GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us! We kindly ask that politics be set aside.
You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS Library at dKosopedia for a great list of stop-smoking links. Check it out!
(Hat-tip to flumptytail for tonight's topic!)
This evening's GUS diary is not meant to step on the ever-so-slightly-touchy-yet-righteously-pissed-off toes of the wonderfully cathartic Saturday Night dKos series What's Your Fucking Problem? (a.k.a. WYFP), although they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Instead, think of it as an homage, a Designer Impostor if you will. The Near Beer of disgruntled diaries.
Mostly, I just don't feel like waiting until next Saturday to have myself a good, satisfying whine, so I decided to throw a pity party fur GUS tonight.
Won't you join me?
So I've been feeling sort of down-in-the-dumps lately. Thing is, I don't have a really great reason for this. I'm a little overwhelmed, but not unbearably so. A bit frustrated with certain things, but nothing is so bad that I can't balance it out with a bit of good stuff, or at least momentarily distract myself from it on occasion. I'm restless but not because I'm bored, in a bit of a rut but not one so deep I can't see a way out of it, irritated by certain people, but not in a way that's corrosive or all-consuming. Work's a little too busy, but hey, at least I've got a job and business is percolating along nicely, so who am I to complain, right?
Except, that's exactly what I feel like doing. In my never-ending quest to find the silver linings and bright sides of situations that seem to be all little black clouds and dark chapters, I sometimes forget that it can be healthy -- enjoyable, even! -- to bitch and moan a little.
But bitching and moaning isn't half as satisfying if there's nobody there to hear you do it, am I right? I can't very well turn into Debbie Downer at work, and while friends can occasionally provide a shoulder to cry on, in my experience they're not big fans of being a captive audience to a regular Whine-a-Palooza. My family is generally supportive but busy with their own lives and their own crises at the moment.
And I live alone, so at the end of the day, I go home to an empty apartment. Which means that on days like this, the vaguely dissatisfied days where I can't be bothered to bright-side anything, there's nobody handy who will listen (or at least pretend to listen) to me whine, extend a bit of sympathy, and generally remind me that it could be worse. I have to muster up that feeling all on my lonesome, or -- like so many -- send up a flare on the internet and hope someone's around and willing to commiserate.
The worst part of it is that I know it could be a lot worse! I know this because it has been worse for me and my loved ones in the past; I'm also enough of a realist to know that it may get worse again. I've grappled with clinical depression in the past and recognize that compared to that, what I'm experiencing now is a trifle, a momentary dip, a lull in an a life that's otherwise fairly satisfying, all things considered. In this economy, there are plenty of people out there with far more to whine about than me. And -- despite my impulse to whine today -- I want to say that I am very grateful for the life I've managed to carve out for myself, and acknowledge that I'm lucky in this respect.
But I also realize it's not a contest, and the right to whine isn't reserved solely for those who have earned it through the sheer awfulness of their circumstances (although they are of course welcome to whine, and may in fact be allowed to cut in line ahead of some we regular, run-of-the-mill whiners). We're not grading on a curve, either. There's no "YOU MUST BE THIS JUSTIFIED TO WHINE HERE" sign hanging on tonight's GUS diary. If you feel like whining, you've come to the right place!
One of the wisest decisions I made when I quit smoking was to allow myself free rein when it came to expressing my emotions, no matter how all-over-the-place they were. During my quit, I was cranky, weepy, angry, frustrated, anxious, upset, forlorn, pissed-off, bitchy, crabby, resentful, dejected, lonely, misunderstood, and perpetually irritated by absolutely everything, all the time...and I wasn't afraid to share that with the world. Without any self-imposed pressure to behave in a certain way, or the expectation of channeling all of this random, negative energy in a positive, socially acceptable way, it was easier to ride out the storm.
It also helped to remind myself that what I was experiencing was temporary, and also not the end of the world. I could act out and rage all I liked in the short-term, because a little ranting is good for the soul, but eventually, I needed to put things into perspective and move on.
Which I did, and mostly do, except for these occasional walks on the whiny side. But today is different. Today we whine! Who wants to go first? I dare you to be as whiny as this puppy...really, it's quite a magnificent whine!
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