accepting who and what i am
06 February, 2005 :: 4:53 p.m.
I believe that my purpose in life is to serve as a mistake for people. It seems like everyone I know gets there shit together and moves on to better things once they spend some time with me. So maybe that's my job in life...drag people down for a bit until they figure out how to cut themselves loose from me and then they float back on up better than ever...
I believe that if life is a train, I apparently noticed that the last car was empty and decided I wanted my space, got myself seated and then proceeded to watch the train pull away as I realized the car I jumped into wasn't actually hooked up to the train. So now everyone else is moving on and I'm watching them get further and further from me...
I believe that the reason I go so long without speaking to friends, the reason I resist getting to know friends of friends, is because I don't like playing the same character for too long or too often. Say Pat and I were hanging out (just for purpose of example) and one of his other friends were to come over and we were all hanging out...they would be meeting me as the person I am when I'm with Pat and that's who they would expect me to be the next time and they might not bring that side out in me or I might not be feeling like that particular person were I to run into his friend at another point in time when Pat wasn't around...
I have 1,000 interests and no passions and I think that's part of what is wrong with me. I have no favorite food, color, movie, song, book...you could ask me 10 times on 10 different days and if I actually gave you an answer each time, they might all be different. I hate when someone asks me what my favorite anything is. Movie for instance--I absolutely love Big Fish, but I also absolutely love Ed Wood and 28 Days Later and Frailty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a bunch of others...I like them all for different reasons. I don't have a favorite food either...I might eat something 5 times in two weeks, then I might not eat it again for a year...I've changed my mind at least 8 times since I've been in college about what I wanted to do...I believe now I know what I want, but it's gonna be a bitch to get it since I fucked around and ended up with a liberal studies major...but then liberal studies is basically how my mind operates. I don't have the focus to become an expert or develop any area of my life because as soon as it seems to be going well, something else catches my eye.
I don't know how many girlfriends I've had over the years, but the same thing happens with them...I start to feel content, maybe even happy, and that makes me nervous. I expect it to all come crashing down. I may not actively go out shopping for a new relationship, but I lose focus on the one I'm in and just stop working on it and letting myself drift away from someone that I care a great deal for. (And suddenly my "being an anchor" analogy doesn't hold because if I'm an anchor, I can't drift away, they would be drifting away, but if I'm the one with changing interests, wouldn't I be the one drifting...nah, maybe it does work because I'm not drifting, I'm still here...apparently my lack of focus prevents me from drifting...so maybe they are following their current and realize that suddenly I'm not there in the same current with them...I dunno...this is why I should just say what I mean) The first time it really looks like there might be trouble, I pull back emotionally and then I can never seem to let myself get fully back into the relationship the way I should and at some point I'm numbly going through motions with little or no feeling at all...until I lose them, realize what I've done and feel like an ass...
But it's not just girlfriends...I've let friendships drift with so many people; I've let relationships with anyone in my family I ever had much of a relationship with on either side go to shit. Part of me feels bad and wants to try to repair the damage, but I know I'll just do it all over again. As soon as you have a relationship with someone be it familial, romantic or friendship, there are responsibilities and obligations and those are things I don't do well with and why I try to keep relationships pared down to a manageable number...and then still I go into funks and stop communicating with people...
So basically if I am or ever have been a part of your life, I apologize for the shit you've had to deal with. It pisses me off because this is what my dad did with me...ignore me for months or years, then pop up and apologize and try to make good...then ignore me again. What really pisses me off is that this means more than likely he honestly had good intentions each time...somehow this is harder to deal with than thinking he was pressured by someone else to act like a father. The fact that the drive to get back into my life was internal and that he honestly felt bad and then let it happen all over again is worse than thinking he never really gave a shit and my step-mom or my grandmother or someone put him up to acting like he cared. How can you honestly care for someone, honestly love someone, and still not take the steps necessary to be an adult and actually work on a relationship with that person? Why can't I get these separate and distinct parts of me to mesh and become one person who acts like an adult?
The funny thing is the only time I ever felt for more than a few days that I could pull off being an adult and accepting responsibility was when I was with Teri and I was part of Hannah's life. Something about being around a child made the sacrifices to my personal life (which if I were to put it down on paper and look at it honestly doesn't add up to much of a life) seem totally ok. (Which is where the confusion about why my dad couldn't do it creeps in...but my relationship with Teri didn't last long, so maybe I would've done it too) But that was a time when I was totally content...I wasn't in school, had no idea what the future had in store, but I honestly felt the entire time like if I had to work at walmart or some other crap job to provide, that would be ok. I got to play with Hannah so I could still be immature and have fun and that seemed to make the shit part of being an adult acceptable. Now that I'm back to only being responsible for myself, I cringe at the idea of being an adult; I seem to sabotage myself so that I never get done with school...
Fuck, I've been typing and typing and not coming up with answers. (I don't believe running out and finding myself a child to take care of is the answer...I need to find someway to want to do it for myself and prove I can be reliable...otherwise I could very well end up like my dad)
As usual, I didn't get to things I wanted to touch on and covered other stuff way more than I planned...