So I wrote the following basically two days after I wrote my last post and I just never posted it. There was good reason for that, but in an effort to remain true to myself and this blog, I am posting it anyways. I didn’t post it because it scared the shit out of me. It scared me that I could end up in such a dark place and feel like I had no where to go. It scared me at how easy it was to end up there.
I wrote [DRAFT] in the title of this post because I didn’t bother editing this. I didn’t bother putting any pictures in because I don’t want it to be a real thing. But I wanted to post it so that I could one day come back and see my progression and see if I have actually been able to learn anything.
So without further ado…
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Of loneliness and abandonment
In which there is a lot of swearing… (Edit: I wrote this and then this happened, conspiracy style: http://www.npr.org/2015/04/25/401984370/pick-the-perfect-profanity-to-season-your-message )
The world is terrifying. There are a lot of different reasons why this statement can be made (just ask my cousin about the “two very disturbed people”), but right now I am referring to its ability to seemingly always know what is happening in my life.
I know I haven’t written in a very long time, and I suppose a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was content for a little bit. It scares the shit out of me that I can go from content/almost happy to fucking basket case based solely on the fact that a girl I was interested in decided she wasn’t. It amazes me how quickly I became unglued and unable to function within 48 hours of someone I don’t even really know that well telling she just wants to be friends. It saddens me how there is a brief moment of elation when I get a text or email notification because I think it may be from her.
Over the last couple days, I have been desperately trying to figure out how I became this person. I don’t think I was like this before Her, but that was like 6 years ago, so who really knows who I was back then. I know I have always been a little bit pathetic when it comes to the opposite gender. I have always been overly sentimental and emotional. I always fall in love immediately. I tell myself that it is because I just love being loved, and that I love giving all of my love to someone. Hell I said that exact thing like 2 days ago.
Really though, I’m not sure that’s it.
I guess the beauty of this blog, is that it is basically a vehicle for me to have verbal diarrhea while I try to figure out and relate to my own gnarly baggage- and in the end hopefully it all works out.
“There will be places where I seem to be arguing with myself. I am. Seeing some merit to more than one side, I often argue with myself. I hope by the last chapter it will be clear where I come out.”
Carl Sagan said that. If he can say it, then I am in good company.
That brings me to the two most recent hidden damages that have come to the forefront of my attention that I need to resolve.
Of Loneliness
This takes us back to my original statement. Someone I am pseudo-friends with on Facebook ‘liked’ this article:
And this was the first thing to show up on my newsfeed:
http://www.thekuproject.com/020-4-keys-to-building-self-confidence/
Obviously, the first article is pretty fucking relevant to what I am trying to talk about now (the second link is just a constant battle for me). I am not sure how I feel about some of the statements in the first article, and outside of the terrifying prospect that loneliness will eventually kill me, I can relate to most of what she said. Of particular poignancy are these gems:
While dealing with my own loneliness in Portland I often found myself thinking, “If I were a better person I wouldn’t be lonely.”
Let me tell you how fucking often I have this fucking thought. I had it last night, all fucking night long while I was at an event that I went to try and distract myself from being miserable. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Jazz and Colors” event alone. The goal was to try and bury myself in jazz and art so that I would stop thinking about “Emily” (I’m just going to make up a name for the new girl now. It’s becoming apparent that what happened with her has become a catalyst in my self-destruction/discovery and the capitalized forms of female pronouns has already been claimed by someone who has a much more legitimate claim on impacting my life.) Couple huge fucking problems with that idea:
- I told her about it, and she said she would definitely try to go so all I could fucking think about was whether or not I would run into her and what I would say. It is a very real possibility that I convinced myself to go to this thing on the off chance that I would run into her. Who fucking knows. Maybe Malcolm Gladwell can write a book about it.
- The Met is Emily’s favorite place in NYC. Also not a fact that is conducive to not thinking about her.
- It was a beautiful event, and I am sure it would have been amazing if I hadn’t gotten so wrapped up in my own head. However, because it was such a beautiful event, there were a million fucking beautiful, happy couples walking around and all I could think was “what the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t find someone and be happy like them?”
Mind you, this was one event, over the course of around 2 hours. These thoughts drove me from an optimistic desire to try and lose myself at the Met to pinning Smurf on the floor and openly weeping into his neck (side note, he fucking hates being used as a teddy bear). These are the things that I do that make me wonder if I am actually mentally stable.
This internal dialogue is really not helped by people who make statements like “you really are a terrible conversationalist” and/or ask me fucked up questions like “Oh, is Emily a little bit awkward like you are?” Seriously though… fuck you. I’m allowed to tell people that I’m borderline socially awkward all the time, because it’s me, and I live on self-depreciation. You’re overly privileged ass is needs to shut the fuck up and take your overly privileged fucking friends and leave me the fuck alone.
[INSERT PICTURE HERE]
I have this conversation in my head basically every time I am around other things that are alive. If I were a better conversationalist, maybe I’d have more friends. If I was a better networker, maybe I’d have a better job. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Only semi-relevant, but awesome, and that was turning into one giant whine and it needed to be stopped…
Those who were lonely were far more prone to micro awakenings, which suggest the brain is on alert for threats throughout the night, perhaps just as earlier humans would have needed to be when separated from their tribe.
This is only really relevant to me because I have been trying so desperately to figure out why I can’t sleep well anymore. Maybe my fear/reality of being alone all the time is the answer to another reality of my life.
We just need several on whom we can depend and who depend on us in return.
This. This is the only sentence that I really needed to read in that article. I don’t even really think it’s the first part that matters, it’s the second part that matters. I have the privilege of coming from an amazing family. I whine about certain aspects, I have minor issues with other parts, and major issues with very small parts, but overall my family is amazing. I do not think I will ever be lacking for people who I can depend on, and that’s not really even branching out to the few friends that I have that I believe I can count on implicitly.
I am much, much more hard pressed to think of people who depend on me. Really, the only thing in this whole world that I think relies completely on me is Smurf. Even he would be able to find someone else if push came to shove (no I’m not suicidal, I’m just thinking out loud.) I am fairly confident that if I did not ask people to hang out with me on a weekly basis, I would just be alone all the time. [Edit: as I wrote this paragraph, I got a text from my step brother, my step-brother-in-law (is that a thing?), my cousin, my friend and my coworker all asking if I wanted to do things. The world is seriously spying on me or something] I am even more confident that if something horrible happened in any of my friend’s lives, I would be one of the last people most of them would turn to for help and support. The only person that I can think of that would come to me first is Her, and in Her case, the feeling is mutual… except when dealing with Emily or subjects like Emily. I’m not ready for that yet with Her. Regardless, I will always be there for Her, and I believe She will always be there for me.
This is a fact that stings more than I can really verbalize. This goes way beyond the vanity I find inherent in most people’s yearning to be desired. When shit was really starting to go downhill, She used to say that She didn’t feel desired and that I needed to make her feel like she was. I wonder now if this was the full extent of it. Anyways, I digress…
When my mom came to visit me, she made a comment that really, really upset me. She said that I was always “dating down”, and she wanted me to be with someone who was “at my level”. It took basically all the willpower I had to not get into it with her immediately. My first, and current, reaction was ‘fuck right off with that.’ If I am happy, and I am with someone who cares about me and provides me the support and love that I need, then who the fuck cares if they are “below me”… digressing again…
The reason I bring that up, is that after reading the above statement, how could I not think that “dating down” is not some sub-conscious way for me to fulfill my basic need to have someone depend on me. It insults me to think that my mom thought that She was “dating down”. She may not have had the formal education I was privy to, nor the family support system that I have access to, but to argue about that shit is so caste-system centric it boggles the mind. I won’t argue that She was not the perfect person for me to want to marry from a traditional Asian sense, but neither was she this evil that was going to condemn my mind and soul. Emily certainly wouldn’t have been dating down either. If anything, Emily really challenged me to think about subjects that I generally try to avoid and made it comfortable for me to opine on them. Digressing again…
Feeling needed. This is what I’m trying to talk about. Focus your shit.
Back to the above paragraph, “dating down” as a symptom of trying to fake my way into feeling like someone depends on me. HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT TO SAY. I can’t really believe I just wrote that out in words and am planning on publishing this shit online. If anyone I have ever dated actually reads this, there are going to be a lot of awkward conversations. STILL DIGRESSING…
I don’t think that this is true. I hope to god this isn’t true. If anything, most of the time I end up playing meek to the person that I am with. Maybe as a plea or a show to let them know that I depend on them. This in itself is pathetic and I don’t actually think I do this anymore. I definitely did it before Her, but I definitely didn’t do it with Her or Emily. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here anymore. The train is gone.
All I know is that I really, really, with every fiber of my being hope that I am not a sad enough person to insult the people I profess to love by choosing those who have less than me so that they can rely on me. Please don’t let that be true. Please, please, please. This will definitely require more pondering. I hope the answer is that I am not that terrible of a human being. That would be worse than anything I have ever done or believed before. Please.
Of Abandonment
I picked up my book today (Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie) and this was the first line I read:
“Thus abandoned, I have returned, having no option, to my work” pg. 138
…and here I am. Are you fucking kidding me world? Fucking seriously?
I have daddy issues. This is a realization that I came to the other day when I was talking to my good high school buddy about his brother dying from cancer. I am not really sure how those are related, but my dad came up in the conversation and right then, I realized that I have daddy issues.
My daddy issues don’t cause me to star in pornography or have abusive relationships like the good ole cliché goes. My daddy issues make me question when everyone I love will leave me, they make me question when my partner’s will choose to be with someone else over me, they make me think feeling lonely, and being alone are the worst things I could ever be. My daddy issues make me question whether or not I am worthy of being loved.
My daddy issues make me question if I am worthy.
To be fair, I used to have mommy issues too. Those I went to therapy for, because those were the issues that I thought I was supposed to have. Those were the issues that it was socially acceptable for me to have, and so those are the ones that I dealt with.
This is the painful truth, the divorce fucked me up. This is not news to a lot of people, but the divorce was ugly and it continues to be a source of constant fighting in my family.
Outside of the normal, horrible shit that a divorce does to people, the one lasting thing that I cannot seem to get over is that I think maybe I really do think there is something wrong with me that made my dad want to not be around anymore. I know intellectually that this cannot be true, and I know intellectually that I am kind of a moron and falling into the trap of “it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault” that Good Will Hunting so gently reminded me. But at some point in my life I really need to figure out why it is that I never think that I am good enough for other people. I know that we have been over the self-confidence issue previously. It is a constantly recurring theme in my life. Whether it is my buddy back home telling me that I am the most insecure person he knows, or whether it is my desperate need for validation through a relationship, to any of the other things that I do and crave for validation.
We have been over how I honestly do believe that on paper, I am a successful person. I am building a hotel and have earned the respect and trust of the owner’s (family issues aside…) even though I started out with basically no knowledge. I raised money and helped start a company that is the culmination of my partner’s brain child. I have an Ivy league master’s degree. I’m tall, not ugly, and good company in small groups. I am witty, a good writer, a decent singer, and can typically find the humor (self depreciating or no) in any situation. I don’t lie, I have more integrity than is probably healthy, and I know exactly who the fuck I am. I’m pretty fucking awesome. I am generous, kind and loving to those who I (lol super judgmental statement incoming) deem are deserving. I am loyal to a fault.
These are things that I believe about myself. These are things that I try to pride myself on.
Yet, when it counts, I can’t seem to find one thing about myself that is good enough to make people want to be with me- friends or lovers.
Of Dice and Demons 