Annoyed at Myself During Quarantine

When you have so much time on your hands during a global pandemic you tend to do some introspection. Just like if you spend time with someone you start to pick up on the annoying tendencies they have whether they leave dishes in the sink, don’t clean the coffee grounds on the counter, or send you passive aggressive messages not addressing their actual issues but hoping their “hints” will actually make you do something different when it actually induces only rage.

But what if that person is yourself?

After only two and a half weeks of living mostly by myself (I have the benefit of some social interaction with my roommate) I am SO GAHTDAMN ANNOYED with myself. There are a lot of things I’ve always suspected were things I should work on but this time alone has made them glaringly apparent. 

First thing I’ve noticed is my tendency to “get to it later” like I’ll be my washing dishes in the sink (I’m not a monster! I generally clean up after myself) I finish up, rinse the sponge and turn around realizing that there's a cutting board or a pan or a plate that wasn’t in the sink. AND I’LL JUST WALK AWAY! BRUH, just wash the other dishes! You’re right there just grab them, put them in the sink and clean them. I don’t see what's so hard about that. But, my initial tendency is just to walk away and do them later... I’ll do laundry, get my clothes all clean, put them in the dryer, turn it on and when it's done I just...leave them in there! I’ve done the hard part. Why can’t I just take them out of the dryer, fold them and put them away?! As I write this I’ve realized that I STILL HAVE CLOTHES IN MY DRYER! I know if I gave the situation a second of thought I would actually follow through and do the thing. I’m just so mad at myself that my natural inclination is to just walk away.

I also hate the fact that I get infatuated with ideas and not the reality of situations. This one is a little abstract so let me explain! For example, I love the idea of being able to play the guitar but I don’t even have one. Well...I mean...I have an electric guitar at my parents house but it’s a little hard to play in an apartment. It’s just I have made SUCH little effort in picking it up and actually learning to play it’s sickening. I like the idea of writing providing moderate entertainment with my words but as you can see I haven’t really done anything in the last 3 years to move that idea forward and into reality. But I think the most infuriating example is getting infatuated with the idea of a person. I like to think I’m a problem solver, my brain likes to fill in the gaps of any situation I’m in and, for the most part, it serves me well. But when I start interacting with someone I start to create this “idea” of them. And DEAR GOD if I’m even remotely attracted to them I start painting this picture (not literally, but if I did, that would also be a problem) that exponentially increases my attraction. Now I’m so optimistic it starts demanding more of my attention because of what this “idea” COULD be. At a certain point I don’t even know if the person in my mind is actually the person I'm talking to or I’ve just convincingly distorted whatever information I’ve received to fit this picture. (yay cognitive dissonance!) The two solutions I’ve tried haven’t been all that effective. One I get disappointed because I realize that the idea I’ve created in my head is so unrealistic they could never live up to those expectations or the other I get self-conscious about how I’ve created this picture in my head and stop pursuing that situation. Both end with things not working out which is unfortunate for me. I don’t really know how to avoid this particular annoying habit of mine...You try to keep your expectations realistic but the “idea” is so good and if you’re even remotely optimistic by nature the possibilities for the future tend to get out of control. So at a certain point what do you do? If you try and communicate these expectations based on an imagined situation you come across like a crazy person but if you internalize these feelings you really don’t know what was real and what wasn’t, you just play it safe. So I am wide open to suggestions at this point.

Wow! I’m really going IN on myself today. One usually sounds off about other people but I’m really tired of my shit! I guess a global pandemic is as good a time as any to really work on the things I don’t like about myself. Well really any time is a good time...cause there isn’t always going to be a pandemic (hopefully! But with how 2020 is going who the hell knows).  I’m sure after a few more weeks of having to deal with myself I’ll come up with a plethora of things that annoy me about me but I’ll focus on these ones for the time being.

Now excuse me while I take some laundry out of the dryer and do some dishes. As for the last one...well I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.