Life and Lemons

“The trouble with giving yourself a pep talk is, that deep down you know it’s all bullshit.”

― Sophie Kinsella, “Remember Me?”

True, that. When I read this quote I realized I give myself pep talk a lot. Thus is the survival technique of a self-labelled logical person. A friend even recently dubbed me a ‘what-if’ person, otherwise known as paranoid (he should have been even blunter and just said it), but that is a different story altogether. Now, if you’re the type like me to give yourself internal cheers a lot, that frequent activity is easily traceable to a plethora of shit in your life, happening in short intervals, usually in twos or more at a time. And when the reasoning of the heart is selfish or hurtful or just downright dangerous, you turn to your brain to derive these in-head dialogues, samples provided below:

“Everything happened for a reason”

“It’s all better this way.”

“Maybe things will end up worse in the end if this did not happen.”

and the top two most annoying and bullshitty ones,

“Well, in hindsight…” and

“It’s all going to be okay.”

Despite the realization of this general truth very much applicable to me, I am left with no choice but to continue with the pep talks. Sometimes, when things are too crazy, or too painful, or irreversible or just all of the previously mentioned rolled into one catastrophic period in your life, you really need to feed yourself BS to keep the sanity intact. You need to tell yourself that the next time, the next boy you will really really like will be allowed to like you back, on a full-time basis and not just on a when-available schedule. And you need to tell yourself that tomorrow, the memories will still be there but the pain will be a little bit number, and life can still be bright and beautiful even without the brightest and most beautiful person you knew.

Thank you, Sophie Kinsella, for the butt in the head. Who said chick-lit is for dummies?

Not much is expected to be accomplished in 21 days after all. The false sense of peace and the lull from the pain are pointless plateaus. Whatever are those for? Breaks to give space to energize, I suppose. Now I have gathered plenty of strength to cry at will because of a picture, a text, a promise that will now never be fulfilled. A single memory can evoke laughter and then tears in a span of a few minutes, and I feel weary, numb, and yes, just a little bit stupider.