Monday, November 29, 2004

Sometime it's just not as good as it might be

One of my favourite movies is The Princess Bride. Full of very witty quotes... One of the more memorable exchanges is as follows:

BUTTERCUP: You're the Dread Pirate Roberts; admit it.
MAN IN BLACK: With pride. What can I do for you?
BUTTERCUP: You can die slowly cut into a thousand pieces.
MAN IN BLACK: Hardly complimentary, Your Highness. Why loose your venom on me?
BUTTERCUP: You killed my love.
MAN IN BLACK: It's possible; I kill a lot of people. Who was this love of yours? Another Prince, like this one, ugly, rich, and scabby?
BUTTERCUP: No. A farm boy. Poor. Poor and perfect, with eyes like the sea after a storm. On the high seas, your ship attacked, and the Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners.
MAN IN BLACK (explaining as a teacher might): I can't afford to make exceptions. Once word leaks out that a pirate has gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it's nothing but work, work, work, all the time.
BUTTERCUP: You mock my pain.
MAN IN BLACK: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

And without sounding too pathetic/angsty/whateverthehellathirty
yearoldmanshouldhavegrownoutofbynow
becausehe'sthirtyandamanand it'sallbullshitanyway 'cosbuggritI'mnothappy, life is hard. Well, at the moment it is for me. One of the scary aspects about this is that I am not entirely sure why this is. I am undergoing a bit of 'crisis of confidence' at work now (that's what a two page letter of complaint to your boss will do for you), but I think there is more to it than that. Some of it's also got to do with being thirty and still being single.

And it's a bit shit really. Because I also have around me some of the most important people in the world, people who mean more to me than I can put into words. And there are other things in my world that are unequivocably good, and for which I am grateful and which I treasure. Yet at the moment, somehow it is simply not enough. And without starting all my sentences in this entry with the word 'and', quite frankly I don't know what is enough.

One of the observations I have had about all this is that I know that to many degrees I am doing the right things in trying to deal with - I talk to my friends, I focus on the better things in my world, and try to make good decisions. And I know that for the most part I am a good person. There are characteristics about me that are noble and worthy. But my observation is that I put a plaster over the wounds that stem the immediate crisis, but I don't actually deal with the underlying infection. And this seems to present me with two choices: the first choice is to seek therapy for this now and the second choice is to let it get so bad that I am forced to deal with it. I'll probably go with the first option, 'cos damnit all I tend to make wiser choices.

It probably sounds a bit depressing, but then, fuck it, I have no shame in hiding what I feel. And I believe that you've simply got to talk about the shit that is affecting your life. You also need to talk about the good stuff too.

And I reserve the right to delete this, but...

3 comments:

richard said...

Briar Rose, nice to know there are people out there reading this. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Always curious to find out how people stumble across me... I don't think I will be deleting this entry. Haven't got a therapist yet but I'll be looking at his/her face closely to see if there are any hockey masks.

I'll probably be fine, but I think this time I want to start looking at the bottom of what's in here.

Matt said...

hi rich
thanks so much for your post. obviously the last thing you need is trite suggestions or superficial proverbs so instead i will just leave you this note to say that we are here for you. shalom my friend, Matt. p.s. let's blow the froth of a couple soon as...

Matt said...

Hi again Rich
just came across a post on a blog i read called 'Golden Goldingay' and i thought of you. you can find it here: http://feeologee.blogspot.com/
bye for now
matt