False Starts

I, uh... Geez.

My recent entries read like it's always raining and my dog died. Neither of those things are true (as I actually like the rain and don't have a dog?). Right, my point being that it's not as bad as it might sound, even if I'm kind of a sad sack whenever I remember to put something down on paper these days.

I'm going to try to write this even though I don't really have anything to say. I'm fine. Life's been mostly about getting ready for social activities, doing those things, and then being too tired and/or sad to talk about them afterward. I feel like I'm running around constantly; though most of the time, I don't have much going on. Lots of hurry up and wait, I guess. Sounds about right. I don't mean to make it sound like bad things are happening all the time. It's more that I don't have energy to both do things and come back and rehash them lately. It's very weird and not something I'm used to. I've been recording various parts of my thoughts and experiences for... good lord, a long time. Probably since I learned I could write whatever I wanted to. Of course there have been periods where I didn't write for assorted reasons-- depression, business, boredom, writer's block, out and out stubbornness, whatever; but it never seems to last very long. I always find a reason to come back, and I don't think this will be an exception, even if false starts have been more my forte recently.

I don't know. I'm really good at talking about the same thing in different guises, and I've been trying to avoid that lately. I've also been trying not to over-analyze and just live life instead. Two good reasons not to babble about things I don't have much control over, and if there's a reason to be away, that's a pretty good one, I think. I'm not going to say everything I'm doing is terribly exciting, but I'm also not going to say that nothing great is going on. Good things are still happening among the low points. I'd even wager a guess that they outnumber the bad, which is preferable to the aching ennui I was sporting for the better part of two years. I'm cautiously optimistic in that "trying not to jinx myself" kind of way. I hope I can keep that part of it up and also return to talk about it without anything imploding. Some time, I guess. It's going to happen.

Anyway, if you're curious, go ahead and ask. Otherwise, I'll try to be back around soon. Even if I'm not writing, I'll be reading, so hope things are going well for you too. <3

"Let's Go Exploring"

Actually, I feel like writing now. Strange.

(I'm in a Calvin and Hobbes kind of mood. Bear with me.)

It's kind of funny to me. Well, lots of things are kind of funny to me. I tend to do a fair amount of things because I find them funny. Sure, I am perfectly capable of being serious (and don't cross me if I'm being deadly serious because you won't like the results), but I spend so much time oscillating between depression and boredom that when I'm in a relatively even-keeled mood, I try to amuse myself as much as possible. I'm not saying I'm always successful in this endeavor (since I still waste a lot of time being bored, looking for better ways to use my time and/or berating my time-management skills), but I like looking around for things that will make me laugh. For all it's vast uselessness, the internet is pretty handy in this regard. If you can't find some obscure trivia to look up, person to stalk, game to play, person to talk to, old commercial clip to watch, or whatever else on your own, the internet will most likely have something on it that will suck up your time and make you forget life for a while. Well, now that I put it that way, I might as well say that if Marx was alive, he might have called the internet the opiate of the masses (and that's not necessarily a good thing if you actually want to get anything accomplished in life), but it's not like communism was really successful and you get my point.

Anyway, every once in a while, it strikes me that while I am definitely grateful for this technology that allows me to stay connected to a larger number of people than I would otherwise (because let's be honest, if we only communicated through letters and phone calls, I wouldn't have met a fair number of you much less gotten to know you in the limited way I have), there are a lot of things and people I don't miss. For all the connections I have made, lost links, cherished companions, new friends, long distance relationships, family I wouldn't see otherwise, and more, there are certain people I have lost contact with purposefully that I do not regret in the slightest. In fact, I reach points like this where I realize how long it's been since I've talked to these people, and my heart lifts in my chest. It actually leaps with relief when I think about how, even if the internet gives me the option to track them down (or I already know where they are), I never have to interact with these people again if I don't want to.

On some level, it's still sad to me that it turns out that way, that I can't have a good, lasting relationship with everyone I let in my life. I don't tend to open myself up easily to others, and connecting in any sort of satisfying way has always been difficult for me. It's not that I don't want to have friends or be close to people. Quite the contrary. I'd love to have some sort of storybook friendship where I could call someone up in the middle of the night and tell them things if I needed to. I'd love to be able to drop everything for someone else because I know they would do the exact same thing for me, no questions asked, any time day or night. Alas, I have learned that this isn't how life works. You can't really expect that from other people, but that's okay, too. Other people have their own lives happening, and on some level, it's pretty silly and selfish to put that much emphasis on friendship. I mean, I wouldn't be able to live up to my own sky high expectations, and there's no reason for me to expect that of others. In the end, you do what you can for people and hope it comes back. Even if it doesn't, why worry about it?

But I'm getting off topic here. I guess what I mean is it's especially hard to lose friends when you're kind of iffy about making them in the first place. Occasionally, I will still have long-dead conversations pop into my head, and I'll want to solve them, to talk with the person even though I'll probably never see them again. These are the moments I don't especially enjoy being conscious and living with a brain that's constantly talking. Sometimes I wish I could switch things off for a while, just long enough so I wouldn't have to rehash arguments and conflicts that should have never seen the light of day again.

Fortunately, there's a flipside to all this, and that's those moments like these-- where I'm sitting quietly by myself underneath my ceiling fan with the windows all open, nothing but the TV playing in the background, and I realize that I'm miles and miles, nay, years and years away from who I used to be and these people I used to know. After all is said and done, in the silence of my home, I occasionally feel very blessed in that I have somewhat figured out that, even if there's still a lot I have to do and many more things I am responsible for, I control the great majority of who still gets to stick around, the people I actually want in my life as opposed to the people I used to surround myself with because it seemed "too mean" to tell them to go away.

Maybe it was cruel to banish them, maybe at first. Maybe there's a better way I could have done that, softer things to say, a more tactful turn of phrase. Maybe I could have made things a lot easier for myself from the get-go, recognized these issues long before I did anything about them or convinced myself it was okay when I knew deep down it never would be. I did a lot of it the wrong way. I failed. I made mistakes, and it could have been different. There are so many possibilities and paths life could have taken, but all I know is despite them all, I've ended up here, firmly entrenched in myself. So far as I can tell, that's not a bad thing. I am who I am; no one has to come with me if they don't want; and I'm fine never seeing some people ever again.

I don't miss the past one bit. Bring on that horizon.