Inadequacy

Lately, Satan seems to love attacking me with feelings of inadequacy. That I'm not responsible because sometimes I spend money on going to see a movie. That I'm not an adult because if given the opportunity I stay up later and sleep in. That because I'm socially awkward, I'm incapable of having anything more than a surface relationship with anybody. I know it's not true. I pay my bills, and I pay them on time. I stay up late, but when I need to get up, I do (this past month at work is a testament to that. Of course then he just tells me that my excitement about having the 4-midnight shift is just immaturity, and that if I was a responsible adult, I would have wanted the 8-4 shift.) I am socially awkward, it's true. But that doesn't mean that I don't have really good friends. It's just extremely difficult to see these feelings as the satanic attack that they are.

I grew up believing that in order to be a responsible adult, you had to wake up at 5:30 every morning, and spend at least 30 minutes, and maybe sometimes an hour, just getting ready. You needed to have every minute carefully scheduled, and you needed to follow that schedule. You couldn't ever deviate from the schedule, or you weren't being responsible.

In order to be wise with your money, you had to be aware of the fact that you didn't have any, so going anywhere or doing anything especially fun either had to be free, or extremely rare. And of course for me, having more than one or two friends was out of the question. The best way to spend my time was reading.

Not all of the things I grew up believing are completely false. Those that are socially awkward have a more difficult time making friends. If you don't have money to spend, then you can't spend it. And if your life demands that you be really well organized in order to get everything done, then so be it. The problem is that Satan likes to take these ideas and magnify them in my brain. Then he tells me that because I'm not living up to this ideal adult that I have in my head, then I'm not being successful as an adult.

But you know what? I moved to Texas. On my own. I feed myself, pay my rent, and all of my student loans. I go to work on time, budget my paycheck, and am managing to cultivate some friendships. This is about as adult as it gets, and I need to stop thinking that going somewhere else, or doing something else will change things. So Satan, leave me the frick alone. Cuz you're wrong. About all of it.