Wednesday, October 12, 2016

(One of) My problem(s)

This happened:
I was buying some fruit at the grocery store, a little tub of melon and strawberries because sometimes, yes it's true, I eat that kind of thing for dinner. I put it on the conveyor belt at the register, turned around to look at something and it fell off. I still don't know how that happened but the tub hit the floor, opened, and the pieces of fruit you see here fell out.
I felt terrible. Not like, "Oh darn it" terrible. Like TERRIBLE terrible.
Terrible for wasting the fruit. Terrible for not being able to eat that fruit. Terrible for making a mess. Terrible that a store employee had to come and clean it up. Terrible for being such a klutz. Terrible for wasting the efforts of the farmers who grew and picked that fruit. Terrible! For hours. Seriously, this ruined my night.

I know how stupid that sounds.
I know that because it is stupid. I know it is. Accidents happen, and piddly little ones like this happen often. Everyday to almost everybody, all the time. It's no big deal and life moves right along. Very few people get upset about it and virtually no one stays upset about it. Not me, when it comes to me though. When it comes to me, I hate myself for stuff like this. Hate! In fact, if somebody else did it, I wouldn't even take note of it. Not if I do it though. No, if I do it I have to go home and brood about it for hours, to the extent that I have trouble falling asleep.
No, I'm not kidding.
And yes, again, I know it's stupid.
I'm positive that this kind of thinking has held me back from achieving more in life. And I know how stupid that is too. Guess what? I feel terrible about that too!

I've always been kind of clumsy, or at least not very graceful. Dad, when he wasn't annoyed by my klutziness, seemed to find great humor in it. He'd gleefully point out how disproportionately big my feet were or how I swam like I was in a fight with the water. Loudly, in front of whomever happened to be around at the time. That made me self-conscious then and maybe it stuck with me, but I don't know. I have zero qualms about hopping up on a stage a couple times a week and telling total strangers stories about myself where I come off far worse than somebody who spills fruit at a grocery store.

I don't know what any of this "means" in terms of defining person, who they are, what they do in the big picture of life itself. I just know it's one thing that annoys me about myself and I wish I could stop wasting time and energy on it.

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