Hormones

I'd like to think we have the potential to master ourselves and our emotions. Or rather, that I have that potential for control. If I have low self-esteem, I don't blame it on anyone. I know it's within me, that I'm the only one who can change my outlook. Or if I'm confident, that I put myself there.

And then like clockwork, that day comes, and stretches into four, or five, and I can look in the mirror and think, "You disgusting creature. How can anyone bear to look at you?"

I'll sit on the edge of the bed in tears, upset about not being good enough for my clients. Arguing with Tim who says, "You care so much. That means something." Saying, "but doing my best still isn't good enough. I'm still not good enough."

And I believe it all. It's all true. All the ugliness and failure seems bone deep and bred in me.

But at the same time, I notice how easy it is to think and talk hatefully about myself, and I'm also surprised. I am objectively shocked at the loathing, and how subjectively another half of me accepts and believes it.

I suppose, since I'm stepping outside myself to have all these observations, that I can understand the hatred is not real, that the failure is, for the most part, imaginary. But one half of me still burns with it and claws the ugliness to bloody shreds.

And then, the next week, it's gone, and I wonder how I could ever look into my mirror eyes and think those green irises were ugly. I know my eyes, and many other parts of me, are beautiful. I just know it.

I'm left in a tilt, off-balance, knowing hormones are coursing through my body, influencing me in ways I cannot ever control. In a small way, it's reassuring, knowing when I fly into a rage because they're out of my favorite piquante sauce at the grocery store that there's a reason for my seemingly out-of-nowhere anger. But still. I'd rather be able to be accountable for everything.