"Deep Thoughts": April 2010 Archives

I've been a M*A*S*H* watcher for as long as I can remember. So long that I am pretty sure I've really seen every episode they ever made, most of them repeatedly.

There was a sense the whole time, especially toward the end, that everyone was holding their collective breaths till peacetime, and that when it came, something special was going to happen with Hawkeye. What it was, no one knew, least of all Hawkeye. But I never quite believed him when he claimed he would simply exult, party, speed away in gleeful, unencumbered relief.

I felt that he'd never be able to get away from what those years had done to him, and that he'd feel like he was missing a limb to be parted from those friends, those comrades in his brutal, incessant fight against death.

By the time the end came, I was proven righter than I really would have liked.

He'd broken down and was in an asylum trying to collect enough pieces of himself to be put back into his M*A*S*H* unit. He was frail, something he'd never shown evidence of before, even in those moments where he'd show some pain.

He did make it out, of the asylum, and then out of Korea, but we weren't sure at all how he was going to be, afterward. And I suppose that is only right. What we really wanted to see, which was never (of course) going to happen, was him and BJ flying away together, brothers. Because we knew that even in his Maine paradise Hawkeye was going to feel like he'd lost his twin.

I bring this up because I recently found myself making a large leap towards something I've always wanted to do. Not just something, the thing. And I find that, like Hawkeye, I'm not able to simply exult, party, and speed toward it in gleeful unencumbered relief.

Too much has gone before, perhaps. It's been too long a battle, and I am not certain if I still possess the ability to believe in it, to take it in. I'm damn well going to try, because I do believe (or 85% of my self does) that I deserve to have it, to do and be what and who I want to be.

But the battlescars are not insubstantial, and they are not pretty.

I know I'm not the only one who has trouble taking in good things, believing and accepting them without looking for the hidden catch.

Somehow that doesn't make it any easier to grow out of that bad habit.

I've gotten so much better at imagining good things for myself instead of disasters. I've even gotten good at believing I deserve them - some days.

But when I get such a cluster as has happened lately, I start wringing my hands a little. What's next, what's next, I say, in my White Rabbit voice.

It's especially hard when there's another person on the other end. When there's clearly a connection that's unusual, and we keep looking at each other funny but nobody wants to say anything about it, other than "Hi," with a rather dreamy look.

He did something really nice for me yesterday, and it was wonderful, and I did my best to just take it in and enjoy it, and not get nervous. But there were those moments, later, where I just didn't know what to do.

What do you do when somebody does something really nice, just because he wants to? I said thank you, of course. I smiled and let him know how much I appreciated it. But there it was, a long juicy stalk of something, with an invisible bud on the end that nobody can talk about, and I can barely look at in my own mind.

I have no idea what to say, other than that I have an amazing opportunity, for which I must write a proposal, and I am having the worst time of it.

I think it's because it's something I want so badly, and as some of you know, I am sorely unaccustomed to getting what I want.

It's crucial for me to believe that I deserve it, and I'm getting better at that, but the difficulty I've been having writing this thing suggests that there's still work to be done on that score.

I am not sure what to do to break the ice. It's like a scrim in my brain, between me, where I currently am in life, and this thing that I've wanted all my life.

I tried taking a day off and going someplace pretty.

I tried drinking a beer (or three).

I tried getting outta the house and riding for a bit.

I tried various forms of play and socializing.

I tried downtime alone.

I tried parking myself at the altar of the laptop and sacrificing sheepguts.

I tried overeating, two days in a row (ugh).

I tried knitting.

I tried plowing through it in extra-rough, downright corrugated draft form.

Nope. Nothing's working. Nothing's working and I have a scant 18 hours left. Oy.