This morning, my dad woke me up with a call to tell me that he was about to eat breakfast at the worst diner in Connecticut. We went there together the last time I was out east and I unsuccessfully attempted to eat a piece of pie that tasted like a vasoline hot pocket. I tried to warn my dad away from eating at this horrid diner again, but he was determined to give the place another try. He later texted that the food was subpar and cost $20.
This afternoon at the coffee shop, the weather was perfect. I sat outside, chatting with a friend, watching beggars doing drug deals when they weren't asking us for handouts. At one point, we noticed that someone had cut down all of the sunflowers in the garden box in front of the place. This seemed a puzzling development, until we found a small sign explaining that the pile of cut plants was now a winter habitat for insects.
Currently, I'm waiting for my day's work to arrive by email and listening to Alles Wird Gut on repeat. The song is in German and I don't speak the language, but I like it anyway. I should probably be napping instead of listening to music and blogging, but I can always nap later.
Recently, I've become host to an unfamiliar manner of inner turmoil. Good things are happening and I'm not used to that. Part of me feels like I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Part of me feels unworthy of blessings. These feelings are minor next to the enjoyment and gratitude that I'm also experiencing. Still, they reveal my general distrust of positive developments.
That seems like something I should probably work on. But the only way I can see to work on it is to have more experiences of things actually working out. In the absence of those experiences, my pessimism will likely continue seeming like a rational response to my personal history. Which is all logical and good, but it doesn't account for the feeling of unworthiness I've been noticing.
This feeling is new, and it makes me wonder if I have low self esteem or something. Maybe I do, even though I've never thought of myself that way. There have been times when I've felt that I was of low value to others, but those times are mostly behind me. Presently, my level of self esteem is healthy. So if I'm feeling a bit unworthy, the reason for it may lie elsewhere.
I've heard a lot about impostor syndrome over the years. Several people I've known have described their experiences of this to me. Some felt like impostors in their jobs, some in relation to family responsibilities, and some just in general. Wherever they felt unworthy, the ones who successfully worked through it did so by continuing to show up; by playing their parts as best they could, until the unworthiness gave way to a new sense of belonging.
I'd ask my therapist about it, but he's still too new for me to lay something like this on him. We couldn't even get through introductory highlights in our first session, and our second session is weeks away. Fortunately, blogging is basically therapy, only it's less expensive and carries a greater risk of embarrassment. Maybe I'll text my therapist a link to this blog post.
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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