What happens when we fall?

Bruce Wayne: I wanted to save Gotham. I failed.

Alfred Pennyworth: Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

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November was a tough month.

If I’m being honest with myself, I’m quite adept at falling. Some days, I get up. Others, I lie on the floor and stare into the abyss under my bed in a pseudo-detachment from reality. It’s where I do my best thinking, on the floor, which is why I understand Mindy Lahiri’s propensity toward lying on her back when the world starts shoving.

I have a major book coming out that a few people have expressed that they hope it flops.

I’ve started an online series.

I’m working on getting a Christmas erotic novella out since I haven’t done that in a while, and as a single woman, I like to prove I still know where all the sex parts go.

However, these are all things I love to do. Writing isn’t the stressful part, not really.

The stressful part is the voices. The doubt. The reading my own words and feeling nauseous because I’ve convinced myself they’re dreadful.

Not bad, dreadful.

The voices are a thick, figurative, simmering stew whose ingredients consist of each person who has ever told me, “You can’t,” “You won’t,” or “You’re worthless.”

If you remove the morose and the morbid reality of those words, it’s really fascinating that if you hear something enough, it eventually transforms into a part of your identity.

However, when you return that morose, that morbid…it’s terrifying when you realize the amount of times you heard you aren’t and you will never be actually do outnumber the amount of times you might have heard, “I love you.” Or even, “You’re okay.” Hell, I would have taken, “You’re not entirely interesting, but you do not make me vomit.”

So, this month, I fell.

In my head, I’d planned this grand and brave adventure to an unknown place where I was going to show the world (well, the few people who visit mah blog) how much I’ve progressed no matter how hard social anxiety presses its forearm against my neck.

“Look at me,” I saw myself saying/typing. “Look at me conquering this fear like a mountain with strategically placed craters and jutted stones, perfectly sized for my spider-like fingers to grip.”

Yet, my biggest accomplishment this month so far as I’m writing this? Driving a half-hour to Wesley Chapel, FL to pick up an Ulta order.

“It’s something, though!” I can already hear the encouraging voices say. “You could have let the order sit there until they put it back like you do with most of your Old Navy orders!”

It’s funny how the encouraging voices are also part of who I am, who we are, but they’re often like a field mouse on helium yelling into a void.

I guess, what I’m trying to say is it’s perfectly fine to fall.

It’s also okay to fall and then hate yourself for it. It’s even more okay to fall and then stay there for a while to gather your bearings.

And while I can be an annoyingly positive person (a therapy-taught skill) who is always stretching toward the bright side like a sunflower, even people who are able to jiu jitsu themselves out of self-deprecation before it leads to major depression, for lack of a better term, fuck up.

But, I went to Ulta.

I stressed before I went because I wish I was different, and I wish I could snap my fingers and change.

I felt sick before I went because the negative voices have several more years of experience than I do and they do not want to lose that management position to a millennial snowflake.

I tried to talk myself out of going because anxiety forces me to feel wind, sunlight, smell smoke when there’s none, and absorb people’s fear and sadness only to become overwhelmed by it all.

And then I rocked, got teary-eyed, and had to keep doing Fitbit Versa-mediated deep breathing because this is hard, difficult, painful, and fking tiring.

But this is my Mount Everest. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Oh, that was easy,” after climbing Mt. Everest.

Let me Google this, actually.

Nope, no one.

But, I went to Ulta.

I got my UrbanRx face cleansing bar. My skin is going to be banging for the next 60 days or so, maybe 90 because I have a terrible memory and will forget to use it many days.

But…I went to Ulta.

I went when everything in me wanted to stay.

So, the next time you fall, curse. Cry. Groan. Yell.

And then, when it’s all said and done, get up. Even if it’s on your elbows, your knees…get up. Get the fuck up because you are Batman…and Batman can still do difficult shit.

Until next time,

xoxo, Alex