I've been very angry for the past couple of days. I don't even know where to start to try and explain why I've been so angry... but I want to try. I think I need to try.
Reactions this strong start with a stimulus... and we've had a few of those over the past month or so. Ray has gotten an earful of how these events have affected me... as well as anyone else around who happened to be in earshot during my rants. Going through details wouldn't be productive at this point. I feel like all those little events were puzzle pieces that finally came together... to make one big telling image that I'm calling a realization.
I feel stupid. And no, it's not that general "I feel stupid" feeling that I get on a regular basis... this time it's because I know without a doubt that I've been
really stupid. I've blinded myself. I've numbed myself. From an early age, you're taught that you have to function in this world. We're not separate from it... we don't belong in it... but we have to make a go of it. I mean, how completely horrible is that?
Before you know it... you're trying your best to meet standards, make deadlines, be who you're expected to be. I feel stupid because these things... these arbitrary standards... what grades I made... what car I bought... if I'm "proficient in various Microsoft applications"... these stupid, pointless things became the means by which I measured my own worth.
If those are things I'm measuring myself by...
worthless things... how could I ever see myself as anything valuable?
What I'd really like to know is, when and how did I ever let myself forget that I don't belong? Who convinced me to think that I could ever make my way easy in this world? Cause, whoever it was, I owe them a swift kick in the pants.
I am very thankful for the haven we have. Honestly, I feel like I never accurately identified that haven until very recently. I mistook it for other things. The real haven... is not what can be seen, or touched, or ever taken away. It is wholly independent of others' thoughts or judgements. It's a relationship. A pure, simple, and beautiful friendship. That's the only thing that can keep you sane, provide you with a worthwhile means to recognize your own value, and help you keep in mind that all this... this garbage... is temporary.
On a side note... I decided to write this because I also feel like people, in general, don't talk anymore. They speak... but they don't
really talk. Anytime someone does, it's considered an emotional outburst that they are going to "recover" from or something... like they lost their mind for a second.... like they're too open and something is wrong with them. Poo to that. How do we ever expect to form real friendships if we never really tell other people how we actually feel... what we actually think? Why do we keep building these emotional boxes to live and die in?
I also have come to the realization that I sound like every teenager from the 90s... but stereotypes are just another thing this world has created to make us think that what we feel isn't actually what we're feeling, only because someone else has felt it before. That's bunk.
Whew... Now on to the things that matter.
