little demons

It is better to re-enter Hell and become an angel, than to remain in Heaven and become a demon.

~ Victor Hugo

i threw my old life away.

crumpled it up like last sunday’s newspaper and tossed it, swoosh, right into the garbage bin. i can almost hear the announcer saying, ‘two points’.

i’m sitting here shaking my head as i write.

the older i get, and the better i get with contemplation and finding my own truths, i’m finding i have a lot of little demons running around. how i hate my little demons, even though they make up a large part of who i am.

i know, at the core of my being, that i am a good person. am i perfect? hell no. not even close. nor would i want to be. it’s like that tim mcgraw song, ‘i may be a real bad boy (girl), but baby i’m a damn good (wo)man.’

as i sit here tonight, writing this, i’m left to ponder the wreck that was my day... the wreck that brought nearly all of my farging little demons to light... (and oh how i wish they were little vampiric demons so that the light would have quashed them all to little piles of ash).

let me start by saying that i’ve been sick with bronchitis for the last couple of days. so, i’ve not been to work, even though my electronic leash has kept me in tune with emails and phone calls. and oh, how i love taking works calls with this lovely barking cough. but, demon number 1 of the day came to light, with my intense desire to be absolutely the best at what i do, and couldn’t let me just be sick for two farging days... so, instead of resting and letting the calls go through to voice mail, i answer them and talk to whomever it was that was calling. somehow, not taking the call, not really taking the day off, makes me feel like ‘less than’ as an employee. Then it hits me again, that i truly, truly, don’t get paid enough to answer the damn phone when i’m sick.

demon number 2 crept up as i lay here, hacking and coughing away, alone. yes, alone. it’s a damn weird thing. i couldn’t wait to be divorced, so that i could be alone; i soooo needed the space. but now, on days when i just can’t find it within myself to put on my superwoman costume, it’s the thing i hate the most, being alone. i find that i have this, albeit sometimes insane, need to be able to be superwoman, to be able to handle it all. that i don’t need anyone. but on days when i feel so incredibly small, i find that my demon of strength is the largest, in that, i’m not as strong as i want to be. that, some days, i just want to be taken care of. and really, that’s okay. there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way, i think. but i’ve got it so built up in my mind that it’s an issue, that admitting even that i do ‘need’ someone makes me feel small and insignificant.

demon number 3 reared it’s ugly head later in the day, when my resolve was weakened and i allowed myself to be hurt again. i literally felt like smacking myself in the forehead. d’oh.. what was i thinking? why is it that you can allow some people to hurt you, over and over and over? when is learning the lesson enough? or better yet, why does the lesson have to be retaught? i thought i had learned it, i thought i had it all figured out. and then, a few sweet words, from someone who knows they have the capacity to hurt, and then i’m plunged back into the pain of that which once was.

as if my demon trifecta wasn’t enough, i had to deal with the ex today, bringing up all the myriad of demons that he carries around in his back pocket, ready to unleash on me whenever he deems fit. i know, he’d like better than nothing, to somehow, wipe me off the slate of his existence, but it just doesn’t work that way. i swear, if i didn’t know any better, i would assume he was devil spawn (wait...considering the former MIL... hmmm). letting go of the power that he has over me has proven to be one of the hardest tasks of my existence. how do you just cut off someone you spent so long with. how do you just let it all go, so that they have no effect on you anymore. i know i still have some effect on him, otherwise, he wouldn’t be so vitriolic, but damn. does he have to make me feel like the world’s most horrible person every single flipping time we are forced to talk? the sooner i can let go of him, and his effect on me, this demon will... WILL be quashed.

all of this, led to another demon, wanting to drown my sorrows. and this.. THIS is the only demon i managed to voluntarily quash today. and having found the grace, in my solitude, in my silence, to turn that one away, was a jubilant, albeit small, victory.

there are so many other demons that i carry around, that we all carry around. can you imagine what it would be like to live, even one day, without the weight of any demons following you about? to go about your day with only the the featherlight touch of the angels hovering about you?

that is a thought that i very much relish.