fixing everything wrong with me
today, my boss’s boss came to talk to me. “hey rainy, let’s schedule a 1:1 to talk about something. it’s nothing serious, though.”
naturally, i started freaking the fuck out. she told me this at 2pm today and i have spent the last 5 hours in a half-frozen, half-mind-racing state. thinking about all the things it could be. thinking about all the things i’ve done wrong at work. am i on the chopping block? is she coming to berate me? should i start looking for a new job right now? should i stop going to the bathroom so much? is this because my timecard looks bad? what am i in trouble for?
i went to the gym after work (cause unfortunately taking care of my physical health does wonders for my mental health) and worked up quite a sweat. i messaged a couple friends and my partners about it and wanted some support. i talked about all of the context leading up to it and wanted some reassurance that i was not going to randomly be fired right now. i could not afford to lose my job right now.
at my first full time job out of college, i had some issues with a manager treating me poorly. when i went to another manager i felt i could trust about it, i was quickly put on a PIP and fired within the month. they said that the reason they fired me was because i had allegedly left work a few minutes early. that fucked me up so bad. i had just moved out on my own for the first time and i was out of work after just 2 months. i had nothing but my savings to keep me going until i found a new job. being unemployed really sucks, but it sucks the worst when you still need to pay rent.
i’ve always felt like i’ve been pretty good at the things i do, and especially at the things i care to put effort into learning. it was a shock to me, then, that i got fired despite being really good at my job. i was completely unaware that that could happen.
i found a new role about a month later, and thank god i did. i don’t know what i would’ve done if i didn’t.
eventually, my friends and coworkers were able to convince me that i probably wasn’t going to be fired or laid off. it wasn’t immediate, it was scheduled for later, and my job performance to this point had been pretty strong, from what i understood. i didn’t have any enemies at my job. they weren’t really on my ass about poor performance or anything either. but of course, if your boss’s boss asks to meet with you suddenly, i think anyone would be a little less than pleased. the last time i met with my boss’s boss i got fired.
i spent some time trying to decompress and sit with my thoughts. after an hour or so, i realized that despite all of the different possibilities i thought of, there was one big thing underlying it all - that i did something wrong and that i was about to be fired. there was no world where i did nothing wrong, or god forbid, i did something good.
but the small bit of relief i felt from this wouldn’t have me writing about this, i think. to me, there was such a big chance that i was totally fucked. and even if it was about something else, it would be best if i planned as though i was fucked. i should just assume my job is over and that i should figure something out.
i ruminated on this, and it brought me a sense of comfort and focus. funny, i thought. i was so much more chill about the idea that i had just lost my job for sure compared to the idea that i might lose my job. if the outcome was fixed, i could start figuring out my next steps.
but the idea that the outcome was uncertain - that was what ruined me. because when things were uncertain, i was stuck in a state of paralysis and liminality. when you’re in a liminal space, you don’t think too much of it, because you’re only there for a short amount of time. you don’t have the chance to look at it and analyze all the things that are wrong with it.
since the end of january, i’ve felt like i was in a liminal space for far longer than i should have been. i was there for so long that the space started to glitch and break down, as though my reality was fading to a memory leak. everything became less pleasurable. i was anxious all the time. i was moody all the time. i could feel my tether to the world slipping. everything pissed me the fuck off, even though i was on top of my shot every week.
funnily enough, the first place i noticed this was my melee. a couple weeks before genesis, i noticed my play being all out of whack. i felt scatterbrained, my movement wasn’t purposeful, i was dropping all my punishes, i didn’t know what the fuck was going on at any point, and worst of all, i wasn’t enjoying melee. i’ve said this before and it’s always been true for me, but it’s funny that melee is always such a direct reflection of whatever the fuck is wrong with me at any given point. we all laugh about how fiction can tell when the last time you had sex was by how you’re playing, but it is often an incredibly potent mirror of your mental state. ashley likes to say (jokingly!) that successful people are better people, but sometimes i almost feel like this is true because of some of the strength of will you need to succeed anywhere.
i ended up choking and getting 129th and crashing out. for the next couple weeks, i would work on some of the things that made me choke so hard. not getting tilted after doing something stupid and calmly fixing it, or trying to find things that allowed me to get in the zone. i ended up doing pretty well at the next local i attended, getting 2nd and beating darkwizard/rocky/typhoon. i would attribute it to staying calm and locked in for as much of it as i could, and not getting tilted.
some other stuff came up for me after that. my melee was okay now, but i wasn’t. i continued to jump at everything and thought about falling down so many times. i could feel everything i loved slipping away from me, and things felt so hollow. i had so many things that i wanted to do, and so little time, but i didn’t enjoy anything in my day to day life.
i decided to try and start being a little bit more organized with my time, and on top of my maintenance and hobbies. i wanted to get back on track with going to the gym and learning chinese and reading. and it made me feel a little bit better having done things, but there was still so much missing.
when i laid down today and realized that i felt so much calmer after thinking i was fucked for sure, i explored it a little bit more. taking actionable steps towards something was so much easier and felt so much better than being paralyzed in this liminal space. i’ve been feeling insecure in pretty much every single facet of my life - my job, my friendships, my relationships, my melee, even my personality was something that i felt like i wanted to change. i talked to cody about mentality stuff a couple weeks ago and realized that i had been desperately trying to change everything about my melee every couple days and revamp my whole playstyle and base of knowledge constantly.
of course, this would never be a good way to improve. and upon learning it, i knew that that also needed to change. i didn’t think to apply it to the rest of my life yet, because i didn’t know that was happening.
but i realized i didn’t have problems with anyone, really. i just hated everyone and everything. i hated myself a lot this last month. and today i figured out that it was because i didn’t trust myself to do anything right anymore. i don’t know what might have caused it or why it might have come to be this way, but as soon as i came to this conclusion, my body knew i was right. for the first time in what feels like forever, my body started to relax.
all i had to do was trust myself. i swear i could hear all of the tension trapped in my body slowly hiss out of my bones. i cried from pure relief. i haven’t done that in so long.
tension is so incredibly unwelcome when it’s all you know. it’s not fun or exciting, and it doesn’t get your blood going. all you think is “great, more fucking problems.” but when you’re free from it all, fuck is it amazing.
even now, i don’t know how things will turn out. they might be fine, and they might not be. but now, i trust myself to handle whatever comes. i mean, i always have, haven’t i?
it’s cliche to say, but it really does feel like color has returned to my world. all of the love that i had for others and the world around me feels like it’s coming back and filling my body with life - chills accompanied by a deep and boundless warmth. suddenly, it feels like i just fixed everything wrong with me.
i don’t need to be selfish, i just need to trust myself a little. even if things are scary and uncertain. especially when things are scary and uncertain. when i trust myself, everything else i care about follows. the world is nicer to me when i do that. i might be the most important thing in my world. it turns out that i have a real big say in however things seem to go.
who would’ve thought?