Being a misfit and a poet is lonely. It's the kind of lonely that leaves you alone in a crowd of people. I carry this with me at all times, and sometimes it is not too heavy of a burden and sometimes, it is truly too much to bear. Remember that kid in school that was just sort of odd and nobody wanted him/her on the team or in their group? Yeah, that is me. And thank God for adulthood where it is okay to find your own brand of misfits and you can all oddly not fit in together. But to think that childhood did not leave scars on a deeply feeling person is a lie. To say surface level crap like... "that is all behind you now, you are no longer being bullied or are a misfit," or "But aren't you glad since it shaped who you are today?" Let me tell you, I am grateful for today, and that it is not like childhood. But I have never once been glad that I was bullied by classmates or teachers. I'm not glad I was targeted as an "at-risk" kid so the infamous "they" could poke and prod my brain for reasons to list in their research. I don't have some secret gratitude for people who laughed at me and made fun of me and then scratched their pretty little heads when I broke bad. Ironically enough, with all my disdain for education today and the hugely broken down corporation that it is, one of my favorite ever quotes comes from education or education gurus. And I can't give the proper credit as I don't remember exactly where it came from. But it didn't originate with me. Here it is: "You cannot punish the trauma out of someone." Which is literally what both education and rules of society in America try to do.
As one who was formally a moderate to heavy drinker, and a more than just occasional recreational drug user, I am supposed to let all this shit go today. I am not supposed to stir the pot anymore. But it is what I do. I am good at it. And I have a few different views on this. One, it is a release. In the cycle of abuse it is the part where the victim invokes violence because it takes away the unpredictability of it and it give the victim some amount of control. Maybe not to what is going to happen to them, but of when. And waiting for the other shoe to drop is horrible and time consuming and eats up any available brain space. People wonder why you don't get things done, but your body, heart and mind were waiting. And that waiting is paralyzing, and Petty didn't lie, "the waiting is the hardest part...."
Shit-stirring.... it isn't just for breakfast anymore. Someone's got to do it. You know, when the water gets stagnant, it becomes a breeding ground for things like mosquitos. And, as you all surely know by now, "Well behaved women rarely make history" (penned originally by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, often credited to Marilyn Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt). So someone has to stir the pot. Someone has to be the supporter of Black Lives Matter and PRIDE, and women's rights when everyone around them is shouting things like "it's not that you are expressing yourself, but the WAY you are going about it!" Which is usually a non-violent, non-criminal way, by the way. Shit stirrers of world unite.
Stirring the shit pot does a few things though that I don't like. The pot boils over onto non-shit substance and taints everything around it with the smell and taste of shit. It splatters. Onto people and entities and entire lives of those who did not make the shit or stir the shit. And it burns and stings and stinks in the process. It can ruin relationships and it is a major form of self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage. Something else I'm truly adept at. And let's face it, the more precarious my mental health is, the more likely I am to believe that every thought I have is worth sharing and shouting and splattering in every direction. And when this happens I am most likely to believe that my thoughts and my mind have never been clearer. But the truth is, we generally hurt the ones we love the most. Why? Because it is safe. or safer. Because, in general, they are going to love us anyway. And sometimes those are the people we are trying to reach in a roundabout kind of way. Does this person care about me enough to reach out even though I just shit on them? In spite of, or because of. So why bleed on those who didn't cut me? Why let the shit explode on the just and unjust? Well, for one, it just splatters when it it is stirred often enough and the heat is turned up high enough. But also because it is not safe for that shit to splatter out into the unknown.
Knowing I'm creating career sabotage and injuring relationships? Not enough to stop me. Because that self-sabotage groove is deep. And stirring up shit that is better left alone, just another strength I possess and service I offer. So there you go.
