When I was a child, I had a crippling fear that everything I had ever done that I was ashamed of would one day come out as a tabloid expose. In my mind, at six years old, I would obviously grow up to be very famous. The paparazzi would dig into my past and eventually I would see my deep dark secrets splashed across all the magazines at my local supermarket. Obviously.
Thankfully, I don’t think anyone is interested in, “Savannah jumped on a board once to scare out a mole she saw run under it and accidentally squashed it instead.” Or even, “At ten years old, Savannah spent a year terrified that everything she touched would lead to her imminent death!’
Even after childhood, I’ve basically had a nonstop printer of Ok! Magazine printing off headlines about how terrible, shameful, and bizarre I am for as long as I can remember. It’s the core of why I started writing about my life. It’s somewhat preemptive to air out all my dirty laundry (before the press gets to it. Obviously.) It helps absolve my shame to understand my life experiences and actions. Even if the driving force behind them at times was, “I was truly an insane person for reasons continuing to be discovered.”
Writing about my life, however, has doubled the shame complex at times. I have been so public about the thought processing around my life and what has happened. These things evolve and change and the effect they have on my life compounds or lessens as time goes on. I have often reread things I have written and thought, “I don’t necessarily feel that way anymore.” And then shame comes in, “Way to go, bozo, you were wrong!”
This went into overdrive after my last relationship ended. Perfect on paper guy had some not so perfect on paper reactions, I was stuck trying to get over them and eventually I chose to end things with him.
”Savannah leaves another man after thinking he was the one, what a fucking moron!” The tabloids screamed in my head, “Jilted bitch is jilted again! When will she ever learn! Nothing is ever actually going to work out for you!”
I was a laughing stock to the muppet peanut gallery in my own brain.
Luckily, my brain also has a good PR team. It cranked out new headlines to thin out the barrage of negative reporting. Things like, “Girl who would never have left a toxic situation before ACTUALLY leaves a toxic situation!” “Look out world! Savannah stands up for herself (and didn’t even resort to name calling to do it!)” and my favorite one, “Despite adversity, Savannah continues to believe everything will indeed one day work out!”
But there is still always a whisper in the background saying, “Everyone read how much hope you had, how much stock you put into this. And now you look like a fool! You always look like a fool! You should never express any strong feeling you have because you always end up looking like a full of shit loony!”
Honestly, maybe I do. I wrote a whole blog post about how I shouldn’t always put my whole ass into everything I do and I just kept whole assing it. It’s a quality that I truly love and loathe about myself. Fully in or fully out, I am only ambivalent once I have exhausted all my energy.
There is a fine line to walk in the duality of the things we both loathe and love about ourselves. Depending on how they are applied, they can be an asset or a detriment.
My favorite game to play when I notice I am being overly critical of myself is to take whatever I think someone would say about me (after reminding myself that literally no one really thinks about me that much) and asking myself, “What is the alternative?”
“Savannah always thinks the guy she is dating is going to be ‘the one’, that he is so special, blah blah.” Okay, so what is the alternative? “Savannah is forever skeptical and on guard with someone she is dating, she never trusts that they are who they say they are.” Fuckin’ yuck, dude. I don’t want that to ever be me. I struggle combating those thoughts enough, there’s no way that I would ever want that to be my full modus operandi. I think I’ll go with my favorite ‘Despite adversity!’ headline instead.
I quit drinking two and a half years ago and the other day I was still spiraling out over all of the ridiculous or horrible things I had ever done. As they flashed through my mind like a reality tv recap, I burst out laughing, “Gollllly, what a wild bitch you were! Aren’t you glad that’s not you now?”
I’m not going to hate myself forever. Because that’s the thing, right? If that version of me would have loved herself the way I love her now, she probably wouldn’t have done most of the things she’d done. I love her retroactively. I am the sum of all my parts. All of them are welcome (although most of their behaviors will not be tolerated in the present day.)
That’s another way I challenge my imaginary tabloids: I don’t do so many of the things I used to do. And it’s totally okay if people don’t believe that. I don’t need to live my life constantly proving that I’m not who I used to be. I can just be who I am.
I care what people think of me, sure, but I won’t let it dictate my behavior. I won’t stay in a situation just so I’m not ‘wrong.’ And I won’t allow myself to boil alive in shame I don’t deserve to carry. I’ve worn my hair shirt, I’ve dragged myself over the coals.
Enough is enough.
I love that I put my whole ass into what I believe in, even if it is just for a season. Even with my alcoholism, I learned so much about myself and other people. I had a lot of amazing experiences when I was drinking. Eventually, the ones that sucked outweighed the good ones. It was the same with trying to make relationships work that had reached an end. One day, I took my whole ass out and closed the chapter. I had exhausted my energy. It had become a detriment, not an asset.
I am not afraid of being alone, even when it sucks. And yeah, it really does suck. I’m not going to act like I’m living it up over here. I have a week off work and it could be aired as a documentary on ‘How to be Depressed.’ It’s not interesting, it’s just me eating cheese quesadillas and sleeping for multiple days in a row. Watching ten different tv series and not being able to tell you what a single one was about. Sobbing after every place I went on Christmas Eve because this is not what I thought my life would be like. Raging that I should have been 23 weeks pregnant, glowing with Perfect on Paper guy by my side. Celebrating with our families, my mom, my sisters.
Instead, I am more alone than ever.
I would rather be alone than be in a situation I can’t remedy. I know when to stop trying. I didn’t know before.
I always lived my life by the mindset of, “Ready or not! Here I come!” But what is the alternative?
For once, I’m not really pushing myself to feel better right now. I think it’s time to really grieve it all. My baby, my significant relationships, my dads deaths. Who I thought I was, who I thought I would be. I’m allowing myself to be afraid of what’s next. Sometimes you need to know when to hide and when to seek.
I so badly wanted everything to work out this time. Honestly, even just to prove that it could. ‘Former party girl leaves shitty relationship and finds new love, has a baby, blah blah.’ I wanted to prove it to myself, of course. But I also wanted to be a success story to everyone who had watched it unfold, everyone who wanted to see me succeed and everyone who didn’t. I didn’t want to say, “Look who was wrong again!’
I am okay with being wrong. I am okay with being seen as a broken record of ‘Despite adversity, I’m going to keep going.’ I am okay with it all.
Last year, I just wanted to be proud of myself.
This year, I am.
