Blood Sucking Vampires

I have wasted a lot of my life worrying about big ol’ piles of bullshit. Really, I have. I would venture to guess, so have you.

I have also spent much of my life seeking, reading, looking for answers, wanting growth, peace, contentment. I wanted to be comforted in knowing how the story ends. I want some frickin’ answers.

This whole living your way to the answers stuff, it’s for the birds.

All this unknowing, it makes me really F-in anxious. I was born a worrier. I had symptoms of worrying before I could string together complete sentences. I can worry with the best of them. If you ever want help imagining the worst possible outcome at any given point, just ask me. I can help. If you ever want to be all consumed by the things that you have zero control over and probably won’t ever happen, just say the word.

Chances are you have some skills in that department as well. And if your time and energy vampire does not show up wearing the title anxiety. I am sure you have your own unique version that manages to keep you small, to keep you busy and that keeps you hustling for your worthiness.

From the age of about thirteen my personal life-sucking vampire came in the form of body image issues. I remember standing in front of my mirror with my YM magazine in hand comparing my thighs to the images of nearly naked teen models on the page. I remember trying to determine my worth based on this particular measurement. Maybe you remember that “thigh-gap” nonsense of 2015; my plight started in 1993.

I truly do not remember my body before I thought it was fat. As soon as that awareness hit all I could see in my small frame was the perception of fatness. All I could see was my belief in my inherent unworthiness.

I gave my power away day after day by way of numbers like number on the scale, the size of my pants, the minutes exercised, and the calories consumed. All these numbers added up to barely an ounce of self-worth.

We can point fingers in a thousand directions about why a young girl believes herself to only be worthy of love and belonging when she fits the mold. That may be helpful in protecting the daughters we are now raising, but it is not going to undo the harm that has already been done to so many of us.

It has taken me a really f-in long time to heal and recover from those faulty beliefs and I am still sifting through remnants of that BS today. I will save that for another day.

When I reflect back, I get so pissed at how much of my energy, time and money I devoted to these concerns. If I could have back ALL that back, I can only imagine how different my life would.

I am afraid the truth is we don’t want that energy, time, money etc. It is SO much easier to blame something or someone else, somewhere out there. Quite simply, we would be running out of excuses. We would be running out of reasons as to why we can’t chase down our dreams. When you are consumed by darkness you don’t have to look at the light.

Your toxic life-sucking vampire will not look exactly like mine. You have your own unique master masquerading as busyness, or importance, or need. Many of us get so creative that we find a vice that the world deems acceptable. That makes it easier to pretend that you are contributing to something that matters, when in fact you are simply choosing to hand your worthiness over to something outside of yourself that has no business having that much power.

Are you done yet? Are you done wasting time, energy, talent, gifts?

I frickin’ am. I am over it. Well, most the time.