"I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"

This is a bittersweet song that gives nothing away in its title. "I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air. . . and like my dreams, they fade and die. Fortune's always hiding, I've looked everywhere. . ." The song remains light and sweet. It makes me sad.

Lately it's been feeling like I'm having a return to my low self-esteem teenage years, and it sucks. I have no clear idea what's brought this all on (though tons of vague theories abound). Intellectually, I know more now than I did then: Sure, I'm the center of the universe--but who isn't? It matters less what I do now, because I know that no one else is watching me, they're really all wrapped up in their own stories. And the choice to be like or unlike my peers is much less of a draw. I can try what you're trying, or wear what you're wearing, just for the fun of it, and keep it or discard it tomorrow. I know now that life is just way too short to sweat a lot of stuff, small and large.

I remember again what I decided way back in those troubled teenage years, thankfully: that the most important thing in my life is love. Oh so trite, you say, so overdone, such a predictable happy ending to the story. Ah, no such predictability or surety here. Love has never worked as a panacea for me: it's a choice, a goal, a striving. But in a pinch, when I have to decide to do something or the other, if I can decide based on love--of my family, friends, or myself--that's always the way to go. I'm willing to drop everything and focus, to the best of my ability, on loving. I grieve that I'm not better at it, for all those years of deciding, of practice. I'm usually much more aware of my failings at this than at what seem like few successes. Love is, though, in practice, all the small, everyday, ordinary events. Here, when things get bleak, when I feel like I'm shouting in the well (or pointlessly blowing bubbles), again, when loving myself or anyone feels like climbing an endless hill and nothing I do makes me feel better--still--I'm erring on an ok thing to again and again make the choice to love myself, to love you, and do whatever seems to be, even clumsily moving towards that goal in that moment.