Shut Up, Brain!

At my core, I’m not really a naturally happy person. I’m a worrier by nature. There’s something inherently messed up in my psyche that makes me overthink EVERYTHING. It’s not like I’m down all the time or anything – I do have fun, and I do have light hearted times. But if there’s not a good reason to worry about something and be pessimistic, then my traitorous little subconscious will invent a reason and push it to the foreground of my mental landscape.

Oddly enough, I’m pretty introverted, yet I still care a lot how friends/family/significant others think of me. I don’t really care what other people think. Again, an odd thing is that I seek company and solitude equally. I need my alone time, but also need time with “my people”. Not just any people – my usual opinion is that most of them can piss off.

That worrier thing. It’s had the best of me for a while now. For the last year and a half or so, there have been precious few times that I felt relaxed. Sadly, for most of that time, relaxation required either a long, solo motorcycle ride or the consumption of alcohol. After giving it some thought, I now understand the Zen idea of meditation through an activity. Zen uses things like archery or martial arts; losing yourself in the concentration of the activity. I think some of us achieve the same thing with motorcycles. So, that helps. And when I can’t ride, well – alcohol helps to make those worrying voices in my head shut the fuck up.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions, all at once. So many obligations. Too many. It’s like I went to a buffet and overloaded my plate, taking more than I can possibly eat, yet I’m not willing or able to put any of it back, so here I sit. At the table. Over-fucking-whelmed.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve never succeeded at much of anything; everything has been a failure or at most, a “just got by”. Work? Ha! Fail. Relationships? Same, but I’m trying so hard to learn from my mistakes. I think I’m making new ones, but at least I’ve learned to communicate more, so hopefully that’ll help. Parenthood? I feel like I’m an okay father. I think I’ve done the best I could, given the circumstances. I may be wrong about that, but I hope not. I guarantee it’s not for lack of love for my kids. It seems like sometimes the only thing in my life I’ve actually done well at is being a Gypsy. That’s a member of Gypsy Motorcycle Club, not the ethnicity. When I was younger, that was fine, but it doesn’t necessarily help with being a parent, and unlike the MCs on TV and in the movies, it doesn’t pay a salary. With the amount of time I’ve had to work lately, and with what I’m looking at in the future, I don’t know how well I’ll be able to continue performing my duties as an International officer with Gypsy, either.

It feels like all these things: job, second job, debt that I can’t afford to pay, child, other child, club, relationship, living expenses, goals for the future, concerns about family (Mom recently passed, Dad’s not getting younger, an aunt is fighting cancer)…. it’s like each of these things has its own voice, and each one is calling out for my attention, all at once. I have a crowd of concerns inside my head, and each member of that crowd wants me to pay attention to it, NOW! Now, remember I said at the beginning that I’m an introvert. I’m an introvert with a crowd of needy voices all yammering at once.

Inside.

My.

Head.

See why I’m not relaxed most of the time? See why that worrier voice in my head gets so loud? Also, I used to write fairly regularly. I was active on three different social media networks. Now, I only regularly use Facebook, and then it’s usually just sharing stuff others have posted. I think this is the first real thing I’ve been able to write since I wrote about my Mom’s passing.

I don’t know what my purpose here is. I don’t know that there’s a point to any of what I’ve just written. I only know that for the first time in many months, I was inspired to write, and that inspiration didn’t disappear when I sat down at the keyboard. Maybe this will break the seal, so to speak, and I’ll get back to writing more often. Or maybe it’s a one time thing. Who knows?

Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment. Or not. Like I said: I’m an introvert, and I’m really doing this for me.