Guilt

2002-12-22 - 1:44 a.m.

So, I'm feeling much better and am at work. Yay?

I hate missing time...coming back, I always, no matter how sick I was, feel like a fraud, feel guilty. I'm pretty sure that this hearkens back to my junior high and high school when I would miss entire weeks of school, unable or willing to go back. And going back is the hardest thing to do: even if no one missed you, it feels like you've been branded somehow, because everyone knew that -no one- gets sick that much unless they're dying.

So now, about ten years later, when my illnesses, rare as they are, are legit, I still feel like I'm guilty of something. Was I really that sick? I mean, puking every twenty minutes might not -really- have kept me off the phone? I wonder if I -look- like I was sick enough, or if people are wondering if I faked it. I wonder what's gone on. I'm a bundle of nervous paranoia.

This, my friends, is the real reason why, only a few years ago, I became a relatively "responsible employee," - fear.

I've been meaning to write an entry about how I often feel guilty or frightened to do things that I shouldn't even think about, for months. I feel a twinge of guilt if I pull the bus "ding-y cord" (does it have a name?) to get off when there's no one else at the stop...I mean, why should the whole bus stop for little ol' me when I could have got off at the last one or the next one. Walking two blocks wouldn't kill me, and I'm sure everyone would appreciate not having the delay, right?

I feel guilty not giving money to people when I don't even have any. Street folk will ask, I'll say "Sorry," and feel really bad even if I am literally penniless and wondering if we have enough food at home for the cat. This is something that I have little or no control over.

I feel guilty for not liking the new Lord of the Rings movie, as if I've let my genre down for the second year in a row. Guilty for my own opinion.

I can see that it's foolish to carry this baggage with me, and I'm sure that it will be gone soon: I never worry about the time two weeks ago when I said "no, sorry" to the homeless, or when I dared to get off the bus at my stop . . . I only worry about today.

And now, I'm feeling guilty because I haven't got a conclusion for this entry. It could be summed up as "I feel guilty a lot and don't know what to do (OR The entry with the word "guilty" written so often that you want to buy the Magus a thesaurus)."

At least I'm done with all those silly Norwalk-themed titles. Puns. Ick.

Cheers,

The Magus

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