I watched Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion earlier today. It’s a movie that really touches a nerve. Because at it’s heart it’s a movie about being good enough, about impressing people. If I’m being honest that is something that weighs on my mind a lot and dictates a lot of my actions. I want to impress people. Infact I find myself avoiding people – even people I really like – if I feel like I haven’t done anything impressive recently, and have nothing to report to them. I saw my old high school year advisor in an office supplies store last week. I should’ve talked to her, but I didn’t. I was worried that my response to the inevitable “What have you been doing?” question would be frankly uninspiring.

In the movie, the lesson is ultimately to be yourself. Everything blows up in their faces as Romy and Michele pretend to be successful business women (having invented Post-It Notes, no less). When their facade is removed, they decide to be themselves. They decide to confront the people who made them miserable. The whole social dynamic has changed. And everything works out happily-ever-after in true Hollywood style…

I’m not sure things will necessarily work out as well for you and I if we embrace our true selves. (Though it would be nice if some old high school colleague, now a millionaire, was romantically pining for me.) But it really speaks to the energy – mental, physical, emotional – that goes into keeping up appearances and constantly evaluating yourself from the vantage points of others.

I probably would’ve gone to my ten year high school reunion had I been able to impress people. And again you sort of have to wonder what the drive is to want to impress people you don’t even like…

I guess people are always casting expectations upon us. Sometimes we shake them off, sometimes we internalise them. We want to prove to others – but especially to ourselves – that the unkind aspersions are indeed untrue. Our concept of self can be a little murky. We might not be certain that it is untrue. We hope it is untrue. Our ego wants to demonstrate for all and sundry that is untrue. But what if (gasp) it isn’t…?

That doubt can make us crazy, and that doubt can be used to leavage us by unscrupulous people. Remember Romy and Michele didn’t look foolish being themselves, they only looked foolish when they felt so inadequate that they misrepresented themselves and were shown to be untrue.

A lot of ‘stuff’ is attached to social standing, to popularity. What does it ‘mean’ to be popular? What does it mean if you aren’t, or weren’t? What does that say about you? Of course it could mean anything you want it to mean. And it some ways it doesn’t matter what it means, or what you decide it means. It doesn’t have to have an obvious conclusion. It just has to introduce enough doubt to make you crazy. It just has to make you doubt your likability just that little bit.

So maybe it isn’t about proving them wrong. Perhaps it’s about affirming for yourself that you’re a worthwhile human being. It’s not that their opinion is particularly important, it’s just that that’s the origin of the doubt you’re trying to reconcile.

Farewell NaNoWriMo, though I hardly knew ye. I wrote some 7,356 words in the first week and didn’t touch it again for the rest of the month. And not because ‘real life’ came between me and my lofty writing ambitions. This is an excuse a lot of people will cite and I imagine for most of them that is quite true. For me NaNoWriMo set off some horrible internal battle. It was horrendous.

I can write this.
(Sure you can.)
No, really. Just 2000 words a day. It’ll be fine.
(Then what happened on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday?)
It doesn’t have to be ‘good.’ It just has to ‘be.’
(Then why aren’t you ‘doing’ it?)
Maybe I can’t do this.
(Of course you can’t do this! You were a fool to think you could.)
But random annoying happy 14 year olds are doing this and ‘winning…’
(Ahem. Yes…)
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’m not sure I like writing. Infact I think I might hate it. Maybe I’m not cut out for this? Maybe I don’t have the right to refer to myself as a ‘writer’ or even an ‘artist.’ Hmmm.

NaNoWriMo was only the tip of a much larger iceberg. I’m not creating anything. For the most part I don’t want to. I’ve come to hate and resent the world. There’s no joy to be had here. It’s all about “harm minimisation.” I read Julia Cameron’s books (The Artist’s Way, Walking In This World) and think, “Wow! This woman gets it.” I find her words soothing and comforting. Unfortunately at times I am so comforted in those moments that I relax and don’t do anything any more. I don’t do the exercises, I don’t do the art, I don’t do ‘the work.’ I don’t even show up. But one of the things she talks about is having a self to express, about being somebody. Cultivating experiences. Filling the artistic well so you have things to draw upon when you address the page, stage or canvas.

I think I need to do that more. Actually get out and do things, experience some sort of life, develop a self worth expressing. I see myself too much from other people’s vantage points. I need to say what I want more. I need to be more honest with people. I need to dream more and do more. But I hate dreaming. Dreaming is the first stop towards disappointment. But what is life without dreaming? It’s pretty sucky. Perhaps more sucky than this dreaming and failing. I certainly don’t feel like I have much to lose. So, wonderful. Let’s keep the expectations low. That will help. Probably.

I am traveling interstate over New Years Eve. There’s this other world waiting for me somewhere else. I don’t know what exactly. Infact I’m quite wary of it. My inner control freak is alive and well, and wants to endure experiences it can manage carefully. And actually it’s quite foolish because there is so much outside of my control. Sometimes you’ve just got to go along for the ride. But I’ve never done that. I micromanage my environment as an adult because I had to micromanage it as a kid. I feel foolish when I take chances and things don’t work out. I feel foolish when I tell someone how much I care about them and their response is unenthusiastic. I tell myself each and everytime that the chance was worth taking and that the action was noble, but I don’t really ‘feel’ it. That’s the theory of it, but the reality of it is much closer to “Well I’m never doing that again.”

I guess all I’m trying to say is that I don’t know very much… and that’s okay, hopefully.