myself get caught up in this little story of self-pity, poor me and my poor little orange, it would break my poor little grandmother's heart to see me here like this, all alone. Oh, bullshit!
Sure, self-pity is a measured sort of misery. We are, after all, in control of it. If we want a little drama, a little jolt of emotion, we can start dreaming up stories of how we've been wronged in some way or another. Shouldn't be too hard for anyone, no matter how otherwise happy and well-adjusted, to find *something* to feel pitiful about. We could tell ourselves these little stories and maybe get a nice cry out of it. But then we run the risk of making a lifestyle of drama and stories about ourselves, never letting those little facades fall away to expose the objective reality underneath. An orange is a nice fruit, something sweet, something to eat and throw away the peels.
To abandon self-pity is to become extremely empowered. To recognize that you deserve better than the crappy little stories you've been telling yourself about yourself and everything around you. To realize that there's something vibrant and joyful underneath that story. Maybe the story is easier, because you're telling it to yourself, you know what twists it will take, how it ends. But to step outside that self-created storyline -- to experience the dazzling reality of the world first hand! Scary and exhilerating no matter what it brings!
I'd rather eat the orange, even if it turns out to be sour or rotton, than cry over my stories about it.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 11:20 AM
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