Monday, September 25, 2006

No I'm Not Jumping Off A Bridge - I'm Just Writing

Ah it’s Monday again.

This Monday is better than last Monday. I was barely holding it together then. I was seriously on the verge of losing it. I woke up and then the darkness set in. I don’t know if it was because it was Monday or because mornings stress me or what. But I almost stayed home.

I couldn’t face the thought of going outside in the dark. That whole masked gunman thing messes with my head all the time, and even more when it gets dark in the mornings. I hate that. But I gotta live with it. I’ve done it for two years now, so whatever. I did go outside and make it to work safely, but for the rest of the day I was super on edge. I

’m on edge a lot because of how I feel when I go outside. Then I’m on edge in my apartment because I’m always like who’s gonna break in (which hasn’t happened and it better not) or who’s gonna have a fire (which has happened). I spend much of my time being unsettled by something and it all adds up occasionally.

Anyway as I said, I was super on edge. Then I was just so sad that day and the rest of the week. Sad about what I don’t know. But I get like that sometimes.

When it’s all too much and the little stresses add up to big stresses and I wish things were different and recognize what I wish, it all just comes crashing down. Then I have to climb out of the pit and go back to holding things back until the next crash.

I’m mostly better today, as I always am. The darkness is still there lurking in the shadows as it does. But as long as I can keep it at bay, I’m good. This is why I like to take vacations twice a year and go to my happy place (Vegas, of course). Just for a little while I can forget.

That is one place I am truly happy, truly my (crazy) self, and truly light. I’m not held down by the job, my own wants, or any of the stuff that lives in the darkness. So for at least two weeks out of the year I am truly free.

It’s a good thing I write or I’d go truly crazy. My thoughts aren’t something I bring up in daily conversation ever. Imagine how that would go. That’s an amusing thought. People would think I needed to be committed. And I’m not sure I would disagree.

Which leads me to think about what people are really like on the inside. Speaking for myself, what people see on the outside is not who I am. It is either who (grammar check says “whom”, but that doesn’t sound right) I purposely portray by controlling what people see and/or it is what people prefer to see me as either through ignorance or blindness. Which it is or how much of both, I haven’t figured out yet.

In part, I control what I portray for some obvious and not so obvious reasons. For instance, at work I portray the quiet, conservative, well-mannered, submissive, seemingly hard-working me. In truth yes I’m quiet but not that quiet, I am conservative neither in dress nor views, well-mannered only when I need or want to be and in most cases I’m thinking something else, submissive not so much and hard-working hardly since I’m so not motivated and my work is not even an eighth as challenging as it should be.

Around most friends I flit in and out not really making an impression. That’s mostly because though I like my friends, I have very little in common with them outside of superficial things. I have very little in common with most people, to be honest. I find people to be alternately boring, curious, or stupid. I’ve never felt as though I’ve fit in among any particular group for various reasons. And since humans are a group, count that one, too.

But back to the topic – the various facets of who we are. I am, I think, more myself when I’m away than at other times. It is far easier to be me when I am around people who don’t know who I am. There are no expectations. They won’t know if something doesn’t fit with how I normally am or how they think I normally am. I wish there was some easy way to just switch to who I have become. But there’s not. So I just have to kind of work the new me in and slowly allow those that know me to see these new things. Otherwise known as “growth” or “maturity”. Or at least that’s what the textbooks call it.

There are several incarnations of me. The quiet introspective (not a surprise). The angry wannabe rebel. The thoughtful intellectual. The writer and music lover. Yep. All me. But who is more me? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. And how do I work all of that into the forefront? Or do I? I think that’s what life is really about. Forget finding yourself. It’s being yourself.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Anger

It seems like I spend a great deal of my life being angry.

Looking at me, talking to me, knowing me, you wouldn't think I'm an angry person. I'm not in that sense of the word, I suppose. I'm not a punch the walls, kick an animal, alienate everyone I know type of angry person. Mine goes much deeper than that. And I can't say that I'm angry about anything specific. More like angry at circumstances. Angry at myself. Angry at the air I breathe. I have the type of anger that is indescribable. And it is for that reason that I cannot let it escape. I don't even think I know how to let it escape. I have no outlet. Though that's not for trying. It's just that it goes so deep, winds through every fiber of who I am, I think I would crumble into nothingness without it.

Honestly I don't think being this angry is all that bad. It's not all-consuming ruining my life. Not that I can see, anyway. Perhaps I'll look back twenty years from now and go "Wow, I really should've seen that coming." But for now I'm good. I think it's my driving force. Or would be my driving force if I got off my ass. But that's another blog.

So what am I angry about? What am I not angry about is more like it. Oh I have a lot of issues. I know this. It would make for interesting conversations if I had people to talk to myself about. People other than myself, I mean. At least I entertain myself with my tales.

I get angry about how I was treated in school. First grade through twelfth grade were not my best years. First through sixth grades were particularly hellacious. I'm angry at the people who couldn't accept me for who I was. I'm angry that I couldn't accept myself for who I was and therefore couldn't adequately defend myself to those people. I'm angry that all that still follows me to this day.

What else?

I'm angry at the way I grew up. Not where I lived or my parents or anything (though some of that was weird - another blog, again). But I grew up shackled to religion. Not even religion, but a church. I don't even know where to begin with that. Again - another blog. That's a very large, tangled can of worms. That's all I'm gonna say about that. For now.

I'm angry that my life isn't what I thought it would be, what I want it to be, what it should be. And I'm angry that I have no earthly idea what any of that means or what I want it to mean. No, I'm not confused. Just...in limbo. Yeah that's a good word. Neither here nor there. And not sure where here or there actually are or what they mean.

As I said before, I try to have outlets. Writing - whether through poetry or through blogging or through good old fashioned pen and paper journaling. Music - I love any and all music. It depends on my mood what I listen to and the music either expresses my feelings or at least soothes them. Whatever they may be. Books - I have been in love with books and reading since I can remember. Words have power. They can transport you to other places and make you forget yourself just for that moment. Reading is my meditation. Vegas - I know, I know. How does that work? Vegas is the first place I have been where I was completely transformed into me. I didn't expect it. At all. I turned into the me I know myself to be and it was ok. I found out that I liked that me that no one else sees.

And that's where I am now. Slowly transforming into the real me. Screw what everyone else may think or expect me to be or do. I'm doing me. Which is why I'm not too concerned about the anger. Sometimes transformation is not particularly neat or comfortable. And with that comes anger as I discover things, think about things, dwell on things too long hidden. It's refreshing. It's exciting. It's angry. And it's wonderful.