I'm impossible to forget but hard to remember

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

- Helen Keller

All in all I feel like I got a lot done this week and that makes me feel good. I just can't wait to feel well and good for once. I am so sick of being tired and sad all the time, and I know others are sick of hearing about it and dealing with it. Yesterday I was lending a sympathetic ear to a friend of mine at work who is going through a rough time and I almost broke down crying with her. Later that day she said I didn't mean to depress you and I just said "it wasn't you. Life is so unfair and I am having trouble learning how to cope with that."

I know so many people who live in the little town of denial (located on DeNile river) and I don't want to be one of those people anymore. I deserve better than that. I went to the movies last weekend and saw "Elizabethtown". I have been wanting to see it for a while, and I finally just decided to go even though I didn't have anybody to go with. I really loved this movie. It touched some nerves and was one of those movies where you find yourself laughing one minute and crying at others. At several points within the movie Kirsten Dunst's character (she was the weak link but then again I don't think there is much that she's been in that I have cared for) keeps saying "we are the substitutes..." which got me thinking about my life in particular. I have always said that it seems that I'm the always number 2. My friend and I had a joke for a while that it was better to be number 2 than number 23. Everytime Kirsten Dunst said that phrase in the movie though I just wanted to scream "WHY?!?" You keep saying that you are not the one, you are a substitute but you never explain why! I didn't understand what was holding her back until it hit me, I do the exact same thing because I don't feel I deserve to be #1 with anyone. I don't feel that I am important enough to matter and I don't know where this comes from. I can only assume that this was the message that the movie was trying to portray (again I think it would have been much more effectual with a better actress).

Thats when I started thinking, what is a substitute and why is it that I relegate myself to that status? I mean we know that there are a lot of things in this world that we use as substitutes or replacements. In fact, I just had questions on my econ midterm about substitute products. From a purely economic standpoint a substitute good one that replaces a desired good when the cost of the desired good exceeds the consumers capability to pay for it. Therefore, when the cost of good X decreases the demand for good Y decreases. This is my life people. I can name only one relationship that I have been in that doesn't fit this criteria and I broke up with him within a month. Human nature leads us to place blame with others for making us subsitutes, but as fellow blogger New York Moments recently posted if you focus on what you don't want that is all you are going to find. In this case if you focus on the fact that you are destined to be a substitute that is all you can ever be. Therefore, it is nobody's fault when your life begins to unfold that way.

So where does that leave me? I think that acceptance is the first step towards change so this is positive for me. Now its just a matter of retraining myself towards a happier more fulfilling existance. It takes time and repetition to make something a habit but it takes a major concerted effort to actually change a habit. Hopefully I will finally be able to overcome this hurdle. Feel free to follow along with my progress over the next few months. My last attempt didn't work out so well :-)