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insecurity blanket

I’m having sort of a rough day.

I woke up this morning and I knew that it was going to be tough. For the past four months, I’ve greeted the day with a sense of optimism. I open my eyes and take a moment to absorb my mermaid-blue walls, my sleeping dog, my tangle of covers and think this is really good.

This morning I woke up and felt like I was going to cry. Stumbling out of bed, I let Daisy out and sat in front of my computer, staring at the dark monitor thinking I’m empty. I’m tapped out. I’ve got nothing left.

The rational part of my brain reminds myself that my oversensitive, ready-to-cry self is hormonal. I’m due for my period. This is raging PMS and it’s function of chemicals, not reality. I know that this is the estrogen putting my brian in a chokehold and tuning all the radios to the same station, which have YOU ARE UNLOVABLE on repeat. But the questions ricochet around my head like a pinball.

What’s wrong with me? What the hell am I doing? Am I ever going to work again? Do I deserve to work again? Am I talented enough to work again? How is it possible that anyone could ever be attracted to me? Will my life be filled with unrequited crushes? Should I really just pack it in and go home to answer phones for a balding insurance agent? Am I deluding myself about everything?

The only thing I’m certain on days like today is that I’m being delusional.

I wrote recently about the duality of being me and being the slackmistress. They used to be two separate entities, and now they’re one and the same. But days like today remind me of where I started out. Where I used to be. I used to live like this twenty-four hours a day: a quivering mess of low self-esteem and insecurity covered with a thin patina of bravado, my biggest fear that I’d be exposed as a fraud.

It was exhausting. It is exhausting. And embarrassing to admit to such a thing in a public forum. I met with a three fabulous slack readers when I was up in San Francisco and one of them said what I like about you is that you say things that we all think but are afraid to say.

It’s not that I’m brave, I told her, it’s just that I don’t know any better.

I am smart and funny and cute and while things aren’t going exactly the way I planned, I lead a charmed life. I know this to be true. But the other part of my brain is the proverbial devil on my shoulder, wishing that the universe would open up and swallow me whole.

Today I am a prisoner of my hormones. Today will remind me that I used to be this person, and I’m not this person anymore. But today will probably suck nonetheless.