I am a voyeur.
Much of my life, to my great mortification, has been spent observing others go about their lives, living their dreams, making choices, having careers, relationships, families. Doing all the things that people are supposed to do. Being fulfilled.
Doing the things that I am not.
Earlier tonight, while making another ill-fated attempt to clean my room/cell, I came across an old cast list from a stage production I was once in. Nostalgia and pride had prompted me to save it for these last 18 years, and my voyeuristic nature led me to Google some of my former castmates, to see what they had been up to all this time.
One in particular resonated with me- Tanya- who had been one of the lead roles in the show. She and I were only a year or two apart, and going through similar phases of life at the time we were in the show together; going to college, young adults away from home for the first time. Figuring out what we wanted to do with our lives. We weren’t particularly close during the run of the show, casual acquaintances, locked away in our own showmances with other castmates.
After the show wrapped, I partnered with another castmate of ours, Heather, in a business venture she was embarking on. Tanya ended up moving in with Heather, and so the three of us became fairly close at that time. When the summer ended, though, and school started up again for me, I gradually lost contact with the two of them.
Long story short, my Google-fu revealed that Tanya had, in fact, moved to Hollywood and pursued her dreams of an acting career, doing several movies and tv shows. Subsequently, she went on to reimagine her life as a mother, wife, and LA fashionista. All in all, a very full life, and knowing her, just the beginning.
In point of fact, several friends and acquaintances in recent years have gone on to find new careers, new relationships, new goals; to redefine themselves in life.
While I just watch from the sidelines, a voyeur in the increasingly small world that I have defined for myself (if only through inaction). Literally and figuratively, my world feels like a prison cell, a tiny studio apartment from which practically my sole release is a weekly 9 to 5 work furlough at a dead-end job where I do little more than push buttons for a living. That my prison is only a block from the beach is small consolation when most days I can barely muster the will to open my blinds to allow the natural light to brighten my day.
Bitterness aside, it isn’t jealousy that compels my voyeuristic tendencies. It’s admiration.
“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” – old Norse proverb
On a recent trip to Hawaii to see my father, one night found us watching the finale of the reality show/singing competition “The Voice.” To put it mildly, the show is not exactly my dad’s cup of tea, so at one point he asked me what it was that I liked about it.
“I enjoy watching people pursuing their passions,” was my response.
There is something utterly compelling about people who follow their dreams, take a chance on life. Whether they succeed or fail, it takes a tremendous amount of courage and faith in oneself. To do it more than once? To redefine yourself, your career, attempt a different dream in life a second, third time? Astounding.
I have yet to do it even the once.
Seeing my friends and even strangers doing, being- LIVING – is invigorating, uplifting. It touches a part of me that I know, even in spite of my jadedness, is very much within me. I’ve even managed to tap into it once or twice in days long gone.
Ultimately, it is my own lack of a sense of self-worth that keeps me from sharing the same pursuit of fulfillment that I so admire in others. That keeps me locked away from the world.
I feel like a fraud, and live on perpetual edge that at any second, everyone else will realize it, too.
“If we undervalue ourselves, then we allow others to undervalue us as well.” – Dr. Emma Ryan, Common Law
I heard that quote on the new USA cop/comedy show recently, and it resonated with me. “Yeah, that’s so true. It’s been a constant problem all my life,” I thought.
But the more I pondered it, the more I realized it is anything but true, at least for me. Not in my life. If anything, the truth is completely opposite- time and again, inexplicably to me, my family and friends have exhibited more belief in my value as a person, in my abilities, than I ever have. In spite of what seems to me to be evidence to the contrary – a lifetime of conscious underachievement – their faith and trust in me has been almost universally unfaltering, whereas my own is… inconstant, at best.
I know that is one reason why I tend to be distant, withdrawn, uncommunicative much of the time. How can one possibly live up to that level of hopefulness, I think to myself. Yet they have never asked me to do anything, to be anything more than what I could be, if only I had the courage to do so.
Where these feelings of unworthiness arise from, I couldn’t truly say. I’m sure that I could point to dozens, hundreds of events in my life that have contributed to or reinforced those feelings – the curse of memory. But the roots of my lack of self-esteem run deep and are a tangled morass so thoroughly engrained in me at this point that analysis of the whys and wherefores may not even matter quite so much as simply confronting the underlying emotion behind it all.
That emotion, of course, being Fear.
No comments:
Post a Comment