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Tropical Depression: Try Harder
I used to have a sign that I painted...pink and blue on brown craft paper...that said "Try Harder". It was very happy looking but ultimately not a good thing to have on my wall during a bout of severe depression day after depressing day. It's currently somewhere behind my bookshelf having been blown off the record player where I placed it, temporarily, for an unknown reason. Maybe I was tired of that kind of pressure..every day my hallway telling me to try harder. As if I'm not trying hard enough already.
Which brings me to trying too hard. The almost needless expenditure of effort that causes total strangers to not like me. I am old enough to know better but my nerves, my anxiety. I get it into my head that I am worthless if all individuals are not completely enamoured with me upon first meeting. Not all the time, but on occasion generally when I blow the importance of such meeting out of proportion. I recently had the opportunity to entertain a group of people who I have met only once or notat all and they were eating food I prepared and I was doing my best to be charming and conversational and when I was offered the double strength mai-tai after several beers...well, I KNOW I should've said no, but I didn't. Because I was so tired of trying so hard.
It's not really that bad. [she tells herself over and over, struggling to believe]
I will put the sign back up.
