Honey Could You Take Out The Trash?

Ugh... Monday's in my house are trash day. But for me everyday is trash day. And by trash day I mean the constant removal of junk from my frontal lobe. The emptying out of the daily diarrhea that fills my soul and then by extension my head.

The problem with any occupation where you spend time separated from the familiar backdrop of life is you have no place to take out your garbage. Everyone needs a garbage shoot where at the end of the day you take all of the corrosive junk that builds up over the course of the day and just exfoliate it from your soul.

The waitress who doesn't bother to know the items on the menu. The clerk behind the counter who insists on  both reviewing your order, but also feels compelled to dig into how your day is going. Or there are also the day to day occupation items that just continue to dig underneath your skin for no apparent reason other than its some inexpiable policy that resides in a dusty book and serves no real purpose but must be enforced at all costs!

Hundreds of little things and some big that if not dug from your psyche will just fester and rot until it comes out really bad ways.

I have some garbage that has festered for a while now and to be honest has short circuited by the ability to move forward. And while I would love nothing better than to just let it all out here... Ugh... I can't.

So I will have to keep it generic and in no specific way. But it needs to come out. Desperately. For the carrot has been dangled. A subtle offer has been implied. A tiny light exposes a reflection of redemption and a way out. Markers showing benchmarks I can hit. A chance, a hope, the smallest sliver of good in a tunnel of darkness.  I think to myself at that moment "I can make it".

But if I am tasting the carrot I first have to remove the junk from the trunk.

So here goes. In this trash bag I place the repugnant adjectives placed on virtual paper which describes me (and I am paraphrasing here) as a colossal DICK.

Next up is the shattered confidence that went along with the colossal DICK adjectives. (Picked up some yesterday to replace the confidence I used to have)

Followed by the self loathing and determined flogging of being painted as a failure. (Shrink told me if all of her patients were like me she would be broke. i.e. nothing wrong with me)

In next goes the feeling of helplessness. Almost nothing is worse than the feeling of no hope. A futile struggle ending in destruction and failure. Hardest pill to swallow, but the easiest thing to dump in this bag.

One thing I will keep is a little bit of insider knowledge I was ready to chuck. "Being right and being nice are not mutually exclusive". Pissed at the time it was shared and really wanted to ceremoniously chuck. But one of those things that struck a nerve. Not garbage, but a little nugget worthy of a place on the mantel. So as not to forget.

It's almost full. Those few items take up a lot of space. And even though they are in my mental garbage bag there will be remnants I'm going to have to really scrub out. I have an item I keep in my in box as a constant reminder. But now, maybe it's time to move it to a folder. Maybe that little reminder is what keeps it alive for me.

Festering. A slow burn to my future adjudication. Time to just let that go. I wrote yesterday words have no weight, take up no space. They are neither sharp nor blunt and can only inflict as much damage as you allow them to.

The pain words can cause are only to you. No one else feels it. Its effect can only be as permanent as you allow them to be. The damage it creates visible only to you. How you heal from them depends on how far you allow the hook to go. And when the hook is set deep. The mentally weak never recover. But the strong minded find a way to blunt the sharp edges. We find a way to extricate it from our souls and our psyches.

I've really let this hook go for way too long. Rusted and brittle the edges have become the sharp and painful. The barb slides out out easily and with no pain. RELIEF that it is gone from my gut.

The reborn always come back tougher. More seasoned our skins just a little thicker. But best of all smarter than before.

When the die is cast and hooks with sharp barbs come my way again, I'll know them and they will know me. Each of us staying at a respectful distance. Recognizing in each other the struggle and the pain that comes from the fight and the damage we cause in those around us.

And with that I haul my bag of trash over the gunnels watching it sink and not the least bit sorry to see it go.

Tomorrow when the sun breaks over the horizon, I will start back up the road. Seeking out new challenges yearning for the next difficulty I will have to overcome.

Stronger. Wiser. And just a little bit less afraid of the future.