Thursday 25 September 2014

little mountains

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to climb up a mountain covered in gravel, wearing flip-flops and carrying boulders in both hands.

Or just trying to pass a driving test.

It's the same thing, really.

I mean, people pass their driving tests all the time. They obviously also climb mountains covered in gravel all the time.

Or maybe I just have an inherent flaw that causes me to be unable to pass my class 5 driving test. But this pattern of thinking breeds the kind of self-worthlessness I'm trying to avoid in my general life. So I'll write about it instead, something that I'm good at. Obviously being a bus driver is not my calling.

{shout out to the friendly dude who failed me by the way, you were pretty cool.}

The thing about battling anxiety and depression, is that when something normal like failing a driving test happens, my body's response is to panic, shut down, and assume the world will promptly end and everyone I love will decide I am no longer a worthy human being and therefore not worthy of their love.

This, of course, is one hundred percent incorrect. My best friend, in response to my self-destructive tendencies in situations like this, put those thoughts out of my mind with a simple phrase.

'This does not define you.'

I am not a girl who failed her full license for the second time, I am a writer, an artist, a dancer, a good human, I go to the fucking University of British Columbia for sociology and creative writing, and I love autumn.

I just can't rent a car-to-go or drive the kids I nanny to hockey. I just have to stick a little green sign on the back of my car.

So I will leave you with this today. They are not my words, they are his, but I will impart them to you because wisdom deserves to be shared.

This does not define you.

Whatever 'this' is. I am not alone in my struggle to climb a mountain covered in gravel wearing flip-flops and carrying a boulder in each hand.

Your mountain does not define you.

You are so much more than this.

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