respite
It's been a crazy couple of weeks. It feels like all I've done is work and sleep...with brief intermissions filled with games of FIFA Soccer and reading my weekly haul of comic books. I've been doing a lot of soul searching as well...which isn't anything new if you've read even a months worth of my blog posts...but the violent, drastic mood swings and hair-trigger like reactions to even the slightest stimuli was replaced with a more calm, collected and cerebral appraoch to things. That's not to say I haven't had a few sleepless nights and worn a track in the carpet with all my pacing back and forth, but it's been better. I've been better.
If anything, I'm letting go. As much as I want to have more control over the things and people that matter to me in life, I don't. And any attempt to gain the type of control I crave...or craved...would result in more of the same misery and hair pulling I've suffered through for what seems like an eternity. No, what seems to be working is taking things day by day, keeping my feelings closer to the vest, and not letting every little ripple turn into a tidal wave. On the job front, things are going well. There have been a few changes at one job, some of which I'm not too thrilled with, but it is what it is. I'm not the boss, so I'll just live with the changes and keep doing what I do and if that ends up being not good enough, I'll know it's time to move on...or at the very least, scale back my commitment to the place. My other job seems to be going quite well. I'm in line for a promotion after only a few months on the job, and it seems management has me pegged for big things in the future. Big being relative of course, but still, it's nice to feel wanted and appreciated, and the tiny increase in pay won't hurt either.
As far as my relationship goes with she who shall not be named, well...I feel like I'm losing...if I haven't already lost...but I'm learning to live with the fact that being friends will just have to do. No more daydreaming of what could be...I know where I'm slotted on the totem pole...and it ain't at the top. We're still close, and I still find myself bending over backwards to help whenever and wherever I can...doing things for her that are mostly reserved for 'the boyfriend' in a typical relationship...but it's the role I've carved out for myself and to pull back or rebel now would be strictly a bitter reaction to not getting what I really wanted...and I'm not that guy. Who knows, maybe the new guy is as great as she makes him out to be?
I also recently inherited a little bit of money from a distant relative...nothing epic, but significant enough that it's taken a bit of pressure off me. Working two jobs and earning two pay cheques has also helped, but having this cushion in the bank for a change is a nice change. I'm loath to spend any of it after the last couple of years of savage poverty I've endured...but for the first time in ages I grabbed what I wanted at the grocery store, and ventured into a shop I hadn't stepped foot in in years and bought a coat that ordinarily would have been deemed 'too rich' for my budget. My rational being that now I'll have something to remember him by (the coat) and the extra $50-60 I spent was worth it. Plus, I'll most definitely get my money's worth out of this thing...it fits like a glove (which is a huge issue for me) and with winter just around the corner, it'll get plenty of hours on my back. Plus, I just like it.
I'm not going to let my guard down, because anything can happen tomorrow...and I'm still not sure I'm totally OK with everything that is happening around me...but I am in a better place than I was only a few short weeks ago.
eyes open
Just sit and wait.
Right now it's all I can do. I want to reach out, but previous attempts have failed to motivate a response. The past three days have been alright. Good energy, good vibes at work, and a minor victory. I also slipped back briefly into old habits, a dabble if you will, but nothing that will cause the car to derail again. That's not saying it can't happen...it's happened time and after time before...but I've got a good feeling that no matter what, this time I'm committed to doing the right thing. I'm thinking positive.
The next week will be vitally important to my upward momentum. I'm working everyday, and hoping the busy schedule will leave me no time to worry. I want to believe that things will work out, but I'm also resigned to the idea that they may not. Ever. I've got to be ready for whatever comes, and not let it destroy me. I want nothing more than for the signs to be true, and I'll spend the next week focusing on making them a reality. How I do that I have no idea, but as long as I continue to meditate on it each morning, remain positive, and be my best self I've got to believe that things will work out the way they're supposed to.
I want us to have a future. I may have put my foot in my mouth, and may be guilty of pushing too hard, but I can't sit around waiting anymore. When those feelings take over, and the night swallows me whole, I need to be able to rely on the people I care about to help me make sense of it. I don't think I'm asking much. A caring ear. A soothing voice. A hand on my shoulder. Time. Understanding. Compassion. It's what I've given in spades. I'm not owed anything...I honestly don't believe that...but it would be great if she'd surprise me like she has in the past. I'm not going to hold my breath...but I am going to keep an eye out.
haunted house
I understand that I don't understand. Any of it.
You'd think by now I'd have an idea, some insight to the secret that I've been searching for all this time. A long time. It's not them, it's me. That's all I can honestly glean from the constant movie-style rejection that I keep encountering. Be it silence, or rubbing my nose in it, somehow I'm always made to feel like I'm just not good enough. That something about me is off putting. Maybe all the articles and advice columns are right? Maybe it's all about confidence, and ambition, and those primal, basic characteristics that I'm somehow lacking? I thought being a gentleman would help me stand out from the crowd. I thought being different would have its advantages. Clearly I was wrong.
This is pathetic, I know. To constantly have to circle back to have the same lesson held up to my eyes time after time. Sometimes, like right now, I wish I could change. I wish I could suck it up, crush me into a little ball and throw me out the car window as I drive towards my future. Leave all the disappointment and doubt and resentment and frustration behind me. To truly look forward and not have the past hovering over me like the ever present moon in the sky of my life. But after decades of trying to figure it all out, I'm looking at the future with a more defeated set of eyes than I ever had.
I had a very interesting discussion the other night about 'hope' and how it might just be the most essential, important ingredient in life. How in today's world, our culture seems to have devalued the idea of 'hope' as being too idealistic...too 'unrealistic' to truly be something that motivates, steers and drives us towards our destiny. Happy endings are a thing of the past. The new normal is having the rug constantly pulled out from under you. To be punched one more time in the gut just when you think you're done taking punches to the gut. Roll credits, and the crowd walks out in a haze of confusion, while also in a state of inebriation. A drunken buzz that, while we don't truly understand what we've just seen, we recognize the altered state we now find ourselves in. The questions. The doubt. The thin layer of dread that now coats our being as we walk back to our cars and drive home.
I just can't take it anymore. I'm unable to sleep. I'm unable to find distractions with which to help ease my burden...if you can really call it a burden. I keep coming back to it, but it feels awfully selfish of me to feel this low, this negative, when there are so many in far worse positions than I. And that only makes me feel worse. It's a vicious, unforgiving cycle I'm stuck in. In good moments I'm somehow able to stem the tide for a few days...able to trick myself into believing that I'm now on the right track, and that this time, this time, I'll succeed. Things will begin to magically fall into place, and all will be revealed. The why especially. But I'm beginning to know better than to let myself get sidetracked with visions of the happy me living a life somewhat close to the vague and foggy existence I've caught glimpses of in my dreams.
I've heard the cliches. One of my favourite is that it all starts with me. That if I don't fix myself, if I don't love myself, nobody else can. That if I don't narrow my focus and find what it is I truly want out of this life, that I'll never attract the people who will help me achieve it. I sometimes think I'm just not looking hard enough because I've already been defeated. The negativity pours out of me like a stink and keeps hope at bay. It forces it to turn its back on me and walk away. It forces it to not return my calls for help.
I have an idea of what I need to do, but deep down I'm so crushed up inside that I fear that I'll never be able to do it. To start to put my life back together again in such a way that I don't need the outside help. And it'll be precisely then that help will arrive...in whatever form it is meant to arrive in. But how does one continue to pick himself up off the mat when he feels as if help is not only not coming, but will turn its back when it is needed most. That it will choose to help someone else instead of you? That it will reject you because you're too much work, too serious, too 'nice', too weak?
It is at times like these that I desperately want to run away. Run and hide and never be found. Find some cave in the side of a mountain and reject everything I've known or thought I've known about hope and love and life. But it is precisely that thinking that has me sitting here today reeling from yet another in a long line of defeats. How do I break the cycle when my track record is so full of failure?
The only thing I have right now are the long, meaningless, exhausting days at work. Home is where the doubt and sadness get their claws into me and rip me to shreds. How do I get away from myself? I used to use booze and drugs to change the tune, but then that tune started to haunt me. It replaced the song I was trying so hard to outrun. Now I'm clean and sober and I'm right back to square one..only older, wiser, and weaker for having traveled down those roads. Sure, I pick up a few friends along the way...find someone I gravitate towards like a moth to a flame...only to be burned once again. And I don't know about you, but constantly being burned still hurts the hundredth time it happens. You never become numb to being burned. In some ways, it actually hurts more because you ask yourself why you'd let yourself get burned again knowing how much it hurts?
I don't trust anyone, because I don't trust myself. It does start with me. But I feel like such a lost cause at this point that I can't see a time when I'm finally free of the doubt, the worry, the insecurity, the pain and in a place where those feelings run down my back like water off a duck. Unaffected and virtually unaware they were even there. I've done this to myself. Maybe I was predisposed to it, but I was the one who chose to embrace it...to make it mine...to attempt to turn it into my ace up the sleeve. If I could conquer all of these damaging emotions, I could do something special with my life. I would be different, and it would show. I'd have my own version of success with which to prop myself up with.
But I was wrong.
I'm not strong enough to carry that kind of weight. Maybe for short stretches, but not for a lifetime. Not strong enough to turn it into something usable. So I sit here feeling helpless, and knowing that I'm mostly responsible for the shit I'm in. It's an awful feeling. An all-consuming, total feeling that doesn't ever leave me...especially when I'm alone in the darkness and silence of the night. I used to be the night. Now I'm haunted by it.
thirty one days later
So where am I? Am I better? Am I smarter? Did I win? Does it even matter? Will my answer to any of these questions be a surprise?
The month that just was was supposed to be a month of growth. A month of change. A new direction. A new beginning. It started well. I could feel the winds of change blowing at my back, pushing me forward. I could feel the positivity manifesting itself in the little things that make up the whole. Work was going well. I was finding things to do in my off hours that kept me busy and engaged. I was sleeping well, waking up refreshed and ready to tackle another day. I was even getting to spend more time with my girl...even if was in 30 minute bursts. But they were good bursts and they left me feeling fulfilled. And then somewhere around the middle of the month, everything just collapsed. A black cloud of negativity blew in and totally took over my airspace. I was angry. I didn't want to be at work. I didn't want to be around people. I was trying to find anything to occupy my time to help me get the negative thoughts out of my head. The book I was enjoying quickly became boring. I watched a couple of good films, and instead of being motivated, inspired and buzzed...I was left with an empty, echo like feeling reverberating in my head. Sleep became impossible. My internal clock got all messed up, and soon I was twisting and turning like you wouldn't believe all night, every night. Falling asleep at 8:00 in the morning...waking up to go to work...being grumpy, irritable, unfriendly, and just altogether unpleasant most of the time. I'd get home and instead of trying to force myself to sleep, I'd stay up doing nonsense. Social media became my enemy. Contact with friends dried up. It was as if a light switch had been flipped and I found myself in a deep, dark hole in another skin. An angry skin.
So, in essence, August was a disaster. Especially considering the good path I was on to start the month. Who's to say what derailed me? Was it the visit with relatives? Trying too hard to force good feelings out of me resulting in an internal negativity backlash to counteract the mock happiness I was concocting? Or was I just working too many hours and it all caught up to me? My schedule is truly disgusting for a normal human being. But I'm not normal, so I guess I figure I can get away with it. For a while I was. I was in a groove. And then I crashed. Hard.
So here I am, frustrated, tired, antsy...and hoping to take the lessons learned last month and apply them to the next 30 (29) days. Today wasn't a good day or a bad day. I was in a bad mood, but I fought through it. I didn't have to work, so that helped. I ate a home cooked meal, so that helped. I laughed a couple of times...but as I sit and attempt to find the words to describe how I'm feeling at this particular moment, all I can think of is the frustration, resentment, anger, regret, anxiety and fucking ache that I'm feeling. There's a hole the size of a basketball right in the center of me right now...and it's filled with nothing. Empty, itchy space. I've had headphones glued to my ears for hours trying to sooth the savage beast...but all it does is make me long for simpler times. Times when the music actually worked and inspired a better feeling. Now it feels like a distraction. A haunting from a long ago past. One that feels out of reach...just like whatever future tomorrow is supposed to bring.
The loneliness doesn't help either. Neither do the constant questions. The back and forth of should I/shouldn't I? The constant fucking questions repeating over and over in my sore, tired brain. If only I could turn it all off. A week of silence. A month. That'd be bliss at this point. But no matter how hard I try, or don't try, the same old song finds its way back between my ears and takes over. I'm not so young anymore. I'm not respected. I'm not anything. I've got no money. No girl. No real, real friends. Everything in my life seems to have a glossy, manufactured coat of fraud all over it. Look close enough and you see where the dents and scratched are painted over. Holes patched up with bubbles, ready to burst at the first opportunity. I don't believe anything anymore. It's like my life has become some scripted sitcom where I don't know what's coming next, but I know it isn't real. A sparsely cast un-reality show staring someone resembling me. But it's not me.
I really don't have it that bad, which is the worst part. I've got a roof over my head. Two jobs I don't hatehate. Parents who give a shit...even if it is often misplaced giving. I should be content, I really should. I shouldn't let the shit get to me. The fact that she's leaving? So what? The fact that I've got nothing I'm passionate about? Boo fucking hoo. I'm not sick. I'm not disabled in any major way. So I spend a lot of time alone? I know plenty of people who'd kill for a few days to themselves. I'm trying to put a positive spin on it all, I am. I want to rise above my circumstance and enjoy life. My life. But then the music starts playing again...the sleepless nights hit and I'm back to being a miserable fuck who couldn't have fun if $100,000 fell into my lap.
It's probably why I used to drink too much when I was younger. It's probably why tried a lot of drugs when drinking started to suck. Why I've been constantly trying to numb myself for the past 15 years...hoping that something would come along to snap me out of it and pull me out of the tar pit. I've had some near misses...and a some false starts...which only seem to enhance the despair when I finally realize they're just that...fallacies. Lies. Tricks. Then I get angry, take my ball and go inside. Only, things get even worse when I close the door behind me. The darkness swirls. The mud sticks to my skin like sweat that you can't wash off no matter how many times you splash your face with water. A thin film of shitty all over my existence.
So, as you can see, I'm not exactly starting this month off in the right frame of mind. It's all negative right now. I've got work tomorrow and I can already feel this night stretching into the early sunlit hours...dragging me, kicking and moaning along with it. I popped a bunch of pills last night, random ones, just to feel something else...to try and trick myself to sleep. It worked, unfortunately, setting a very dangerous precedent. That tall glass of water and bathroom cabinet are literally calling out to me right now. It worked last night. Remember? Back to the well. Only I know where that well leads. And when it dries up around day 4, then I'm in too deep to climb back out. Then I'm searching for the next quick fix. And there's only one place to go for that...and that's further down the well.
I'm honestly getting tired of all of this. All of it. Everything. It's old now. Boring. I've run out of things to say and do to combat it. I've got no more tricks up my sleeve. No more safe ports of call. It all feels like enemy territory now. I reach out now, and pull back before anyone can even reach back. Why? Just because. I don't trust it anymore. Familiar hands and voices ring false and hollow. A temporary distraction. I hear them, and feel them, but I really don't. I'm thinking about having to crawl back under my rock and how I'll forget everything I just heard and felt because I don't believe it. I don't think anyone or anything is truly beyond help...but I know what it feels like to really believe that. I'm hovering over bottom...my toes inches from the floor. Only, I know it's not really bottom...it's just today's bottom.
I don't know what this is...why I'm doing this. I really don't want anyone to read this. And yet, I feel some kind of pull to exhaling all over my blog like some big ugly, call-for-help sigh that people do when they want you to talk to them...you know the one. I hate it when people do that. And yet, here I am, kind of doing the same thing virtually. Is anyone there? Oh, I don't care if there is...but is there? Pathetic.
I guess it's back to the bottles for one more night...cause I'm not doing this for the next seven hours.
