Make yourself necessary to someone.  Emerson

I hate quotations.  Tell me what you know.  Emerson

Actually, if this were paper, I’d be furiously scribbling all over that first quote until the ink made holes in the paper.  Then I would tear the paper into a thousand tiny pieces and then I would burn it.  And then I would dig a hole in some remote wilderness with my bare hands and bury the ashes.  That’s how much I hate that quote.

Someone posted it on facebook the other day, and I tried not to look at it.  Unfortunately, it lodged itself into my memory and I’ve been dwelling on it.  This morning, my will faltered at the strength of my curiosity, and I searched for the author.  It was like a knife in my heart (only a mild exaggeration).  EMERSON!?  My dearly beloved?  Say it ain’t so, Ralph Waldo!  Say it ain’t so!  Alas, it was him.  I am betrayed.

navel-gazing holga screw up. 'cause i SUCK!

The thing is, I’ve just stubbed my toe on this little pebble of self-doubt, which made me fall and scrape my knee on a sidewalk of self-pity, and when I tried to stand, I sprained my ankle in a rut of self-loathing.  How embarrassing.  I throw my hands up in the air now, make my hands into signs of number one!* and say “I’m good!  It’s alright!  I’m all good!”  But still I feel like an idiot; it’s always worse when there’s nobody to laugh at with you.  And I walk it off, walk it off, but it still hurts a little, to tell you the truth.  All sorts of ridiculous, but honest, emotions that equate to I’m not enough.

And then Emerson tells me to make myself fucking necessary.  Which I just can’t even believe is possible.  How does one become necessary to someone else?  Especially someone who is so acutely feeling her not-enough-ness?  I mean, necessary?  This is when I’ve been necessary to someone else:  as a uterus and a birth canal.  There are a lot of uterus/birth canal combinations walking around, if you hadn’t noticed.  So even my sole case of necessary-ness is questionable.

How’s that for pathetic?  Is this working for you?  Great!  I know it’s making me feel a lot better!  I’m so awesome!  Yaaaaay me!

[stomps on a ziploc bag full of pretzels]

[pops a chocolate covered espresso bean]

Today I was shopping for sunglasses.  The muzak chick was singing something like “does anybody need you?”  I was like, the fuck?  What’s wrong with you people!

The sun was shining, though.  I took a walk in the woods with girliefriends and smelled the pines and touched the clear water and discovered some crazy mushroom thing.  Everything is fine, just fine.  Just.  Fine.  So don’t worry.  Empty flattery will earn you a middle finger, anyway.  But if you just so happened to want to give me a hug, to come up with something deep and edifying to say, and to maybe also make out with me, I’d probably be OK with that.

[curtsy]

* “number one!” is a great story from my sister (that you really have to see her tell), in which a drunk guy stumbled out of a club, fell head-first into a garbage can, then jumped back out with his arms raised, signaling and shouting “NUMBER ONE!”