April Awakening: Day Two 🌧️🌧️🌧️
A long time ago when I was a YouTuber, I was always cognizant of the fact that anything I said online could be construed in ways that were not my original intent. And the more content I put out, the easier it would be for anyone to “catch” me in a contradiction. So it was something I’d make sure to highlight my own hypocrisy on things if it ever popped up. Sometimes it’s certainly a struggle to keep catching yourself in your own duplicity.
I’m not sure if anything exists where there doesn’t also lie a contradiction. You see it pop up in cliches a lot. One of my favorite contradicting cliches is: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” yet “out of sight, out of mind.” There’s also “Never, ever, ever give up,” versus “It is what it is.” Things like cliches are easy to become contradictory because they’re only surface-level platitudes. Humans and all their depth makes things a little more difficult to navigate.
I’ve written about my mentor program at work before. I wish there was a way for me to opt out of it. I just don’t feel in any position to give anyone advice on anything. Who wants to hear it from one big bag of duplicity like me? I got very upset when a colleague rolled her eyes at me during a meeting, but how often do I roll my eyes when asked to do things I’m supposed to do? I get mad when people shirk their responsibilities, but how many times have I just scrolled and scrolled on X or Reddit? I don’t want to be an internal fraud, but it just may be another one of the pieces that makes us human.
I do wonder how I’m set to maneuver this maddening mish-mosh of conflicting emotions when I eventually become a mother. I’m not trying to get ahead of myself, but I will be thirty-eight this month. Either way, the closes thing I have to mothering right now is the cat, and out of everyone, she sees her mama being the biggest hypocrite of them all. I tell her to stop yelling as I yell at her. I want her to quit being cuckoo-bananas as I rant at myself in the mirror. I say she needs to stop whining when literally that’s my favorite hobby. I even scream about how much I absolutely adore her and love every moment I have with her. What kind of parental figure can I be when it’s time to discipline my kids? Are they even going to take me seriously, or will they call me out just like I do myself?
These are things I hyper-focus on that may not even come to pass when it’s time for that cycle of my life to begin. I can’t help it. There’s some kind of internal need that strives to be whatever version of perfect I decide on that day. Perhaps it’s just best to remember everyone has flaws and no one can actually be perfect. My self-awareness about the contradictory nature may just be what saves me here. Because I’m sure if you read everything I’ve ever written here since 2017, you’d find plenty that doesn’t quite jibe with my past preachings. But the more I own it, perhaps the less I’ll fall victim to it.
I say this now but I’m sure I’ll write something sooner or later that’ll render this entire entry useless in its contrarianism. Or else I just wouldn’t be me.