Monsieur Sartre: Challenge Accepted!

Everything has been figured out, except how to live _Jean Paul Sartre.

Ok, Monsieur Sartre, I will take you up on that. Maybe I'll never figure it out, but I'm sure as hell going to try. I am not entirely sure if there can ever be a set of black and white instructions to living. Some people do so easily, flitting, flirting, dancing over the thin ice that is the social realm. Others trip, fall, and end up being "Oh so silly and adorable" when they're actually attempting to add a more mature outlook.

I have to learn, as I go, that I cannot analyze everything. Indeed, I am thinking of hanging a sign where I can see it that says something like, "Don't analyze, just smile". I have to learn that I cannot, try as I might, save them all.

I have to quit being afraid of people. It doesn't help worth a damn. Oh, sure, I could head out right now and probably acquire a stack of numbers that would rival the thickness of War & Peace. But I'm not there...yet. Frankly, like my allergy to bee venom, as I avoid bees and wasps due to the fact that I know what anaphilactic  shock and major swelling is (However, when I have gotten stung on the arm, I find the permanent middle finger in its' ruddy glory to be most effective.) I look at people I don't know getting too close, or touching me, or flirting with me, and, well, the bees fly around the honey all right, but then Honey gets stung and Honey has to go to the ER. So very sexy. I have to quit sending myself these negative messages (I might accidentally quote a psych 101 class)... between coffee and fries, part of me has a habit of asking, inwardly, "Are you going to hurt me, too? Are you going to take everything away from me?" and my outward behavior, from a nervousness to suddenly wringing my hands or speaking inaudibly (Oh, mouse!  I've heard, Where did you go?) Well, Mouse needs to roar, to be naughty, to let things out. Mouse needs to remember that she has to trust herself. That second guessing, and self-punishment go nowhere. It's time to work, to fight, to scrimp, to hang up photos, to shock myself with improvement, with process, with progress. It's time I learn to step way back when someone is in pain, but I am hurting worse because somehow, my ears prick up, and all my senses get bombarded. I need to know to say when (Actually, have you noticed... you can tell someone to say when... 9/10 of the time, they say anything but, "when!") Ok, it's been shit. So, I can sit in my old Pampers and be sad that nothing works... or I can pick myself up and exchange the Pampers for pretty panties.
Sure, I'll forever be sad when someone else is, sure, I analyze... EVERYTHING. I wake myself up doing it... but it does, and is getting better. See me grow, see me learn. See Beth. See Beth grow. Grow, Beth, grow!
(Meow! :-P)

Baggage? Heck! I'm better than that!