Love Yourself

Ha. Yeah, like, whatever. Like I’m going to believe that.

So this is about mountain biking which I don’t really like that much. But my partner just bought a new mountain e-bike, and spent, oh I’d say conservatively three weeks? Hounding me to join him in this purchase. They are expensive, but the argument was that if I don’t have an e-bike, he’s not going to bike alone and this way we could access some climbs easier (knee pain is becoming a thing for both of us, so biking is better.) And we can do some mountain biking. Which (see beginning of the paragraph) I don’t like that much.

So I bought a (put expletive here) bike and we went on a tour Sunday. We’re not that good yet with the apps and maps available for mountain biking. We picked a route, and I figured that if the path’s too hard, we could go down to the mountain roads below.

And it was way too hard but we kept at it. We couldn’t bike up (we could barely walk up, pushing and carrying the bikes) and riding down was just too hard and scary for me and not any fun at all. So I walked down, too. So we went on a bike tour and I spent most of my time walking, and carrying a 16 kilo bike up a hill was not exactly a birthday present for my knees.

On top of it just being annoying, I also felt like the biggest incapable, loser moron who ever existed. Because that’s how I feel most of the time anyway. I’m hard on myself. If I ever feel good about something I did, or something I said, or a teaching day or a climbing day, I’m always my worst critic. I knock myself down a peg in a hurry. I have a whole string of “haters” posting comments in my brain. This is my normal.

I think this comes from when I was maybe nine. I was weird. My family was pretty messed up (nothing to go into here, but like “go to prison” messed up). I didn’t have the right clothes or haircut or anything, and I had my head in a book most of the time because reality just wasn’t my favorite thing.

Kids would make fun of me. So I learned just to admit to whatever they wanted to attack me with. “You’re a weirdo!” they’d say, and I’d reply, “Yes, I am.” Took the wind out of their sails and they left me alone. Except I kind of believed it. And then there was my step-father also saying the same things. “You’re so stupid.” and I just swallowed it. If everyone around you is saying the same thing, and you’re too young to know the difference, you think they’re right.

So that’s been internalized. I spend around 80% of my life feeling useless. I can intellectually tell myself that I’m not, but that doesn’t work for a very long time. “You’re too big for your britches” I hear myself say and my internal dialogue is going “Yes, you’re so right, I couldn’t agree more.”

We all deserve happiness, we all deserve love and to love ourselves. I know this. But this gets mixed up pretty quickly with the word “deserve”. I have a pretty good life these days. So why am I so lucky? I have a good job, a nice apartment, a nice set of friends. You just have to look at any boat load of folks trying to float their way to a better existence across the seas to ask yourself “why me and not them?” (and I’m pretty sure they’re asking themselves, “Why them and not me? which is what got them on the boat in the first place.) Why me and not them, especially when I feel like I’m so useless?

I’m just going to say it anyway. I love myself. I deserve happiness. Maybe that will take the wind out of the sails of my internal critics. And maybe those folks trying to get themselves to a better future will have some wind in their sails and they, too, can find their way, and be happy.