A Song of Vice and Ire: Part 2

A Clash of Things

Whenever my mother goes a little insane with cleaning, she runs around the house like a schizophrenic chicken with it's head cut off. She gets crazy eyes, crazy hair and you can barely breathe through the tension in the air that surrounds her. She's overworked and all worked up and trying to do a million things at once. She's trying to scrub and organize and make sure that no one messes up whatever she just finished cleaning and... inevitably, she hurts herself.

It happens. Every. Time. It's unavoidable. And though seeing my mother get hurt makes me want to cry while punching someone in the face... in the end, it's the only thing that brings her back down to Earth.

Okay, so my mom's slightly less aggressive but equally as insane.

She's been on a bit of a frenzy lately, with spring cleaning and all, and since most of these deep cleaning sessions seem to go down on the weekends, I've been able to avoid the bulk of them. But unfortunately, this week, she decided to do a little weekday cleanup. I sat on the couch waiting. All my muscles were tense and I wasn't even paying any attention to Boy Meets World, which is usually captivating.

Sure enough I hear a loud SMACK and a "shit!" I cringed because I knew what had happened and I also knew that my mom had really hurt herself because she never curses. I walk over tentatively, "Mom, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just smacked my shin on the stair." I watch her take two deep breaths and just like that the tension is gone. My mom's back and I can relax.

All recklessness leads to some sort of self-inflicted harm, eventually.

We can only floor it for so long, until our carelessness gets the better of us and we're forced to slow it down. All the pressure and stress culminate in that one moment of agonizing pain, be it physical or emotional, and after the initial shock wears off we are finally able to take three deep breaths and calm the hell down.
To me, the obvious follow up question is... Have I been flooring it?

It sure as hell doesn't feel like it and yet, every minor dissatisfaction seems to lead to another minor dissatisfaction. It's a slow, strenuous process perpetuated by booze and confusion; it's a downward spiral. The same things keep leading to the same things only I'm a step down than I was before because it's no longer a 'one-time occurrence,' it's now a pattern, and patterns become difficult to break.

Around and around and around and around

I want to scream at myself to do something about it but every time I feel the motivation... I realize I don't even know where to begin and so instead of pushing, I go back to what's familiar, what's comfortable.

I remember in sixth or seventh grade SDL (which was my middle school's version of 'Gifted and Talented') that I was the only person to pronounce the word paradigm correctly. All the other smarty pants' in the class pronounced it para-didge-mm (fools).

I don't know why I remember that, but I do. It was the most fascinating word I had ever learned.

par·a·digm par-uh-dahym
noun

      -a set of forms, all of which contain a particular element, especially the set of all inflected forms based on a singlestem or theme.

        -a display in fixed arrangment of such a set, as boy, boy's, boys, boys'.

        -an example serving as a model; pattern.

Our assignment was to break free of our paradigm. I don't remember much else about it; I do know that I always felt like the dumbest person in SDL and when we were told to build a house out of foamboard, I made mine an octagonal, zebra printed home with a black and white circus tent roof...

What I'm trying to say is that I guess I figured SDL was breaking free of the monotonous paradigm that is inherently middle school because I didn't feel like I belonged there at all... but I went anyway.

Nowadays, I break free of my paradigm by travelling, constantly switching jobs and moving at least once a year... but it's recently occurred to me that these have all become ... patterns. Moving has become the paradigm in which I've made myself comfortable... and now I'm bored.

The man, the genius, the legend.

So what do I do?

In the end, and I cannot stress this enough... my dissatisfaction all stems from the same thing... or rather, the same person: me.

Dissatisfaction is the offspring of inaction and denial.

What I need to do is take a deep breath... and get the fuck over myself.