A lot has happened...
A whole lot of nothing...has happened....
I think about people and experiences I've known but in the end they all led here. Just me sitting alone, late at night in a dark room typing essays that nobody's going to read.
Confidence is something that's always been difficult. Made more so by people who think it should come easy to me. I suppose I put on a good show.
Talk is cheap and I hear a lot of it. I suppose the occasional accolade should stoke my ego but I tend to take long views both fore and aft.
What I see in all those dawns and twilight's look pretty much the same no matter what I try. I never quite fit and never quite get where I want to go.
Bad choices fueled by bad experiences have made me wary in these later years. Of course my options have always been rather limited. Either by consequence or fear of repeating past mistakes ( which I inevitably do anyway ) I can never quite believe what I'm told or what I see.
Or what I feel, apparently.
Someone told me once that they didn't understand how I could live this way but admired and wished they could as well. They see it as some kind of virtue of independence
I'll let you in on a little secret...I hate it.
But as the consequences of my birth and beyond have come into my life and I sit here once again in the dark pouring out my heart to no one I can tell you this. This is nothing to aspire to.
That I live a life that's barely lived and worse get chided for it does nothing for the ego. To live this way is to deny all but that which is necessary. "Necessary" means a lot less than you think by the way because that's the way it has to be.
Someone once asked me where I liked to go on vacation. My answer, "I haven't been on one since I was a kid." Shocked disbelief was the response...
It's not that I envy those who do such things it's just that the price for doing them was always too high. Something wouldn't get paid, someone wouldn't get taken care of, something more important than me had to come first.
That last one I think is the key.
I'm a great one for giving advice and comfort. My reluctant martyrdom has essentially stripped me of so many of the things that color most people's lives. That makes the world just shades of gray more often than not. On the upside a lack of color tends to bring out definition to see things more clearly.
That makes it easier to cut through so much of the inconsequential garbage that people seem to hold so dear.
No, I don't believe anything I see on Facebook or Instagram either. Nobody's life is that amazing nor do they have that many adoring friends.
But maybe that "garbage" wasn't as inconsequential as I thought it was.
The difference between them and me is simple. Throughout my life even if I believed I wanted to do something for myself it was really to please someone else. If I started down a path of my own making I'd abandon it if someone needed me elsewhere.
True, ultimately that was my choice but the reasons for making it were never really my own.
Every time I thought I was on the brink of escape I heard the hollow echo of the other shoe dropping and the illusion vanished before my eyes.
Leaving me here...again.
So as I go on with baggage in tow it's hard to see how anything can really change for me. The best I can do is appreciate what little joy I can gather but all the time knowing that even that can easily be taken away.
Indifference, an unkind word, ignorance, cruelty. I see it and while I try not to let petulance consume me, there are days when those things can cut me to to the bone.
It's worse when it comes from someone you care about though. When you realize that what you thought you'd broke free from has just changed its face. There it is again, same shit different DNA.
As I've found, every relationship has an expiration date and every moment is weighed against self-interest. When you're of no use, when you don't fit the agenda I find where I may seek compromise they seek the nearest exit.
Or I do...
There's been a few times when the writing on the wall forced me to be proactive but the shoe was still destined to drop. I've seen it too many times to deny.
It's not sad, it's not self-pity, it's just the way it is. It's my truth no matter if family, friend or vocation are involved.
I suppose I just expect too much from people. I have an impossible standard that I may not hold them too but wish they could meet.
I can't help it. My own experience just keeps showing me how shallow the depth of things like compassion and love have become. It's as though everybody walks around with little scales above their heads measuring every interaction to make sure they don't give too much.
Others have had far worse, I acknowledge that. I'm always cognizant of that but I don't live their lives. What's wrong is wrong but it seems I can't go without denying the relevance of my own feelings and desires in lieu of someone else.
I've finally come the realization that my feelings don't really matter. Mostly because they're too intense, too real and when revealed force others to look too far inward for their own comfort.
I'm not homeless, have bullets flying over my head or afflicted with some incurable disease but I've never really known comfort or peace.
Not in the way it matters.
I thought I did once but like all my illusions the shoe dropped dispelling it into shattered memories.
That's the reward for being who I am.
There's nothing here to aspire to save the fact that I still have love in my heart and a desire to do the right thing.
....for as much good as it's done me.
This isn't independence, it's exile...
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