This thought, “broken, yes, that’s how the light gets in” keeps replaying. This idea that when you want to build a muscle, you break it down first. That’s how you get stronger. What doesn’t kill you makes you funnier; however, it doesn’t necessarily have to be your life’s purpose.
I have to wonder if the butterfly knows what’s up when it comes out of the cocoon. I’d imagine that maybe it still thinks it’s a caterpillar and it kind of stumbles around trying to walk and then there’s some aha! And it realizes it can fly. Like, I have to imagine that is a fucked up day for that insect. Imagine first, like you turn into goo. Your entire physical being disintegrates and rebuilds itself into a completely different form with completely different functionality. I have trouble switching parking brakes between my car and my husband’s. I pop his hood thinking I’m releasing my break. The thought of going from sliding on my belly to flying seems like a lot of big steps. What if the caterpillar is pissed about it? What if the butterfly is half insane freaking out about these weird fucking things growing out its back? I could see it.
So, a month ago I was at my legal hold trial, I don’t know what it’s actually called. I guess I really just had to defend my sanity. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid, standing on trial for my sanity wasn’t what I envisioned. But I just pictured the Depp/Heard trial and just tried to make sure I kept answers short, simple, honest, and direct. Basically the opposite of certain parties in that trial. I was evaluated by a court psychologist and psychiatrist, and they deemed me sane (ho ho ho did I fool them). I was discharged from my first involuntary hold from the finest mental hospital I’ve had the privilege of inpatient’ing. (one of my new most favorite sentences.)
I used to be embarrassed about being hospitalized, but much like after pushing 4 kids out of my vagina/having hordes of random folks prodding about my nether regions, I am desensitized! I prolly shit on a table a few times and some other human cleaned it. I’ve seen grown folks shit on the floor when I was in the mental hospital. I shit, you shit, we all shit in weird places sometimes.
My discharge plan of record was to go to various casinos for as long as I felt like, vacation, spa days, etc. until I decided what I was going to do next. When you have not one but 2 psychotic breaks under your belt, it just gets to feeling like someone out there would really like you to stop your fucking bullshit.
I ultimately decided to Hyperfocus on writing and whatnot. I’ve spent so much time and energy on others. The simple question that came to mind was – what if I put all that energy on me? Instead of squandering it pushing myself to do shit I don’t want to do, what if I…allocated it to shit I’m scared to do but maybe it will be better than this nonsense?
Then I had this idea to dare myself. Doing things scared or anxious, etc. drains me. So I need a huge reserve of energy I typically don’t have to do something I don’t want to do. Like, my baseline is sleeping my life away, so it’s quite a jump to doing things and rejoining the vertically inclined lifestyle community again.
I tried being more disciplined, but much like energy…if I have a discipline, it’s figuring out how to not kill myself or succumb to whatever fucking voice is driving me insane at the moment. Consistency is likewise also not a thing for me. My entire life is rhythmic, so I’d find the better word in this is harmony.
In the spirit of harmony, instead of all this pushing and kicking my own ass, I remembered how enthusiastically I’d take on dares as a kid, how stupidly, extremely, embarrassingly far I could be dared to go. Oh, the stories.
One time a friend dared me to streak. In a church parking lot, and run up and tag the church. This was a well lit, well trafficked area, and a church. A dare, however, is a dare. I’m sure there’s a disposable camera buried in a drawer somewhere that will get released once I make it big.
But I was that kid. I’d scour the internet, books, whatever to find the absolute worst jokes to tell anybody who’d gather round me in the recess yard. I vaguely remember one about a farmer, 18 daughters, and feeling like a golfer going in and outta holes all night…. Like daring me to do shit was just guaranteed stupidity. I took the Catholic School Girl stereotype and fused it with fat girls gotta be funny and have a personality and then formed my entire life’s philosophy around Jurassic Park.
The only two things I tend to take seriously are promises and dares. And dares just because making other people and me laugh is the best. I know Robin Williams has talked about the Sad Clown and how the most depressed people are the ones who will do anything to make others feel better… it’s true. The worst part of this last bout was I stopped being funny again, and that is like feeling worthless doubletime. Not only am I drowning, but I can’t even make somebody else smile to justify my existence? Uf. Then I remembered, I had to make myself laugh first. I have to be the funniest motherfucker I know, and I’m walking around telling myself I suck.
The darkest nights of my existence all fall as subcategories of the heading: “What doesn’t kill you makes you funnier”
So what happens if I dare myself to make my dreams come true? Or I dare myself to write whatever whenever however? Dare myself to put random bullshit on TikTok? Dare myself to metaphorically fuck a blender on the daily?
I don’t know. What about you?
Mah Butt Itches 
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