Dylan

I’ve always felt like such a self-confidence psycho. Half the time I feel like I am coasting on a dream cloud, and other times I don’t feel like I deserve the good stuff that happens to me.

Let’s start with yesterday, an awesome day. I finished a week of full-time work and celebrated by eating an incredible sprinkled doughnut. Awesome. I got home and started planning my visit to L.A. to hang out with the Rookie road trippers and see some old friends, which made me hyper-stoked, because it’s going to be the best week ever. I talked to my mom about visiting as well, which made me hyper-hyper-stoked. Yesterday it seemed like nothing could get better; everything was already at its beautiful, glittery peak. Also, I made sure that I let everyone know how awesome things were! Some days you just feel like you have it made, you know?

Then today blew chunks. After getting up at dawn for a dog-walking job, I logged on to Facebook and found out that my former Crush Boy is dating someone else. I hadn’t thought about him in a while, but that made me sad.

I like to think that I’m pretty talented at not giving a shit during times like these. I’ll flame up with bad feelings for about two minutes, and then remember how much I just donnnnnnnn’t caaaaaaaaaare and continue on my trail of kicking ass at life. But for some reason, today’s bum-out lasted longer. I went negative. I hated myself for thinking about an old crush, and then I hated myself for hating myself.

I’ve been thinking about that boy I knew last summer whom I treated harshly. From his perspective, maybe I was like his Crush Girl, and the way I treated him was mirrored in the way Crush Boy treated me. For every boy you blow off, does a boy blow you off? These thoughts triggered my feelings of boy-incompetence. I started going through my List of Dudes & How I Failed and sent myself into a hole of pity and malcontentedness and aloneness.

That is, until I went for an amazing run around Coit Tower, took a shower, put on my favorite dress, and remembered how fucking great I am. SEE HOW IT SWINGS?! In two days, I went from feeling like I was hot shit to just the normal kind of shit and back again. I need to find a way to still be totally in love with my life even when everything is not perfect. I shouldn’t get so thrown by things that bum me out. Having my satisfaction depend on just the good times is an unsustainable way to build my confidence. And thinking I’m the shit isn’t the best way to boost my confidence, because that’s just my ego getting a quick fix. I have to calm this psychotic cycle so I can grow up and chill OUT and love myself just the right amount. ♦