Dal diario di Aelfwine: Heart shall be bolder.
Supreme overconfidence led me to doing a supremely stupid thing tonight. Potentially dangerous, though I don't think I was ever in any real danger, this being a civilized world; I certainly risked a massive inconvenience and there may be some consequences yet, but of no great importance in the grand scheme of things. I don't think I was even frightened, so maybe "courage" is not the right word for the experience; though it relates to a larger theme of courage of living. I was just very angry and frantically thinking how to get out of the quandary, and, as usual, self-pitying adn ashamed of myself. I was already swearing I'd shut myself at home and not see anyone, just to recover from this massive failure. There should be something to analyze in this too, the vicious circle according to which (see, I don't even need Wyrd to insult myself) I can't do anything, but if I can do something I must immediately be a champion at it, and since of course this is humanly impossible I get convinced once again I can't do anything, and so on.
Well, the first thing is that I solved the quandary flawlessly, with the sole waste of lots of four-letter words and some time and sleep and fuel and gallons of sweat as I reflected and worked on the solution - all toxins and excess weight, and good riddance. Maybe it wasn't the most brilliant solution, but it worked. And I learned a lot that I must do and not do in a similar situation.
And even before I saw a way out, I started telling myself, "damn, there's no way I'm *not* getting out again after this". You get thrown by a horse, you mount again immediately, that's what you do. Also because, and I think this was the real epiphany somehow, I have this tendency of telling myself that the world sucks, so what's the use of doing anything? Shutting myself at home would mean feeding this idea, being able to say "See? Life is so horrible that it has forced me into reclusion!"
The hell it has. And you know what, I also think that the fact that I was alone, paradoxically, helped me not to panic. Had there been someone else, I'd have started whining about how stupid and useless I am, just to prove once again to myself in the presence of witnesses that the world sucks, and let somebody else solve the problem for me. Instead I had to fend entirely for myself. And it still feels a bit strange that I did, like it wasn't really me in there. I still have this feeling that experiences somehow don't last in me, as though every time I have to start anew. But I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
In fact, I think I was very much myself throughout the adventure. When the going gets tough, I usually imagine I'm someone else, somewhere else. Well, not this time. This time I felt like myself all the time, a normal woman dealing with everyday annoyances and her own limits, not some great warrior. Only while I was trudging up the stairs I thought "Here's Captain Winters getting back to Bastogne HQ" and only then I realized "Oh yeah, and where was he all this time? I could have used his clear thinking and his compass!" But no, no compass and definitely no clear thinking, just me plodding along stubbornly, making mistakes and coming out on top. |