The Flood

I sit here tonight and I find myself going over some of the promises I've made to myself over the years. I think about the big ones and the little ones, the ones I've kept and the ones I haven't, the promises I've yet to make and the ones I've yet to keep. I think about all these promises and I laugh a little to myself. It is a hollow laugh.

I remember many years ago making the promise to myself that I'd change myself completely. I'd cast off everything that I didn't like about myself (which was a lot) and emerge anew. That was a big promise but I kept to it as best I could. I started to work out, I went for cross country bike rides everyday and I lost a lot of weight. For the first time in my life I was able to look in the mirror and just for the briefest second I didn't see the disgusting obese man I was used to seeing.

But it wasn't just a physical change I wanted. Like most people I wanted to be someone else. I wanted to become the person I felt on the inside, not the outer shell the rest of the world saw and hated. So I worked on that too. I went to the doctor and got the medication for my manic depression, I even started seeing a shrink and a theropist to work through some of the more "complicated" of my mental problems.

None of it was easy and I almost literally ended up destroying myself in the process. But when I came out the other side even I didn't recognise me. The scars and the ruins of who I once was are still visible, I still find it hard to look in the mirror and not see a fat man.

It's funny though, I'm proudest of the fact that I kept a promise I made to myself. That doesn't happen often. I mean I'll stick to my convictions mostly all of the time, but promises I make to myself seem to crumble to dust.

After a while I stopped taking the antidepressants and whatever other medication I was on. There is a bitter joy in sorrow, as they say.

Promises are an odd thing. I don't make them often unless I know I'll keep them. But I find myself making silly little ones all the time to myself. Before I started writing this post I found myself promising myself that I'd get in better shape. It's the kind of small thing we all promise ourselves after we've stepped on the scales in the morning, even when it's not really neccessary.

I find myself comparing this little promise to "lose a little bit of weight" to the big promises I made all those years ago to change myself. It seems so trivial and yet so neccessary. I guess I'll never stop craving self-improvement...Or perhaps I'm just very vain.

I always say to people when they ask or comment about vanity: "Oh I'm an extremely vain man, which is rather ironic really as I'm so hideously ugly."

Perhaps there is a silent arrogance to that. I don't care, I'm me and I'll continue to be myself regardless of other people. The only person we should change for is ourself.


Well this post doesn't make a lot of sense, no point to it. Sorry if you just wasted moments of your life reading it. Apologies for typos, grammatical errors and bad syntax etc but I won't be proof reading this one.


on an unrelated note:

-sigh- I wish I was close to anyone.