Tag: changes | The World According to MEH

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The Changing, Part IV: Minna 4.0 Manual Complete*

Posted on April 12, 2011 by admin • 8 Comments

All right. Back to the software upgrades. Go read the other parts of this series if you want to be au courant on the subject, especially the last post.

Minna 4.0 is more stable in functioning. The downtimes are briefer, and maintenance is not as intense. In addition, her firewall is stronger.

The earlier editions of Minna had a big flaw–I couldn’t say no. I thought if I said no or stood up for myself, I would lose a friend. For the most part, this wasn’t the fault of said friend as my friends are solid people who love me for who I am. But, there have been people over the years who didn’t like this one bit. And, because as I said earlier, I tended to store things up until they exploded, the ending of said friendships were ugly and brutal. And, of course, it would reinforce my notion that I couldn’t voice my real opinion or I would lose my friends. My best friend, Kiki/Kat, who has been there for me since 1994, gave me a plaque for Christmas that has this quote by Dr. Seuss:

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ”

It really resonated within me, first of all, because she’s one of my biggest supporters. She’s seen me through some ugly things, and she’s never faltered in her friendship. Secondly, I am used to feeling that I fall short of some amorphous ideal, and it’s soothing to hear from a very dear friend, “Hey. I like you the way you are.” Thirdly, I am slowly reaching the point where I am OK with myself. And, that quote just underscored the inchoate sense of self-acceptance that is burbling inside of me somewhere.

So. I am slowly starting to say no once in awhile. I’m beginning to demur and say, “No, I don’t agree. ” In other words, I’m becoming more than a mirror for other people, merely reflecting what they want to see. And, if someone doesn’t like it, then she wasn’t really a friend in the first place, was she?**

Damn It, I Already Used that Title

Posted on February 1, 2010 by admin • 8 Comments

I was going to call this entry Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, but I already used that title while I was in Taiwan. Still, it really is what I wanted to call this entry, so read on with that in mind.

I hate changes. I know that many people don’t like them, but I hate them. Part of it is my OCD issues, but most of it is that in the past, changes were rarely good things. Or, to be completely honest, most of the changes I experienced, I viewed as negative in retrospect. Whether they were actually negative at the time, the jury is still out on that.

Let me backtrack for a minute. When I first fell into a deep depression, I sharply whittled away my world so that it could fit in my pocket. I didn’t feel as if I had any control, so the only way to deal with that was to cut out all the extraneous shit that I couldn’t handle. The problem with that, of course, was that every day, there seemed to be more that I could not handle, so I would continue to cut cut cut (sometimes literally) away. Depending on how stable I was, that world included a few very close friends whom I saw more not than often, performing, a job, and, for a whole year, school in another state. It included a four-year, long-distance relationship, and it included a lot of self-destructive habits.

Why the small world? In a word: Fear. Anything out of my routine terrified and overwhelmed me. To me, the world was a cruel, cruel place which showed no mercy. I didn’t believe in God, but if I did, it would be the mean, punishing, horribly petty God of the Old Testament who thrived on making people miserable. OK, I did believe in God (at least in theory) at that time, and He was exactly like the mean old bastard who never has a kind word to say or a deed to do for anyone. A bitter old man who wants everyone else to hurt as much as he does. That was my view of God, and if He had created the world in His image, then fuck the world, I wanted to get off.