whichendisup?

How is it that after years, YEARS! of being left behind, dropped by the wayside, forgotten (as far as I can tell)… how is it that I still think of these people.  Or rather 2.  The others are just there cause their memory is attached by proximity in time and space.

Skip, Tony — just for the record, you guys suck.  After all this time, unbelievably it still hurts.  Whether intentionally or not –

whatever.  It doesn’t even fell good to purge.  Usually getting it out starts to feel good and I get a good long rant going and then it’s done.  The weight has been lifted and I move forward.  That’s just not the case with this, more so with you Skip than Tony.

Tony, I just miss you.  You are/were/whatthefuckever one of the nicest, most decent men I’ve ever met.  Not a single time did I ever see you or know you to do something mean or hurtful.  I can’t think of too many other people I can say that about.  And it’s def 1/2 my fault that we aren’t friends any longer.  But it doesn’t get you off the hook for your 1/2, and for that you suck.

Skip…………  It was lame.  You couldn’t even give me the truth?  You couldn’t give me ANYTHING?  If you actually did care I could probably do a damn good job of heaping one whopper of a guilt trip on you, but I doubt it’s the case.  I am just so sad at the loss of the friend I thought I had.  Even if it wasn’t true, even if it was never true, you could have least spared me a bit of pain and made up a REASONABLE excuse.  

I cannot believe that after all these years, all I have gotten through, that this still hurts me so deep to my core.  

I wish I could come up with a better title than that, but it’s the best I got so far.

I’ve always found myself a part of or drawn to medium to large groups of people.  My family.  Friends.  Coworkers.  Student groups.  Hobby/activities.   Which, if you knew me (or not since people seem to still be shocked when I even vaguely refer to this fact about myself), is really quite ironic.  I’m a loner, always have been and fear I always will be. 

I was an only child for 17 yrs (I know i put family as the first large group, Momz had 8 brothers & sisters with accompanying children and for a very long time this functioned as my immediate family), I didn’t get my (step)brother still I was a senior in high school.  For all intents and purposes, I learned how to live alone.  My mom was a single working mom, who, when she was working in the private sector, didn’t get home until 7pm or later.  I finagled the role of latch key kid  by the time I was in 7th grade (looking back now I wish she would have never let me and forced me to continue going to my Nanny’s house).  I went home after school, "did my homework", made dinner, had my chores, picked my own TV shows, sort of lived like I was on my own–granted even if it was only for 4-5 hours a day, that’s big for an 11 yr old.  After dinner weeknights I remember spending much of the time by myself in my room, doing a whole bunch of nothing in particular.  Weekends were cleaning, food shopping, and finding something to keep myself occupied by myself.  By the time I was 15, my mom met my (step)dad and started spending the weekends at his house, so I was living by myself on the weekends.  I spent more time by myself.  I learned how to be alone, how to enjoy it, how to insulate myself with it, how to accept it as a fundamental part of me since it was the case for so much of my time. 

Now, one would think that I would relish the built in opportunities to engage in big group activities that a big family would afford someone.   My family, I’m told, is very nice, warm, welcoming, funny, etc, etc, etc. — and I’ve never really felt like I’ve belonged.  I’ve never felt like myself around them.  Never felt like I could be myself, or maybe rather be accepted for who I was?  But for my entire life, one of the greatest desires I’ve had is to be a part of that group, or so I thought/think/?. 

See, I got another one of those ideas.  I believe we create for ourselves a life in which we are comfortable.  Not necessarily a life that makes us happy or content or satisfied, but definitely we find a way to put ourselves in circumstances that in some deep way make us comfortable, regardless of whether it’s a healthy situation or not.  So…….. if I’ve always wanted to be a part of that group but have never done so in my soon to be 37 yrs of living, what does that say about me?  I think it says that I don’t really want to belong, but rather (for whatever reason, and they could be absolutely anything I’m sure) want to want to belong.

You know what I mean.  It’s like the friend that jumps from relationship to relationship because he/she is in love with the idea of being in love.  Same thing here.

So, now, when I find myself standing at the beginning of relationships with people, I find myself anxious, finding reasons to avoid getting involved, probably seeming incredibly stand-offish.  And I’ve been wondering what the hell is wrong with me?  One person?  I can do one person relationships, that’s cool, nothing freaky about those.  Except that they seem to keep drawing me into relationships with larger groups and then I freak out (internally of course, we can’t have the neighbors talking, now can we?).

Which now brings me back to some self-help behavior modification I started in my early 20’s.  See, I took a good look at myself back then and just didn’t like what I saw.  I was always angry, sad, defensive, confrontational, argumentative, generally speaking a real pill.  Long story short (now that’s funny), I decided that I couldn’t change myself overnight, but perhaps little by little I could.  I think I started with what I guess some would call affirmations, and then moved onto acknowledging and trying to practicing doing things differently one little situation by one little situation.  Always trying to keep my eye on that moment and not the big picture, cause I was no where near being the kind of person that I wanted to be.  I tried to learn to bring positive things into my life, like living a more holistic life, herbs and such, yoga, meditation, being spiritual vs religious, understanding my moral/ethical center and how I wanted to practice it.

Fast forward to today.  I’m not sure I had it right in my 20’s.  Maybe wanting to want something isn’t enough if you never develop the core desire.  I still find myself torn between wanting and avoiding being a part of groups.  I tend to feel like I have little to contribute, like I’ll never get the information sharing thing straight, like I’m not able to really be me. 

Perhaps I need to focus on me and not who I think I want to be.  Perhaps I’ve reached a point where self-intentions mean less than what is actually there to work with.  I’ve got to stop figuring things like this out AFTER I’ve embedded myself in relationships where changing things isn’t a real option.

I’d settle for a wee bit of satisfaction or contentment. 

For awhile I’ve (sort of) accepted the idea that one cannot be happy all the time.  It may be hokey or annoyingly philosophical (or just plain annoying for that matter), but I give some credence to the thought that you can’t really experience being happy without having experienced being sad.  And truth be told, who the hell wants to be happy all the time.  Gah… that just leads to perkiness and that is just never a good thing.  Granted that last statement is probably coming from some place of  resentment deep down inside (or just under the surface for that matter) of me, but still holds true even when I’m not feeling quite so snarky.

What I do believe, however, is that it is entirely possible to be fairly, for the most part, in general though maybe not always, content with one’s life and satisfied with the choices one has made, the paths one has walked and the resulting lesson having been learned (this last part is assumed of course, even though I am living evidence it doesn’t always work that way).  That upon reflection, I can say even the sad, bad and the ugly produced or allowed for me to allow the production (it makes sense in my warped cranium right now so just go with it for a sec, k?) of some sort of contentment and satisfaction with my life (particularly at that moment) because of the process and the things learned from the process.

Sadly, I have not been able to reproduce these results in the experiment that is my life.  And the woefully large lack of positive feelings is a rising tide that looks like a freakin’ tsunami from where I’m sitting.  

Another idea pretty near and dear to my heart is that one does not (do not stop, do not pass go, go directly to jail) complain about one’s predicament if one is unwilling to even attempt to do something about it.  Now there are those that would say I am trying.  And then there is me, the me that resides in the old noggin’ that knows the general day-to-day chitter chatter and the "truth" about who I am, and not just what the world gets to see. 

I know, I know, the truth of who we are is a mix bec if we were really who we were in our heads than the outside would match it more precisely, and if who we were on the outside was closer to that inner voice there would be alot less conflict, blah blah blah.  I know.  However, I am noticing a rift that is enlargening (prob not a Webster’s word) at an alarming rate between the me in my head and the me in the world.  Wait, lost track, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Thank goodness I can review and see where I went astray, this happens all the time in the middle of conversations, and man does it suck. ……….

Right, those that would say I’m trying and the inside-me that is pretty sure I’m being pretty damn lame and procrastinating (I have a crown for this, I’ll have to show you one day) and using the sad, the bad and the ugly as an excuse.  Not to mention the excuses of "I don’t know what’s wrong"  "Something’s just broken"  "I’m not going to be medicated for the rest of my life" (for the record, this course of action has never really been suggested except in passing by a therapist that spoke to me for less than 30 min when I was in my 20’s and trying to figure out a way to remove myself from a less than healthy relationship while trying to deal with my issues regarding my biological father and she thought I was simply a melancholy person that would benefit from long term happy pills — not her exact words to be fair)  Crap, there I went again. 

K… I got stuff to do, will finish (hopefully) this train of thought if it can cull it from this mess later.  

I believe I am coming back to this 2 days later and for neither love nor money can retrace the steps that brought me to the above conclusions/statements.  This does not mean to suggest that I don’t agree or stand by them, I am simply not so sure where I was going with them.  However, one must do one’s level best to finish a thought, if for nothing less than for one’s own sanity.

So!  ok.. contentment/satisfaction vs happiness… check!  the me-me vs the world-me… dbl check!!  my procrastination… a whopper of a triple check!!!  

*sigh* I really need to try my best to finish these thoughts when them come, cause when the steam fades so does inspirational/motivational lesson learned.  And too much is getting lost by time to allow it to go on. 

Well, if nothing else I feel better than I did when I wrote the above.  After a bit of research, I printed out a daily record of sorts to keep a track of my ups and downs.  I am hoping it helps to figure out from whence they come so I can plug the leak.