The Nasty Pet/Critic Critter

This morning I've been looking at websites of artists who create altered books. Their websites are so creative; their art is so creative. Why does viewing other people's beautiful gifts make my gifts to the world look like the dull penny no one wants to pick up off hot asphalt?

I've always had this persistent voice in my head that reiterates the "not goodness" of whatever I do. This voice has selected the wrong person to reside inside. It wants perfect. I am more of a mess. It wants instant--instant weight loss, instant novel publishing, instant Ponder Design marketing. It wants instant and perfect. That makes me sigh and resign myself instead to never and not good enough.

I wonder whether during this lifetime I will be able to override this voice inside that comments on everything I do. I'm on constant alert of possible failure--of not teaching my class well enough last night, of not making everyone like me at the bookstore yesterday, of never turning out to be what I thought I'd be.

There's no way to live a life of freedom with a damn critic in your head. No way. There are not enough drugs in the world to drown out that nagging, penetrating chatter.

Why can't I have the voice of a fairy or a gypsy instead--voices that cheer all efforts, that believe magic is born with our first footfall from the bed each morning, the first breath our lungs take as we walk upright into a new day? Why can't I have those positive voices who pat me on the back, even when my back is covered with twenty pounds of extra fat?

Fairies and gypsies don't care how much fat is on someone's back. They care about someone's spirit--their pizazz inside. Why hasn't anyone ever noticed my inside pizazz? Whenever I show that around the pesty internal critic, he begins a soliloquy on why I don't have pizazz, have never had pizazz, and then points out all the specific times in my life when I didn't have pizazz. After that, I'm pretty sure I never had any pizazz too.

I'm sitting here at the computer wondering how to smush the vile critter in my brain, eradicate him. He is slowly depleting me of any gumption I had to carry on toward the prize. It's difficult to want to do anything when you know it won't be good enough for the critic critter inside your head. So I dread doing anything. Things I might normally love become something else to wish I didn't have to do--because what if someone finds out that I am no good just like the critic critter keeps saying--what if someone finds out I'm not qualified, or I don't know the definition of every word in Webster's dictionary, or where every comma is supposed to go on the page, or how to make it through the day without dragging the blanket of being wrong with me.

Some days I come close to warding off the critic, but then he returns pumped with venom and ready to have at me again. I stand at the mirror and try telling myself how much I love me, and I hear bounce back off the mirrored reflection, "No you don't. No you don't. No you don't."

Hey, and you might think I'm crazy because I have to deal with this offensive voice terrorizing me. It's like having bad body odor or something. I'm one person trying to live from day to day just like you. I'm one person trying to turn down the volume of the voices that violate my head. I'm one person putting one foot on the floor first thing in the morning just like you. The only difference is the voice tells me every time that I didn't do it right.

kss