Back in the Saddle

A long weekend of internet difficulties, roommate difficulties, and hopes of great days to come and sorrow for the things that cannot be.  But hey, I’m back here writing again, and this time it’s a relatively upbeat sort of mood, so that’s certainly a sign of progress in this relic.  To think that my time capsule is an online diary.

I think that the problem is me.  I don’t hate myself.  I love myself.  You’d be hard pressed to find someone I know that wouldn’t admit that instantaneously.  But the fact of the matter is, I am not like other people, or I don’t think like them.  I try to think like them occasionally, when I want to know why they’re doing what they’re doing or what they might do next, but when I’m just living my life, I go about it my way.  Everyone else does, too.  I guess I just naturally assume my way is more correct, enlightened, and just plain right.  Who knows if it really is?  I shouldn’t presume so much.  But we all do. 

Where is this going?  Ergh.  I always ask myself when I sit down to write a thought in my head.  For me it needs prologue, it needs epilogue, it needs to be explained to death so that there’s no mistake about what I mean and no way that I hurt people.  Which inevitably happens anyway.  I guess I’m headed towards an apology to people who probably won’t read this or to people who won’t quite understand yet but probably will someday.  I love people.  I can’t help loving people.  I love people deeply and completely and generally I abandon a lot of myself to love them.

And then eventually I wake up and realize: wait a minute…look how hard I’m trying.  Look how I’m always the one reaching out to these people, calling them, talking with them, urging them to do something with themselves, forgiving them for things, apologizing when it’s neither my fault nor I feel it is, feeling bad when my life gets in the way of their plans and their lives….and I lose quite a lot of my love.  It happens suddenly.  Like a snapping finger it switches and I struggle quietly with myself, trying to figure out how best to keep them in my life because I can’t help but love them, but while trying to find a way to unwind some of the ties that connect me to them so that I can move more freely, breathe more easily, and just live some more of my life for myself in a way that I can enjoy. 

I grew up doing things for other people who neither appreciated nor understood what I was doing.  My parents believe to this day that the valedictory title was something I wanted, and they believe that everything I had to deal with because of my scholastic focus was worth that title…they believe in the glory of titles and the be-all end-all power of reputation.  But the reputation gained from that was not my own, I gained nothing by being valedictorian…a little scholarship money to offset what my parents were already going to pay.  A high school life filled with people abandoning me, harassing me, hurting me, and shunning me.  A perhaps lifetime of little scars, regrets, and vengeful thoughts tacked on.  I never wanted to ruin or sully my parents’ names, they were so angry and afraid of that happening.  They took more pleasure when people said "Hey, you’re that Jennings boy" then when they said "Hey, you’re Brad Jennings."  Because the first implies parental aptitude and the second implies personal. 

In many ways, I still live giving up things for myself and doing what others need or want me to with little regard for my own personal feelings on the matter.  Ron hates me for doing what Mark asks of me…I cleaned the other bathroom, the one I don’t use because he was threatening to raise rent and was disgusted and I didn’t want anger brought down on anyone in the house.  I did it so that Rich and Monte wouldn’t have to.  I did it to do the right and good thing.  And they all were a little bit upset with me for squashing my own personal feelings and doing what so many others expected of me or perhaps not expected, but weren’t going to do themselves and then bitch about the consequences.  I saved them a little misery, I saved us all a little more misery…perhaps I didn’t save myself as much…but I saved others and that makes me personally feel good.

But eventually, that other side of me that I don’t like to talk about, butts in and runs things.  It tells me that perhaps I should do a little more for myself, that I should fuck these other people who don’t appreciate, who don’t care, who can drop me so quickly, or who say that they need me but really don’t care about what I think.  It tells me that I deserve a little selfishness and in a schizoid moodswing, after attempts at gradual weening, I drop people fast and furious and leave them in the dust.  I think what only makes things worse is that most don’t even notice being dropped.  There are others, Nancy and Marie, like you, who try as hard as you can to be there all the time, and who are always the first to be afraid of being dumped, and the last people I ever would for the exact same reason.  And I love you very much.  Both. 

And all this is leading to a statement and a rant I cannot make, because I’m not the kind of guy who writes things in here that the people who need to hear it won’t read, or who would read it would be upset about reading here instead of hearing it from me directly.  I want to vent more, I really do….but I just can’t.

And this is upbeat?  It is, really.  I’m taking steps in the right direction and I have a feeling that things will get better.  I’m terrified of hurting people the way I hurt, of making them as scarred and lonely as I am at times, and I just want them to feel good and loved.  I sometimes feel like I should abandon all relationships of any depth and remain that shallow friend that makes a lot of people happy but commits to no one.  Then, perhaps, I will never hurt anyone because they will never really care about me.  And in the back of my mind, there is a voice telling me how stupid that is, and how I deserve a little depth.

Blah blah blah.