I'm a big fan of anime, or Japanese animation for anyone not familiar with the term. (If you're incredibly unfamiliar with it, it might be good to read the Wikipedia page on it if you're going to read anything I write, because it's a major part of my life, being my main preoccupation and interest.) Lately, I've been watching a show called Usagi Drop. That translates to Rabbit Drop, as if that explains anything. The title doesn't make a lot of sense, and I doubt it ever will. A lot of anime series in Japan have titles that don't make much sense or aren't relevant to the series at all.
Anyway, the show is about a 30-year-old man who goes to his grandfather's funeral and discovers that he has an aunt - a 6-year-old girl, the old man's illegitimate child. Her mother has run off, and the little girl (Rin) has nowhere to go, so the man (Daikichi) agrees to take her in, unable to bear the thought of her being passed around or taken in by the government. The show is about being a parent; we see Daikichi confused and embarrassed at what is involved in being a parent, but more often, and more importantly, we see how much he cares for this poor little girl, whose father is dead and whose mother isn't even a memory. We see Daikichi take care of Rin, and we see Rin trust Daikichi and rely on him.
I've watched five episodes, and I've cried during every one. Sometimes more than once. I've listened to the opening song many times (I downloaded the whole song so I could listen to it), and I've been humming it under my breath at work this past week. It's gotten to the point where just hearing the song makes me smile, and makes my heart feel like it's going to burst. It's also gotten to the point where hearing the song makes me cry.
The show is touching. I can't even put it into words. But it hits me harder than it would a lot of people, because my dream is to have a daughter. And I'm about at the point where I don't think it will ever happen. I feel old; rather, I feel like I'm going to be too old. Daikichi is 30, and he's just become a parent, so being a parent at 25 is no big deal, right? Except that Rin is 6 when Daikichi takes her in; she was born when he was 24.
Having a child before I'm 26 is a dream, because I'll be 26 in a few months. Starting a family before I'm 27 is unrealistic, too, because I'd have to find a woman I can love, and who can love me. (I'm not the kind to knock up a girl; the very thought of actually having sex with someone scares me. It's too intimate. I have no problem with doing sexual things, but actually joining with someone like that just seems like too much. It takes me a long time simply to be able to talk freely around people.) If I have a child when I'm 28, I'll be middle-aged before she even starts school. By the time she graduates high school, I'll be an old man. Okay, I have a slanted view of age, but it seems weird for an 18-year-old girl's father to be close to 50. Doesn't it?
Of course, that's if I can even get married and have a daughter. You know, I don't have anything against having a son, but it's hard for me to relate to most other men, and I'm afraid that I'd be a bad father for a boy. My own father wasn't really there for me growing up, and I'm not really there for him now. I love him, but I don't know how to act around him or what to say. I don't want that to happen between me and my child. But that's putting the cart before the horse again. I don't know how to meet people; dammit, I don't understand how adults date at all. I don't understand anything adults do, really. How can I meet a woman when I don't know how to do so, and how can I woo her if I don't know what I'm supposed to do? I don't want to be defeatist, but it's like I'm fighting an unwinnable war, where the enemies are everywhere but I don't know what they look like. All I can do is get stabbed and fall to the ground.
I'd be a great father. I'm not very confident about most things, but I'm confident about that. There's a lot I don't know, and I'd need a lot of help, but I'd love my child, and I'd do anything for him or her. A child needs love and support, and I have so much of that to give. The thought that I'll never get to is too much to bear. I don't even care about passing on my genes; they're shitty genes anyway, even without the autism. I wouldn't mind raising another's man child or children, and I wouldn't mind adopting or taking in foster children. But I can't do it alone; a child should have two parents anyway, be it a mother and father or two fathers or two mothers. Hell, I doubt they even let single men adopt or take in foster children. I don't know. I'm just scared at the prospect of the future, or the lack of a prospect.
The world is scary. But it's not living that scares me. It's not living, being alive and with breath in my lungs but not doing what I want to do. That purgatorial existence where the days simply go by. I don't want that. I don't want that at all.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Day Everything Started
I really should be fixing something to eat right now, but I've been inspired to tell more of my past, because I've been reading some random tumblr blog where a young woman has revealed some of her dirty past. I enjoyed reading it, so maybe people will enjoy reading about my past. Right? Who knows.
On May 23rd, 2003, I went to my high school's graduation. I was still a junior at the time, and I didn't know many of the people graduating, but I was bored and wanted to get out of the house. If I hadn't gone to that single event, my life would be drastically different. At that event, I met First Love.
That "name" is a bitch to write, and it's pretty dehumanizing, so I'm going to change it. From now on, I'm going to change "First Love" to "Sayla," a reference to one of my favorite characters from the Gundam universe, Sayla Mass.
I was angry when I got to the graduation. I was usually angry. I used hatred as a shield, to protect me from the isolation I felt. It kept me from being sad. I sat down among some people I knew, just to not be alone. Beside me was Sayla; I had seen her before, as she had dated an acquaintance from school that lived near me, but I had never really talked to her before. Sayla saw that I had a nail file in my hand and asked about it. I explained that I bit down on it, to keep from grinding my teeth, and stuck the plastic end in my mouth to show her. She asked if I wanted to walk around a bit (the graduation was being held in the local park), and I agreed. As we were leaving, Sayla's friend Merry (fake name), who was actually Sayla's girlfriend in a weird way (I'll elaborate on Sayla's bisexuality and their relationship later), told her not to miss the ceremony. Thinking back on it, I think Merry was saying, "Don't spend too much time having sex."
We started walking around the park, starting with a trail through some trees. We had taken only a few steps, enough to get away from the noise of the graduation, which hadn't started yet, when Sayla pointed out an empty condom wrapper on the ground. She gave a small laugh.
As we walked, trees on either side of us and the sun blocked out by their leaves, we talked. About all sorts of things. Who we were, how we each subscribed to our own religious views and didn't belong to any religion, how we perceived the world. We spent a lot of time talking. We did miss the graduation. As it was nearing its end, we were sitting on a creaky wooden swing nearby. I remember that she told me to stand up, that I had some leaves on my back. I was wearing a heavy trench coat, despite the warmth of spring. It was a protection thing, something other Aspies should understand. Wearing the trench coat, I didn't feel vulnerable. Sayla swept the leaves off the back of the coat and said that she wasn't trying to touch my butt, honestly.
After the graduation ceremony ended, we met up with the friends she had come with, Merry and Sayla's ex-boyfriend Lucas (another fake name) and a few others, their sort of posse. I joined them, and we rode around in Lucas's truck for a while. We parked some place, and I fooled around outside the truck with the other people while Sayla and Lucas talked inside. I don't know what they talked about, but I assume it was about how she liked me. Lucas had known who I was, seeing as we were in the same grade and had talked to each other before, and there was no bad blood between us at that time. After they talked for, it had to have been at least half an hour, and I snapped some pictures with my disposable camera (meant for the graduation I never watched), we all got back in the truck and left.
I'm not sure of the exact order of things, but before dropping off Sayla at her house, I asked her for number. Maybe the first time I had asked a girl for her phone number, and so far the only time I have "gotten" a number from a girl that liked me. She wrote it on the booklet or paper or whatever that I had gotten at the graduation. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. After that, we stopped by the house of one of the posse members, who lived nearby. There, we talked about how I liked Sayla and how she seemed to like me. Someone said that there was a Renaissance Fair that weekend, an annual event I had always been interested in but had never attended, and that Sayla liked those and that I should ask her to go.
That night, after Lucas took me home, I called Sayla and asked her if she wanted to go to the Renaissance Fair. She said yes, and the next day (graduation was on a Friday), I was picked up by Sayla, her mother, and her little sister, and we went to the Renaissance Fair. Sayla was wearing this Renaissance-esque outfit, similar to a belly-dancer's. She was so cute. I was wearing a black Slayer t-shirt (the band, Slayer). I didn't have much else besides band t-shirts. We were able to do our own thing, without her mother or sister. As we walked through the fair, an old man dressed as a minstrel took note of my shirt and asked what I was a slayer of. "Of Dragons!" I proclaimed, thinking it made me seem strong. As we walked away, Sayla told me that dragons were revered there.
I could go on and on about the fair, but there were only a few important things that happened. One, I never touched Sayla. I never held her hand nor hugged her. I'm not wired for those sorts of gestures, and this was a girl that seemed to like me, a girl that I really liked. I was nervous, and I was a guy that had never even held hands with a girl before. It's no surprise that I didn't touch her, though I wish I had. The other important thing is that I bought a dragon necklace. Sayla named it for me - Niner, after the dragon in Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon, a book we had both read, though I'd read it years ago for pleasure and she had read it recently for her Honors English class. Niner was important to me, and he was important to her, too, in the years to come. I don't know what ever became of him. I gave him to her at one point, to protect her. The rope (or whatever it is, that you put around your neck) broke while she was wearing him later on, I know that. Sayla believed in signs the way I do. Niner breaking was a bad sign. I think one of his legs or arms broke off, too. I wonder how much that affected the way she felt about me. Rather, the decisions she made regarding me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When we first really met, on May 23rd, I was sixteen, and Sayla was fourteen. She had blond hair and a petite build. She wasn't short, but she had thin arms and legs. Or maybe not. I'm not good at describing people. Even if I pulled out the pictures I have, taken the night of graduation and the next day at the Renaissance Fair, I wouldn't be able to paint a very good picture. She was cute, and hot, and way more than I could handle. We talked on the phone every night. She told me that she was a nymphomaniac, which I thought was exciting. I didn't think about what it meant, nor did I consider what being a nymphomaniac meant. I took it as meaning that she liked to have sex, which was great because I was always horny. But it's more than that; being addicted to sex is different from wanting to fuck your partner three times every day. She made me open up and talk about sexuality, something I had never done with a girl before. Even admitting that I masturbated was a hard thing to do. She got me over my nervousness by talking about how much she masturbated. It sounds really weird, writing it out, but that's how it happened. I remember one of our first conversations involving her saying, "There's the g-spot. Why do guys say it's so hard to find." While talking to me, she had gone exploring and found it herself, heh. Another time she said, "Whoops," and when I asked what had happened, she said that she had been fingering herself, almost accidentally.
We touched ourselves while talking to each other. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the night, whenever we got the chance. But that was over the phone. In person, I was frigid. I was once visiting her at her house, going to have dinner with her family. Sayla and I were upstairs, watching either the first or second Harry Potter movie. We weren't watching it so much as it was on. I was more interested in running my finger up and down her leg, which was mostly bare due to her very short shorts. I had a pillow over my lap, and when I said that I was hard, she moved to take the pillow away. I grabbed it with my own hand and didn't let her move it, shy as all hell. She got up, not overtly angry or upset, and said that she was going down for dinner. I didn't know what to do or say. I got up and was able to hide the erection within my jeans, which were baggy because I hate tight clothing. The thought of facing her mother and sister helped me to calm the little fellow down.
It has since occurred to me that Sayla was coming on to me, and that had I let her move the pillow, I might have gotten a blowjob or handjob. I might have been able to finger her or eat her out. If nothing else, I would have shown that I wasn't a prude. That's one reason we didn't work - I was a prude. I thought anything sexual should only be done between people really close. And I was inexperienced with everything and didn't know what anything meant. To me, a girl wanting to see my erection, even though my jeans, was frightening and embarrassing, and the thought of something good coming of it never even occurred to me. I've also realized that I was the one that started it; I had been running my finger up and down her leg, her thigh. I was inches away from her pussy. Of course she had been excited. If she had known that I wouldn't refuse her, she probably would have tried to have sex with me then and there. But nothing happened.
This was the end of May and the beginning of June. During July, Sayla went down to Florida to visit her grandmother. That's a story that needs to be told. After I tell it, I'll tell about the birthday party, which was a momentous event that affected me for years. It's a horrible story, but I need to get it out.
On May 23rd, 2003, I went to my high school's graduation. I was still a junior at the time, and I didn't know many of the people graduating, but I was bored and wanted to get out of the house. If I hadn't gone to that single event, my life would be drastically different. At that event, I met First Love.
That "name" is a bitch to write, and it's pretty dehumanizing, so I'm going to change it. From now on, I'm going to change "First Love" to "Sayla," a reference to one of my favorite characters from the Gundam universe, Sayla Mass.
I was angry when I got to the graduation. I was usually angry. I used hatred as a shield, to protect me from the isolation I felt. It kept me from being sad. I sat down among some people I knew, just to not be alone. Beside me was Sayla; I had seen her before, as she had dated an acquaintance from school that lived near me, but I had never really talked to her before. Sayla saw that I had a nail file in my hand and asked about it. I explained that I bit down on it, to keep from grinding my teeth, and stuck the plastic end in my mouth to show her. She asked if I wanted to walk around a bit (the graduation was being held in the local park), and I agreed. As we were leaving, Sayla's friend Merry (fake name), who was actually Sayla's girlfriend in a weird way (I'll elaborate on Sayla's bisexuality and their relationship later), told her not to miss the ceremony. Thinking back on it, I think Merry was saying, "Don't spend too much time having sex."
We started walking around the park, starting with a trail through some trees. We had taken only a few steps, enough to get away from the noise of the graduation, which hadn't started yet, when Sayla pointed out an empty condom wrapper on the ground. She gave a small laugh.
As we walked, trees on either side of us and the sun blocked out by their leaves, we talked. About all sorts of things. Who we were, how we each subscribed to our own religious views and didn't belong to any religion, how we perceived the world. We spent a lot of time talking. We did miss the graduation. As it was nearing its end, we were sitting on a creaky wooden swing nearby. I remember that she told me to stand up, that I had some leaves on my back. I was wearing a heavy trench coat, despite the warmth of spring. It was a protection thing, something other Aspies should understand. Wearing the trench coat, I didn't feel vulnerable. Sayla swept the leaves off the back of the coat and said that she wasn't trying to touch my butt, honestly.
After the graduation ceremony ended, we met up with the friends she had come with, Merry and Sayla's ex-boyfriend Lucas (another fake name) and a few others, their sort of posse. I joined them, and we rode around in Lucas's truck for a while. We parked some place, and I fooled around outside the truck with the other people while Sayla and Lucas talked inside. I don't know what they talked about, but I assume it was about how she liked me. Lucas had known who I was, seeing as we were in the same grade and had talked to each other before, and there was no bad blood between us at that time. After they talked for, it had to have been at least half an hour, and I snapped some pictures with my disposable camera (meant for the graduation I never watched), we all got back in the truck and left.
I'm not sure of the exact order of things, but before dropping off Sayla at her house, I asked her for number. Maybe the first time I had asked a girl for her phone number, and so far the only time I have "gotten" a number from a girl that liked me. She wrote it on the booklet or paper or whatever that I had gotten at the graduation. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. After that, we stopped by the house of one of the posse members, who lived nearby. There, we talked about how I liked Sayla and how she seemed to like me. Someone said that there was a Renaissance Fair that weekend, an annual event I had always been interested in but had never attended, and that Sayla liked those and that I should ask her to go.
That night, after Lucas took me home, I called Sayla and asked her if she wanted to go to the Renaissance Fair. She said yes, and the next day (graduation was on a Friday), I was picked up by Sayla, her mother, and her little sister, and we went to the Renaissance Fair. Sayla was wearing this Renaissance-esque outfit, similar to a belly-dancer's. She was so cute. I was wearing a black Slayer t-shirt (the band, Slayer). I didn't have much else besides band t-shirts. We were able to do our own thing, without her mother or sister. As we walked through the fair, an old man dressed as a minstrel took note of my shirt and asked what I was a slayer of. "Of Dragons!" I proclaimed, thinking it made me seem strong. As we walked away, Sayla told me that dragons were revered there.
I could go on and on about the fair, but there were only a few important things that happened. One, I never touched Sayla. I never held her hand nor hugged her. I'm not wired for those sorts of gestures, and this was a girl that seemed to like me, a girl that I really liked. I was nervous, and I was a guy that had never even held hands with a girl before. It's no surprise that I didn't touch her, though I wish I had. The other important thing is that I bought a dragon necklace. Sayla named it for me - Niner, after the dragon in Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon, a book we had both read, though I'd read it years ago for pleasure and she had read it recently for her Honors English class. Niner was important to me, and he was important to her, too, in the years to come. I don't know what ever became of him. I gave him to her at one point, to protect her. The rope (or whatever it is, that you put around your neck) broke while she was wearing him later on, I know that. Sayla believed in signs the way I do. Niner breaking was a bad sign. I think one of his legs or arms broke off, too. I wonder how much that affected the way she felt about me. Rather, the decisions she made regarding me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When we first really met, on May 23rd, I was sixteen, and Sayla was fourteen. She had blond hair and a petite build. She wasn't short, but she had thin arms and legs. Or maybe not. I'm not good at describing people. Even if I pulled out the pictures I have, taken the night of graduation and the next day at the Renaissance Fair, I wouldn't be able to paint a very good picture. She was cute, and hot, and way more than I could handle. We talked on the phone every night. She told me that she was a nymphomaniac, which I thought was exciting. I didn't think about what it meant, nor did I consider what being a nymphomaniac meant. I took it as meaning that she liked to have sex, which was great because I was always horny. But it's more than that; being addicted to sex is different from wanting to fuck your partner three times every day. She made me open up and talk about sexuality, something I had never done with a girl before. Even admitting that I masturbated was a hard thing to do. She got me over my nervousness by talking about how much she masturbated. It sounds really weird, writing it out, but that's how it happened. I remember one of our first conversations involving her saying, "There's the g-spot. Why do guys say it's so hard to find." While talking to me, she had gone exploring and found it herself, heh. Another time she said, "Whoops," and when I asked what had happened, she said that she had been fingering herself, almost accidentally.
We touched ourselves while talking to each other. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the night, whenever we got the chance. But that was over the phone. In person, I was frigid. I was once visiting her at her house, going to have dinner with her family. Sayla and I were upstairs, watching either the first or second Harry Potter movie. We weren't watching it so much as it was on. I was more interested in running my finger up and down her leg, which was mostly bare due to her very short shorts. I had a pillow over my lap, and when I said that I was hard, she moved to take the pillow away. I grabbed it with my own hand and didn't let her move it, shy as all hell. She got up, not overtly angry or upset, and said that she was going down for dinner. I didn't know what to do or say. I got up and was able to hide the erection within my jeans, which were baggy because I hate tight clothing. The thought of facing her mother and sister helped me to calm the little fellow down.
It has since occurred to me that Sayla was coming on to me, and that had I let her move the pillow, I might have gotten a blowjob or handjob. I might have been able to finger her or eat her out. If nothing else, I would have shown that I wasn't a prude. That's one reason we didn't work - I was a prude. I thought anything sexual should only be done between people really close. And I was inexperienced with everything and didn't know what anything meant. To me, a girl wanting to see my erection, even though my jeans, was frightening and embarrassing, and the thought of something good coming of it never even occurred to me. I've also realized that I was the one that started it; I had been running my finger up and down her leg, her thigh. I was inches away from her pussy. Of course she had been excited. If she had known that I wouldn't refuse her, she probably would have tried to have sex with me then and there. But nothing happened.
This was the end of May and the beginning of June. During July, Sayla went down to Florida to visit her grandmother. That's a story that needs to be told. After I tell it, I'll tell about the birthday party, which was a momentous event that affected me for years. It's a horrible story, but I need to get it out.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Asperger's, Alone
"Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god." - Aristotle, Politics
I was originally only going to use the first part of the quote, about man being a social animal, but after reading the entire quote, I thought it fitting. Everyone has to communicate with others, in some way; truly, the only exceptions would be those that do not belong in society, either because they are harmful or above us.
Even the Buddha spread his message.
I am not a god. Sometimes I wish I were (hell, most of the time I do), but I am not nor will I ever be. I need people. I may only need one person, and if I had a choice, I would only have one person, and the rest could go to hell, but that one person would make me part of society. Well, it'd be me being social.
The fact that I need to interact with people is the root of my problems. Really, it's the only thing I have to complain about. I have food, I have enough money to survive (though not enough to avoid stress), I have ways to occupy my time and hobbies I love. I have so many books to read, games to play, and shows to watch that it'd take me years to go through them all, and while I'm going through them, I will acquire more, of course. I have no excuse for being bored, and really, I never get bored. I may act like I'm bored, but it's actually loneliness. Just like sometimes, you end up eating a hamburger when you want pizza, or you watch a mediocre television show because nothing else is on, sometimes you play a video game or read a book when all you want is to talk to someone. But no one's there.
Sometimes, no one is there to talk to you because they're busy. That happens all the time, right? It happens to my brother an awful lot. He'll be lonely because all his friends are doing something else or sleeping when he's awake because he works odd hours. That's normal, and it's to be expected. Every now and then, you just have to deal with being lonely because other people have their own lives. But you know they're there, and you know you'll eventually get a chance to see them. And if not, you at least know that they'd like to see you, given the opportunity.
Not me. I am alone. I'm not lonely because everyone is busy or sleeping or otherwise occupied. I'm lonely because no one is there. At all.
I talk to people, sure. I have friends on Facebook that mean a lot to me. We are separated by states and will probably never see one another in person or even hear each other's voices, but at least there is some support. It helps me so much that it's pitiful. What is copper to everyone else is gold to me. But they don't know me well, and I don't know them well. They know more than other people, but what they know is only a small part of who I am. (That's partly why I started this blog, to give people a chance to know more about me.) I am an iceberg; what you can see by looking, even by touching, is only a small part. There is so much more underneath the water, ten times as much, twenty times as much. A hundred times more than what you can know by looking at me, watching me, studying me.
I can't communicate well with people. I'm good with words but only when writing. Talking in person, I tend to be a mess, unsure of what to say or do, and the times I know what to say or do, I usually find myself unable to say or do them. When a person is upset, I know you're supposed to put your arms around them and tell them that you care about them, but all I can do is stand there awkwardly, telling myself to do it, do it, do it! and never moving an inch. Maybe I'll be able to put my hand on their shoulder and say, "I'm sorry."
But communicating online isn't enough for me. I'm never certain if people are being sarcastic or how serious or light-hearted a comment is. I can't read subtext online; rather, I can't tell whether there is subtext or not. I can think of the possibilities but don't know how to pick which is the most possible. Talking to people online just confuses me, if the subject is at all serious. And usually, all I want to talk about is serious stuff, whether it's personal or philosophical or political or whatever. And it stresses me out. I'm not sure when to stop talking. If I say, "Thank you," and they say, "You're welcome," is that it? If I run out of things to say, do I say so and hope they can continue the conversation on their own? It's pressure, and I can't take it.
A few years ago, there was a forum I visited every single day, and every day, I spent several hours on it. I loved the site, I loved the people there, and I loved to visit it and post. Someone that liked my posts started messaging me, through private messages. I sent a few and enjoyed myself, but after a few weeks, my visits to the site started to decrease because I wasn't sure how to reply to the messages. I didn't know what to say or what was expected of me. Eventually, I stopped going to the site altogether. Last year, I revisited the site, but I made a new account and didn't tell anybody that it was me. I posted for a few months but lost interest in it. I didn't want to make any friendships because I knew they'd just lead to messaging, and I couldn't take that pressure again.
I need to see people. I need to touch them. I need to be close to them. But I hate people. They're annoying and stupid, they don't like the things I like (even if they like reading, no one ever likes the stuff I read, or if they watch anime, they never watch the stuff I watch), and they don't understand who I am or care. I'm weird, I like weird things, I like to discuss things in a weird way, and I don't fit in anywhere. I have no real friends. I have no one I can confide in, no one to hold my hand when I'm feeling down, no one to kiss my forehead to make me smile, no one to hug me when I need a hug. (And I mean a real hug, not some bullshit way of greeting. If I just met you, I don't want to hug you. There is no reason for us to hug, just like there is no reason for us to kiss. It doesn't mean anything, it has no meaning.)
I'm not alone because I push people away. I'm alone because I'm weird. I push people away because they can't accept me as I am, and I refuse to change. I don't want to see that bored look on your face as I excitedly talk about how interesting some simple facet of human life is, so I don't say anything, and when you're thinking of people you want to spend time with, my face doesn't pop into your head. I don't want to waste time sitting around a fire and getting drunk, so I decline your offer to do as much over the weekend, and you don't think of me when you plan to do something that's actually fun. You don't know anything about me, like that sometimes I start crying when I'm laying in bed and trying to sleep, or that sometimes I wish I could wear pretty dresses and makeup, or that I am constantly full of anger simply so that I won't get so sad that I take a whole bottle of pills and die, you don't know any of those things or the many other secrets I have, so when you tell me that you care about me, I don't believe you. You're lying, you're just saying it to make me feel better, or to make yourself feel better; whatever the goddamned reason, it's not true, because anybody that really cared about me would listen to me and want to hear what I have to say, would dig deep into me and extract at least one secret, one thing that lies beneath the freezing water. But no one has, and I honestly don't think anyone ever will. Because trying is too fucking hard, especially when I look and act so normal and suddenly seem so weird when I start being myself.
I have to make a choice. I can either hate myself, or I can hate you. And that really fucking sucks, that those are the only options open to me. But that's how it is. I have no one, and it's either my fault or everyone else's. So do I hate myself for being abnormal and hard to handle? Or do I hate people for not being able to deal with me or not wanting to?
I was originally only going to use the first part of the quote, about man being a social animal, but after reading the entire quote, I thought it fitting. Everyone has to communicate with others, in some way; truly, the only exceptions would be those that do not belong in society, either because they are harmful or above us.
Even the Buddha spread his message.
I am not a god. Sometimes I wish I were (hell, most of the time I do), but I am not nor will I ever be. I need people. I may only need one person, and if I had a choice, I would only have one person, and the rest could go to hell, but that one person would make me part of society. Well, it'd be me being social.
The fact that I need to interact with people is the root of my problems. Really, it's the only thing I have to complain about. I have food, I have enough money to survive (though not enough to avoid stress), I have ways to occupy my time and hobbies I love. I have so many books to read, games to play, and shows to watch that it'd take me years to go through them all, and while I'm going through them, I will acquire more, of course. I have no excuse for being bored, and really, I never get bored. I may act like I'm bored, but it's actually loneliness. Just like sometimes, you end up eating a hamburger when you want pizza, or you watch a mediocre television show because nothing else is on, sometimes you play a video game or read a book when all you want is to talk to someone. But no one's there.
Sometimes, no one is there to talk to you because they're busy. That happens all the time, right? It happens to my brother an awful lot. He'll be lonely because all his friends are doing something else or sleeping when he's awake because he works odd hours. That's normal, and it's to be expected. Every now and then, you just have to deal with being lonely because other people have their own lives. But you know they're there, and you know you'll eventually get a chance to see them. And if not, you at least know that they'd like to see you, given the opportunity.
Not me. I am alone. I'm not lonely because everyone is busy or sleeping or otherwise occupied. I'm lonely because no one is there. At all.
I talk to people, sure. I have friends on Facebook that mean a lot to me. We are separated by states and will probably never see one another in person or even hear each other's voices, but at least there is some support. It helps me so much that it's pitiful. What is copper to everyone else is gold to me. But they don't know me well, and I don't know them well. They know more than other people, but what they know is only a small part of who I am. (That's partly why I started this blog, to give people a chance to know more about me.) I am an iceberg; what you can see by looking, even by touching, is only a small part. There is so much more underneath the water, ten times as much, twenty times as much. A hundred times more than what you can know by looking at me, watching me, studying me.
I can't communicate well with people. I'm good with words but only when writing. Talking in person, I tend to be a mess, unsure of what to say or do, and the times I know what to say or do, I usually find myself unable to say or do them. When a person is upset, I know you're supposed to put your arms around them and tell them that you care about them, but all I can do is stand there awkwardly, telling myself to do it, do it, do it! and never moving an inch. Maybe I'll be able to put my hand on their shoulder and say, "I'm sorry."
But communicating online isn't enough for me. I'm never certain if people are being sarcastic or how serious or light-hearted a comment is. I can't read subtext online; rather, I can't tell whether there is subtext or not. I can think of the possibilities but don't know how to pick which is the most possible. Talking to people online just confuses me, if the subject is at all serious. And usually, all I want to talk about is serious stuff, whether it's personal or philosophical or political or whatever. And it stresses me out. I'm not sure when to stop talking. If I say, "Thank you," and they say, "You're welcome," is that it? If I run out of things to say, do I say so and hope they can continue the conversation on their own? It's pressure, and I can't take it.
A few years ago, there was a forum I visited every single day, and every day, I spent several hours on it. I loved the site, I loved the people there, and I loved to visit it and post. Someone that liked my posts started messaging me, through private messages. I sent a few and enjoyed myself, but after a few weeks, my visits to the site started to decrease because I wasn't sure how to reply to the messages. I didn't know what to say or what was expected of me. Eventually, I stopped going to the site altogether. Last year, I revisited the site, but I made a new account and didn't tell anybody that it was me. I posted for a few months but lost interest in it. I didn't want to make any friendships because I knew they'd just lead to messaging, and I couldn't take that pressure again.
I need to see people. I need to touch them. I need to be close to them. But I hate people. They're annoying and stupid, they don't like the things I like (even if they like reading, no one ever likes the stuff I read, or if they watch anime, they never watch the stuff I watch), and they don't understand who I am or care. I'm weird, I like weird things, I like to discuss things in a weird way, and I don't fit in anywhere. I have no real friends. I have no one I can confide in, no one to hold my hand when I'm feeling down, no one to kiss my forehead to make me smile, no one to hug me when I need a hug. (And I mean a real hug, not some bullshit way of greeting. If I just met you, I don't want to hug you. There is no reason for us to hug, just like there is no reason for us to kiss. It doesn't mean anything, it has no meaning.)
I'm not alone because I push people away. I'm alone because I'm weird. I push people away because they can't accept me as I am, and I refuse to change. I don't want to see that bored look on your face as I excitedly talk about how interesting some simple facet of human life is, so I don't say anything, and when you're thinking of people you want to spend time with, my face doesn't pop into your head. I don't want to waste time sitting around a fire and getting drunk, so I decline your offer to do as much over the weekend, and you don't think of me when you plan to do something that's actually fun. You don't know anything about me, like that sometimes I start crying when I'm laying in bed and trying to sleep, or that sometimes I wish I could wear pretty dresses and makeup, or that I am constantly full of anger simply so that I won't get so sad that I take a whole bottle of pills and die, you don't know any of those things or the many other secrets I have, so when you tell me that you care about me, I don't believe you. You're lying, you're just saying it to make me feel better, or to make yourself feel better; whatever the goddamned reason, it's not true, because anybody that really cared about me would listen to me and want to hear what I have to say, would dig deep into me and extract at least one secret, one thing that lies beneath the freezing water. But no one has, and I honestly don't think anyone ever will. Because trying is too fucking hard, especially when I look and act so normal and suddenly seem so weird when I start being myself.
I have to make a choice. I can either hate myself, or I can hate you. And that really fucking sucks, that those are the only options open to me. But that's how it is. I have no one, and it's either my fault or everyone else's. So do I hate myself for being abnormal and hard to handle? Or do I hate people for not being able to deal with me or not wanting to?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Duality
It seems that there are two sides to me: gentle and hard. You could also call them nice and mean, loving and hateful, open and closed. I would explain further, but I think that, as well as what I will write next, is sufficient to give you an idea of what each side is like.
For the past few months, I've been gentle. I wanted to be part of the world, instead of hiding away from it inside my room. I tried to reconnect with people, and succeeded a few times. I tried to make new friends, and I did. But whatever I accomplished, the most important part was that I was trying. I removed the wall around my self, brick by brick, letting people in.
For the past few days, I've been hard. Doesn't quite sound right, does it? I've been an asshole, basically. Not to anyone's face, but I've been an asshole inside. I've been angry and upset, and I've wanted to see the whole world go up in flames. I've cursed people for the slightest thing; I've cursed people simply for being alive. I built the wall back up and even made it taller, though admittedly it is weaker due to my haste.
For anyone that may not know, this "wall" business is a reference to Pink Floyd's album The Wall. If you've ever wondered what "the wall" was in the songs, it's pretty much what I've been talking about, a wall inside the main character's heart separating him from other people.
What caused the switch? I know what did it, though it's not worth discussing. It was a single thing, but it hurt my pride and my belief in a meaningful universe, where signs exist and you have a fated path you walk down. The gentle me, that is delicate and easily wounded, couldn't take it. So I hardened, donning the form better suited to handling pain. Wounded pride is a terrible thing, especially for me. Add to it the sadness and fear I'd been feeling from worrying that I had wasted years of my life and that nothing awaits me in the future, and, well - here I am, bitter and seething with contempt, hoping to freeze my heart for good and never have to deal with this sort of shit again.
But my desires for the future are too strong, and I lived as a frozen shell for too many years. I can already feel myself slipping back to that gentle side. How many more times will I play this game?
I don't know if this is an Aspie thing, and I dare not assume that it is, but maybe other people do this, too, or have in the past. I know that I feel things too much sometimes, that they cut through me and leave me bleeding and crying for help, when other people would simply moan for a day or so and then be over it. I can't help that, and I don't know how I'd ever be able to keep it from happening. That's part of life, part of Asperger's. How do other Aspies deal with being wounded?
The ocean waves come,
and they go, splash and recede.
Is that comforting?
For the past few months, I've been gentle. I wanted to be part of the world, instead of hiding away from it inside my room. I tried to reconnect with people, and succeeded a few times. I tried to make new friends, and I did. But whatever I accomplished, the most important part was that I was trying. I removed the wall around my self, brick by brick, letting people in.
For the past few days, I've been hard. Doesn't quite sound right, does it? I've been an asshole, basically. Not to anyone's face, but I've been an asshole inside. I've been angry and upset, and I've wanted to see the whole world go up in flames. I've cursed people for the slightest thing; I've cursed people simply for being alive. I built the wall back up and even made it taller, though admittedly it is weaker due to my haste.
For anyone that may not know, this "wall" business is a reference to Pink Floyd's album The Wall. If you've ever wondered what "the wall" was in the songs, it's pretty much what I've been talking about, a wall inside the main character's heart separating him from other people.
What caused the switch? I know what did it, though it's not worth discussing. It was a single thing, but it hurt my pride and my belief in a meaningful universe, where signs exist and you have a fated path you walk down. The gentle me, that is delicate and easily wounded, couldn't take it. So I hardened, donning the form better suited to handling pain. Wounded pride is a terrible thing, especially for me. Add to it the sadness and fear I'd been feeling from worrying that I had wasted years of my life and that nothing awaits me in the future, and, well - here I am, bitter and seething with contempt, hoping to freeze my heart for good and never have to deal with this sort of shit again.
But my desires for the future are too strong, and I lived as a frozen shell for too many years. I can already feel myself slipping back to that gentle side. How many more times will I play this game?
I don't know if this is an Aspie thing, and I dare not assume that it is, but maybe other people do this, too, or have in the past. I know that I feel things too much sometimes, that they cut through me and leave me bleeding and crying for help, when other people would simply moan for a day or so and then be over it. I can't help that, and I don't know how I'd ever be able to keep it from happening. That's part of life, part of Asperger's. How do other Aspies deal with being wounded?
The ocean waves come,
and they go, splash and recede.
Is that comforting?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Explanations
I realize that I've jumped into this without much of an introduction or explanation of who I am, so I feel that I owe it to anybody reading to explain some stuff.
First, the title, Prelude to Parting. I'm not good at coming up with names. I never have been and never will be. I am simply not creative in that way. So you don't need to read too deeply into the title of this blog. But it does have some meaning. It could be said that when we die, we part from this world, and that the life we live is the prelude to whatever comes afterward. This blog could also be seen as a way for me to muddle through the various exploits of my life and make sense of everything. In a year or two, I will hopefully understand myself better and will have parted with the imperfect self that exists now. Though it will only be replaced with a slightly less imperfect self, I suppose.
Second, the name I use, Nicomachus. I have never used this name before, and I may never use it for anything else. I want this blog to be anonymous, with a few select people knowing who I really am, to protect myself but mostly to protect whoever I may mention in it. In some of the stories I plan to eventually tell, I must reveal intimate details about people I've known, in order to reveal information about myself. There is no way around it, but I do not wish to make it easy for people, such as high school classmates, to know the personal secrets of the people I mention.
I took the name Nicomachus from Aristotle's son, for whom his Nicomachean Ethics was written. The book taught me a lot and has greatly influenced my life. Without it, I would understand friendship even less than I do now, and I would still be chasing imperfect and flawed friendships which would do nothing but make me unhappy in the end. It is a book that contains lessons everything should learn, and if I had my way, a simplified and condensed version would be mandatory for every child.
Third, who I am. I am in my mid-20s, stuck between feeling old and feeling young. I am mature and knowledgeable and wise, though I am not boasting. I have learned what life has taught me. Unfortunately, there is still a lot more for life to say. I feel old when talking to some of my acquaintances, who worry about infantile things such as being able to get drunk on the weekend, how great an upcoming rave or convention is going to be, and how exciting the latest action movie looks, without worrying about where they'll be in five years or what it's like to be dirt poor or how crippling personal issues can be. Yet I feel young when talking to others, who despite being years younger than me already have families, a husband or wife or fiance or fiancee to comfort and support them, a child or children to raise and nurture. Time is passing me by, and I have nothing to show for it, but I am many years to accomplish something (hopefully). I don't know whether to feel optimistic or pessimistic.
I have Asperger's, which is a form of autism. I'm big on that, that it is autism. I may be very different from the kids that never speak to others, but in some ways, I am the same. I live inside my head, and in a lot of ways, I cannot leave the castle that stands there. I talk to other people, I can even be open and reveal my innermost thoughts, and I can love and accept love from others, but in the end, my mind is always where I return. When I was in elementary school, people always thought I was trying to sleep on the bus, particularly during field trips. They'd see me with my eyes closed and say, "Look, Nicomachus is sleeping." Sometimes I would open my eyes and tell them in a disgruntled tone that I wasn't. Other times, I would say nothing and let them think that I was. But it is hard for me to sleep around other people and often impossible. If I close my eyes around people, it's to go to my castle. It's comforting, I suppose, but I don't do it for comfort. That's my home. Without the distractions of the world, of other people and automobiles and scenery and the noise that comes with it all. With my eyes closed and my body shut off, I am who I am. Only then, and never at any other time.
I have Asperger's; I have problems. Some of the problems exist because I have Asperger's, but some don't. It is hard to tell which is which, so I often don't try. I relate to other people with Asperger's, and when another Aspie and I do or feel something similar, I feel good, like I'm not alone in the world. Some Aspies have weird eating habits, like I do. Some Aspies don't drive, and neither do I. Some Aspies can't handle working a regular job, and I couldn't either. It's a connection, one I get nowhere else in my life. Asperger's affects the core of my being. It's not about the hobbies I indulge in, the shows I like to watch or the books I like to read. It's about simple things, living life, and getting by. What I can and can't handle. Even if I share no interests with an Aspie, even if we like vastly different kinds of TV shows and crave different things from life, there is still a connection there, because we suffer some of the same problems and are simply unable to do some of the things other people take for granted. Realizing that I had Asperger's is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life, because even if I had never heard the term or never looked into it, I would still have it. I would still be who I am, only more alone and confused as to why things were so much easier for everyone around me.
I'm not sure what the point of that last paragraph was, but I'm certain someone will find a use for it.
If there is any more info I need to share, please let me know. I'm never sure what to say about myself. Last night at work, I was asked by a supervisor who my three favorite comic book characters were, because I've worn several super hero shirts to work (they were very cheap and thin, good shirts to work in; that I liked what was on them was secondary). I didn't know how to reply. I remembered that Spider-Man was my favorite, and that made me want to say my other favorites were Venom and the Green Goblin, but I held back, thinking that he wanted heroes from different series. I stammered out Silver Surfer and the Hulk because they're standard answers, though I'm not crazy about them (though the Hulk was amazing in World War Hulk). When he asked me the question, I thought, "Why the hell does he want to know this? Does he like comic books or famous super heroes, or is he just making conversation, trying to build up a rapport with me?" I could have talked his ear off about Spider-Man and how much I love him, and how his villains are the best in the world, even better than Batman's, but I didn't know if he cared at all or if he even knew anything about Spider-Man. That's how I am - I assume people don't know or care about anything I have to say. People have to say something to me first, and if my answer is shallow, more questions are needed. I love to talk to people, especially about my interests, my thoughts, and my life, but I never think that anyone wants to hear it. I think that if I stay quiet, I'll be doing them a favor. They only asked to make me feel better, after all. Making me feel better is no reason to bore them.
Sometimes, I honestly don't know if I'm the one that's screwed up or if it's the world.
First, the title, Prelude to Parting. I'm not good at coming up with names. I never have been and never will be. I am simply not creative in that way. So you don't need to read too deeply into the title of this blog. But it does have some meaning. It could be said that when we die, we part from this world, and that the life we live is the prelude to whatever comes afterward. This blog could also be seen as a way for me to muddle through the various exploits of my life and make sense of everything. In a year or two, I will hopefully understand myself better and will have parted with the imperfect self that exists now. Though it will only be replaced with a slightly less imperfect self, I suppose.
Second, the name I use, Nicomachus. I have never used this name before, and I may never use it for anything else. I want this blog to be anonymous, with a few select people knowing who I really am, to protect myself but mostly to protect whoever I may mention in it. In some of the stories I plan to eventually tell, I must reveal intimate details about people I've known, in order to reveal information about myself. There is no way around it, but I do not wish to make it easy for people, such as high school classmates, to know the personal secrets of the people I mention.
I took the name Nicomachus from Aristotle's son, for whom his Nicomachean Ethics was written. The book taught me a lot and has greatly influenced my life. Without it, I would understand friendship even less than I do now, and I would still be chasing imperfect and flawed friendships which would do nothing but make me unhappy in the end. It is a book that contains lessons everything should learn, and if I had my way, a simplified and condensed version would be mandatory for every child.
Third, who I am. I am in my mid-20s, stuck between feeling old and feeling young. I am mature and knowledgeable and wise, though I am not boasting. I have learned what life has taught me. Unfortunately, there is still a lot more for life to say. I feel old when talking to some of my acquaintances, who worry about infantile things such as being able to get drunk on the weekend, how great an upcoming rave or convention is going to be, and how exciting the latest action movie looks, without worrying about where they'll be in five years or what it's like to be dirt poor or how crippling personal issues can be. Yet I feel young when talking to others, who despite being years younger than me already have families, a husband or wife or fiance or fiancee to comfort and support them, a child or children to raise and nurture. Time is passing me by, and I have nothing to show for it, but I am many years to accomplish something (hopefully). I don't know whether to feel optimistic or pessimistic.
I have Asperger's, which is a form of autism. I'm big on that, that it is autism. I may be very different from the kids that never speak to others, but in some ways, I am the same. I live inside my head, and in a lot of ways, I cannot leave the castle that stands there. I talk to other people, I can even be open and reveal my innermost thoughts, and I can love and accept love from others, but in the end, my mind is always where I return. When I was in elementary school, people always thought I was trying to sleep on the bus, particularly during field trips. They'd see me with my eyes closed and say, "Look, Nicomachus is sleeping." Sometimes I would open my eyes and tell them in a disgruntled tone that I wasn't. Other times, I would say nothing and let them think that I was. But it is hard for me to sleep around other people and often impossible. If I close my eyes around people, it's to go to my castle. It's comforting, I suppose, but I don't do it for comfort. That's my home. Without the distractions of the world, of other people and automobiles and scenery and the noise that comes with it all. With my eyes closed and my body shut off, I am who I am. Only then, and never at any other time.
I have Asperger's; I have problems. Some of the problems exist because I have Asperger's, but some don't. It is hard to tell which is which, so I often don't try. I relate to other people with Asperger's, and when another Aspie and I do or feel something similar, I feel good, like I'm not alone in the world. Some Aspies have weird eating habits, like I do. Some Aspies don't drive, and neither do I. Some Aspies can't handle working a regular job, and I couldn't either. It's a connection, one I get nowhere else in my life. Asperger's affects the core of my being. It's not about the hobbies I indulge in, the shows I like to watch or the books I like to read. It's about simple things, living life, and getting by. What I can and can't handle. Even if I share no interests with an Aspie, even if we like vastly different kinds of TV shows and crave different things from life, there is still a connection there, because we suffer some of the same problems and are simply unable to do some of the things other people take for granted. Realizing that I had Asperger's is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life, because even if I had never heard the term or never looked into it, I would still have it. I would still be who I am, only more alone and confused as to why things were so much easier for everyone around me.
I'm not sure what the point of that last paragraph was, but I'm certain someone will find a use for it.
If there is any more info I need to share, please let me know. I'm never sure what to say about myself. Last night at work, I was asked by a supervisor who my three favorite comic book characters were, because I've worn several super hero shirts to work (they were very cheap and thin, good shirts to work in; that I liked what was on them was secondary). I didn't know how to reply. I remembered that Spider-Man was my favorite, and that made me want to say my other favorites were Venom and the Green Goblin, but I held back, thinking that he wanted heroes from different series. I stammered out Silver Surfer and the Hulk because they're standard answers, though I'm not crazy about them (though the Hulk was amazing in World War Hulk). When he asked me the question, I thought, "Why the hell does he want to know this? Does he like comic books or famous super heroes, or is he just making conversation, trying to build up a rapport with me?" I could have talked his ear off about Spider-Man and how much I love him, and how his villains are the best in the world, even better than Batman's, but I didn't know if he cared at all or if he even knew anything about Spider-Man. That's how I am - I assume people don't know or care about anything I have to say. People have to say something to me first, and if my answer is shallow, more questions are needed. I love to talk to people, especially about my interests, my thoughts, and my life, but I never think that anyone wants to hear it. I think that if I stay quiet, I'll be doing them a favor. They only asked to make me feel better, after all. Making me feel better is no reason to bore them.
Sometimes, I honestly don't know if I'm the one that's screwed up or if it's the world.
The Past
I am great at remembering things. I often only need to hear a line from a TV show or movie once to memorize it (and I love to quote The Simpsons), and I tend to be able to recall events with crystal clarity. Even now, I remember interactions with people that happened six, seven years ago as if they happened yesterday. But I don't remember much of my past. There are holes, where I'm not sure what happened. Not moments but big chunks.
For example, I only remember a little of my sophomore year of high school, and I don't remember my freshmen year at all. This is mostly likely due to my life during that time being empty; the parts of my sophomore year that I do remember, I had been befriended by two senior girls, and all I recall is knowing them. My freshmen year, I didn't really have any friends. At least, I assume I didn't. I honestly do not remember anything from that year. I don't even know if I was stressed out or lonely.
Another thing that happens is that I confuse the chronology of things. One year, I had a crush on a female friend of mine. It was nothing serious, and I really only liked her because she was a friend, a girl that talked to me, but I can't remember if it happened during my sophomore year or junior year. When I try to rationalize one or the other, I run into problems. It couldn't have been my sophomore year because I knew the two senior girls, but it couldn't have been junior year because I had that English class where I sat next to this cute girl, and I had eyes for her (though it never developed into a crush because I never talked to her outside of school). It had to be one of those years that I liked this friend of mine, but I'm not sure which. That's the way my memory works - it is flawed in the way it sorts information, though when I know something, I know it.
I don't think about my past much. It was long ago, and thinking about it doesn't help me one bit. That's why every now and then, I'll remember something that startles me. Like that fact that when I was in middle school, my family moved around a lot because we'd hit a very rough spot financially, and that for a very brief time, we were technically homeless, staying in motels and with a friend of the family. Or that I was angry at my brother growing up because he always had friends coming over, or he was going over to their houses, and I never did. Or that during either eighth grade or ninth grade, a girl named April liked me, but I rejected her because I liked another girl named Kimberly. When I remember these things, my response is, "Hmm, that did happen, didn't it?" Then I'll forget about it again. Because I don't spontaneously recall any good memories. I'm not sure if I even have any good memories, that would make me smile and think fondly of the past.
I hate the past. It was terrible, lonely and cold and filled with anger and hate. Up to a point, I felt far more sadness than happiness, so that it was like I was never happy at all, and even when I started to be happy, I ruined everything by being an idiot. Perhaps it wasn't my fault, I was inexperienced with people and I've always been a late bloomer and unsure how to respond to the more "mature" actions of my peers, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't the one that fucked up. When I think of the past, I think of pain, missed opportunities, humiliation, terror, anger, helplessness - an empty room with dark walls where I hug my knees and wish I was somewhere else.
My parents are good people. They've taken care of me, they have good hearts, and they've been trying for a long time to be happy. But growing up, the only memories I have of them are of being neglected and them fighting. My father wasn't around much (I learned years later that he spent a lot of time doing drugs with his lowlife friends and acting like he wasn't fifteen years younger than he was), but he did live with us. It's not like he disappeared. Sometimes he'd check himself into a mental health program, to get the help he needed (bipolar's the best thing he's got), but according to my mother, he only did so to get out of being responsible for bills. He'd blow all our money doing drugs, then when the bills were due and something had to be done, he'd check himself in. It's only been recently that he's cleaned up his act, after getting arrested for the second (or third) time for selling weed; the last time, he could have gone to jail for a couple of years, and that made him buckle down and stop the bullshit. He is doing a lot better, but it's hard to let go of the resentment I hold towards him, because he wasn't there for me (I can't think of a single thing he taught me; I even had to figure out how to shave by myself) and he hurt out family a lot with his stupid drug habit and terrible money sense.
My mother worked at night when I was a child, so I didn't see her much either. My memories of her are more fond, but she brought her share of troubles, too. She loves cat, always has, and she seemed to collect them when I was young. Imagine bringing home a stray, then another one, then another. Three cats isn't too bad, right? But they were strays, and we either didn't have to money to get them fixed or were too lazy to ever get it done, so of course, the female one got pregnant. Kittens are born, and suddenly three cats becomes eight cats. Time passes, the kittens grow up, they get pregnant, and bam! Eight cats turns into sixteen. That sort of thing. We had a ton of cats, they shit all over the place because we couldn't keep the litter boxes clean, they ransacked our things, and they pissed off our dad (who was always looking for an excuse to be pissed off). On more than one occasion, I went to school with my backpack smelling like cat piss. Imagine being told by the principle that you need to go home because you stink. There were also the deaths - out of a litter of six, three kittens might live for more than a month. That's the way animals are, not all the young are strong enough to survive, but when you're a little kid and love cats, holding a dead kitten in your hands hurts. It hurts like hell, and the fact that it's the sixth dead kitten you've held doesn't make it hurt any less.
It's a wonder that I don't hate cats, but I still love them. I guess because I never think about my past.
My parents fought constantly. It never turned physical, thank God, but they weren't above throwing shit at each other and breaking things. I cried a lot. A couple of times, I missed school because my parents had been fighting in the morning, and they spared me and my brother the trouble of having to go to school with red eyes and heavy hearts. I can't stand fighting. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon blows up when Leonard and Penny are arguing; whenever I see that scene, I understand exactly how he feels. To this day, I can't stand people arguing near me. It will drive me into a bad little place, where it's like my blood is ice and darkness covers my skin like a suit.
That's my childhood - a run-down, stinking cat-filled house and loud, constant arguments. There was no good. No family picnics, no bedtime stories, no fun summer vacations, no friends, no joy. I hate it all, and I wish I could forget it forever. I can't even say that I suffered a lot and use it to explain why I'm as withdrawn as I am. No, if I tell people about this, their response will be, "That wasn't too bad. My childhood sucked, too." Well, that's just great. Everybody had a shitty childhood. And I'm the only one that let the not-too-bad childhood turn him into a people-hating, closed-off person that is surrounded by a three-foot thick wall, that doesn't let anybody in nor anything out, save for what can slip through the cracks. Fantastic.
I'd think of the happy times during high school and afterward, but those are fringed with horror, such as the birthday party where First Love got raped and the incident that gave me the scar I will forever bear on my left arm. I still remember the rocking bed, the night that wouldn't end, the asshole telling someone to shut me up. I still remember what the fat inside my arm looked like, the way the blood came out of one place just the way water comes out of a tiny hole in a hose, how freaked out the guy was, and how I smiled at the EMTs when they showed up. I remember so much, it's almost like they're good memories, like how you imprint every detail of the perfect day with the perfect person, but when I think about what the memories mean, I get sick to my stomach. Just thinking about my arm makes me want to throw up. I try to remember how I stared at the cut, the image I saw, but it's unfocused. I try to make it clearer, but it's like my mind is going to snap, and a voice whispers, "No no no," over and over again, and I have tears in my eyes and my chest is tight, and I just can't do it, I have to stop trying. I don't know why I want to see it again, why I want to remember that image exactly as I saw it, but I've tried for years to reproduce it. I can see it better now, but my mind is numb, and I only want to see it as I'm feeling something. It doesn't make any sense. I think I'm trying to destroy myself.
I'll tell the birthday party story later, as well as the story of the scar. I will get to them eventually, but it may be some time. I have to be in the right mood to write about them. Rather, the right state of mind.
For example, I only remember a little of my sophomore year of high school, and I don't remember my freshmen year at all. This is mostly likely due to my life during that time being empty; the parts of my sophomore year that I do remember, I had been befriended by two senior girls, and all I recall is knowing them. My freshmen year, I didn't really have any friends. At least, I assume I didn't. I honestly do not remember anything from that year. I don't even know if I was stressed out or lonely.
Another thing that happens is that I confuse the chronology of things. One year, I had a crush on a female friend of mine. It was nothing serious, and I really only liked her because she was a friend, a girl that talked to me, but I can't remember if it happened during my sophomore year or junior year. When I try to rationalize one or the other, I run into problems. It couldn't have been my sophomore year because I knew the two senior girls, but it couldn't have been junior year because I had that English class where I sat next to this cute girl, and I had eyes for her (though it never developed into a crush because I never talked to her outside of school). It had to be one of those years that I liked this friend of mine, but I'm not sure which. That's the way my memory works - it is flawed in the way it sorts information, though when I know something, I know it.
I don't think about my past much. It was long ago, and thinking about it doesn't help me one bit. That's why every now and then, I'll remember something that startles me. Like that fact that when I was in middle school, my family moved around a lot because we'd hit a very rough spot financially, and that for a very brief time, we were technically homeless, staying in motels and with a friend of the family. Or that I was angry at my brother growing up because he always had friends coming over, or he was going over to their houses, and I never did. Or that during either eighth grade or ninth grade, a girl named April liked me, but I rejected her because I liked another girl named Kimberly. When I remember these things, my response is, "Hmm, that did happen, didn't it?" Then I'll forget about it again. Because I don't spontaneously recall any good memories. I'm not sure if I even have any good memories, that would make me smile and think fondly of the past.
I hate the past. It was terrible, lonely and cold and filled with anger and hate. Up to a point, I felt far more sadness than happiness, so that it was like I was never happy at all, and even when I started to be happy, I ruined everything by being an idiot. Perhaps it wasn't my fault, I was inexperienced with people and I've always been a late bloomer and unsure how to respond to the more "mature" actions of my peers, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't the one that fucked up. When I think of the past, I think of pain, missed opportunities, humiliation, terror, anger, helplessness - an empty room with dark walls where I hug my knees and wish I was somewhere else.
My parents are good people. They've taken care of me, they have good hearts, and they've been trying for a long time to be happy. But growing up, the only memories I have of them are of being neglected and them fighting. My father wasn't around much (I learned years later that he spent a lot of time doing drugs with his lowlife friends and acting like he wasn't fifteen years younger than he was), but he did live with us. It's not like he disappeared. Sometimes he'd check himself into a mental health program, to get the help he needed (bipolar's the best thing he's got), but according to my mother, he only did so to get out of being responsible for bills. He'd blow all our money doing drugs, then when the bills were due and something had to be done, he'd check himself in. It's only been recently that he's cleaned up his act, after getting arrested for the second (or third) time for selling weed; the last time, he could have gone to jail for a couple of years, and that made him buckle down and stop the bullshit. He is doing a lot better, but it's hard to let go of the resentment I hold towards him, because he wasn't there for me (I can't think of a single thing he taught me; I even had to figure out how to shave by myself) and he hurt out family a lot with his stupid drug habit and terrible money sense.
My mother worked at night when I was a child, so I didn't see her much either. My memories of her are more fond, but she brought her share of troubles, too. She loves cat, always has, and she seemed to collect them when I was young. Imagine bringing home a stray, then another one, then another. Three cats isn't too bad, right? But they were strays, and we either didn't have to money to get them fixed or were too lazy to ever get it done, so of course, the female one got pregnant. Kittens are born, and suddenly three cats becomes eight cats. Time passes, the kittens grow up, they get pregnant, and bam! Eight cats turns into sixteen. That sort of thing. We had a ton of cats, they shit all over the place because we couldn't keep the litter boxes clean, they ransacked our things, and they pissed off our dad (who was always looking for an excuse to be pissed off). On more than one occasion, I went to school with my backpack smelling like cat piss. Imagine being told by the principle that you need to go home because you stink. There were also the deaths - out of a litter of six, three kittens might live for more than a month. That's the way animals are, not all the young are strong enough to survive, but when you're a little kid and love cats, holding a dead kitten in your hands hurts. It hurts like hell, and the fact that it's the sixth dead kitten you've held doesn't make it hurt any less.
It's a wonder that I don't hate cats, but I still love them. I guess because I never think about my past.
My parents fought constantly. It never turned physical, thank God, but they weren't above throwing shit at each other and breaking things. I cried a lot. A couple of times, I missed school because my parents had been fighting in the morning, and they spared me and my brother the trouble of having to go to school with red eyes and heavy hearts. I can't stand fighting. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon blows up when Leonard and Penny are arguing; whenever I see that scene, I understand exactly how he feels. To this day, I can't stand people arguing near me. It will drive me into a bad little place, where it's like my blood is ice and darkness covers my skin like a suit.
That's my childhood - a run-down, stinking cat-filled house and loud, constant arguments. There was no good. No family picnics, no bedtime stories, no fun summer vacations, no friends, no joy. I hate it all, and I wish I could forget it forever. I can't even say that I suffered a lot and use it to explain why I'm as withdrawn as I am. No, if I tell people about this, their response will be, "That wasn't too bad. My childhood sucked, too." Well, that's just great. Everybody had a shitty childhood. And I'm the only one that let the not-too-bad childhood turn him into a people-hating, closed-off person that is surrounded by a three-foot thick wall, that doesn't let anybody in nor anything out, save for what can slip through the cracks. Fantastic.
I'd think of the happy times during high school and afterward, but those are fringed with horror, such as the birthday party where First Love got raped and the incident that gave me the scar I will forever bear on my left arm. I still remember the rocking bed, the night that wouldn't end, the asshole telling someone to shut me up. I still remember what the fat inside my arm looked like, the way the blood came out of one place just the way water comes out of a tiny hole in a hose, how freaked out the guy was, and how I smiled at the EMTs when they showed up. I remember so much, it's almost like they're good memories, like how you imprint every detail of the perfect day with the perfect person, but when I think about what the memories mean, I get sick to my stomach. Just thinking about my arm makes me want to throw up. I try to remember how I stared at the cut, the image I saw, but it's unfocused. I try to make it clearer, but it's like my mind is going to snap, and a voice whispers, "No no no," over and over again, and I have tears in my eyes and my chest is tight, and I just can't do it, I have to stop trying. I don't know why I want to see it again, why I want to remember that image exactly as I saw it, but I've tried for years to reproduce it. I can see it better now, but my mind is numb, and I only want to see it as I'm feeling something. It doesn't make any sense. I think I'm trying to destroy myself.
I'll tell the birthday party story later, as well as the story of the scar. I will get to them eventually, but it may be some time. I have to be in the right mood to write about them. Rather, the right state of mind.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Untitled Poem & Simple Thoughts
I want to watch her do menial things,
organize her stuff, sort her laundry.
I want to stand back as she cooks dinner,
not getting in her way with my clumsy body.
I want her to like good guys
because I am.
I want her to be kinky in bed
because I am.
I want to see her undress,
not in a sexy way but normally.
I want to run my fingers through her hair,
and have her run hers through mine.
I want her to depend on me,
because that's what I want.
I want her to support me,
because that's what I want.
I want to look at her face,
but it's blurred and won't come in.
I want to know her name,
but I haven't given her one yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I've never been very good at poetry, but I've written it off and on for years. It's easier than constructing a story and allows me to express momentary feelings. At least I do know about and understand form and structure (though I tend to willfully ignore most of it). I always think my poetry sucks, but I only know to compare it to Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, and James Douglas Morrison (the only poets of whose works I have read a decent amount), and they are all incredibly illustrative and metaphorical, and I simply am not good at either of those. (Frankly, I hate the vast majority of Dickinson's stuff because I don't understand it at all. And I've never been fond of reading poetry, period, because it's hard for me to understand it.)
I've got to stop listening to sappy music. The thing is, I listen to the songs I do because I like the way they sound; the lyrics are often secondary. Still, the lyrics will get to me and make me a little melancholy. At least some of Kate Nash's songs are upbeat (kind of), so I can get her beautiful voice without lonely lyrics.
organize her stuff, sort her laundry.
I want to stand back as she cooks dinner,
not getting in her way with my clumsy body.
I want her to like good guys
because I am.
I want her to be kinky in bed
because I am.
I want to see her undress,
not in a sexy way but normally.
I want to run my fingers through her hair,
and have her run hers through mine.
I want her to depend on me,
because that's what I want.
I want her to support me,
because that's what I want.
I want to look at her face,
but it's blurred and won't come in.
I want to know her name,
but I haven't given her one yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I've never been very good at poetry, but I've written it off and on for years. It's easier than constructing a story and allows me to express momentary feelings. At least I do know about and understand form and structure (though I tend to willfully ignore most of it). I always think my poetry sucks, but I only know to compare it to Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, and James Douglas Morrison (the only poets of whose works I have read a decent amount), and they are all incredibly illustrative and metaphorical, and I simply am not good at either of those. (Frankly, I hate the vast majority of Dickinson's stuff because I don't understand it at all. And I've never been fond of reading poetry, period, because it's hard for me to understand it.)
I've got to stop listening to sappy music. The thing is, I listen to the songs I do because I like the way they sound; the lyrics are often secondary. Still, the lyrics will get to me and make me a little melancholy. At least some of Kate Nash's songs are upbeat (kind of), so I can get her beautiful voice without lonely lyrics.
Jerk Knight
Is offering to save a woman and her daughter from a man, whom you know absolutely nothing about, who could be good or bad, a valiant thing to do, or a presumptuous thing to do? Is it selfish? Being a knight is something to be proud of, after all. And looking at it the right way, it is saving a damsel in distress, and not breaking apart a family.
Does assuming the worst of the the man say more about me, her, or the nature of the world?
Work was terrible. We worked an hour longer than usual, which may not sound like a big deal, but it is nonstop physical work, and my body is used to working for three and a half hours, four hours max, not the five hours I did tonight. And I didn't care for the people I was working with. Usually, the people around me are nice and energetic, the sort that put a smile on my face simply because I enjoy being around them; tonight, the people were distant and quiet. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it wasn't a fun atmosphere, and while work isn't supposed to be, it typically is for me, because of the lively atmosphere. It really didn't help that there were no cute girls around me tonight; it may be shallow, but when a cute girl is near me, even if she doesn't talk to me or even notices my existence, I feel better. Have you ever been in a room with drab walls, perhaps a dark shade of orange? It isn't pleasant. Then, when you go into a room with bright walls, it's like the world has brightened. That's what it's like for me when a cute girl is near.
Of course, what I think is "cute" is different from what most people think. I can't explain it, but the physical appearance is secondary to the personality. The girl doesn't have to be bubbly or outgoing for me to think she's cute, it's not something as simple as that, but physical detriments are easily overlooked if I think her personality looks good. It is a very, very hard thing to explain, but often, when I look at people, I can tell what sort of person they are, in a very general way. If a person is bitchy or controlling, it's easy for me to tell within a few minutes of seeing and being around them. Likewise, if a person is kind and sweet, I can tell. I don't claim to be right all the time, and I don't consider this a sixth sense or anything, but people rarely hide who they are so to such an extent that their personalities cannot be discerned.
What really made work bad was that I felt nervous all through the night. Well, it was the combination of everything, but even if I had been surrounded by cute girls, I might have still been tense. I've been talking to a girl on Facebook for the past few months, someone from my past that I haven't seen in years. Dammit, it's First Love. Why play silly games? I've said that I've only been close to two girls, and have already revealed enough information so that if either of them read this blog, they'd know who I am and want to strangle me, so I might as well be open and upfront about things. I've been talking to First Love; I messaged her wanting someone to talk to, someone that knew who I was and what I was like, so I wouldn't have to explain things. The first thing she said to me was that she is engaged and has a young daughter, not even two years old. It didn't bother me, but it did shock me a little; only a little though, as it seems that every other person I know is either married, engaged, has a kid, or some combination thereof. We talked, and I complained whenever I felt shitty (which was most of the time), and she never said anything bad to me, like, "Quit your bitching." No, she was supportive, saying things like, "I hate that you feel so terrible, I really do." It felt good.
But here's something useful to know about me - I imagine things. I understand the way plot works, so I can see trails in reality, one thing leading to another, to another, and so on.. Another way to put it is that I assume bad things, or good things, because they'd make for a good book, movie, or TV show. So, because First Love has only ever talked about her daughter, and has said next to nothing about her fiance or her life or feelings, I took it as a possible sign of her unhappiness. That's fine; there is nothing wrong with thinking that a person may want a different life. But just thinking it wasn't good enough for me, oh no. Yesterday, I had to ask her whether she was really happy. And, because I don't do anything simply, I even said that if she wasn't happy, I would do everything in my power to make her happy. Maybe not now, but in the future. I would definitely make her happy in the future.
Now, First Love is a smart cookie. She always has been. She's intuitive and insightful. So she certainly is going to think I'm just concerned for a friend and wanting to be helpful, right? There's no way she's going to read deeper into it and realize that I'm a gigantic idiot that actually wants to be the one that makes her happy, right? Right?
So now I'm waiting for her reply, which I expect will be the online equivalent of her slapping me and a statement to the effect of, "Don't think you're so special."
The worst part of all this is that I am 80% certain that me wanting to be with her and have a life with her is a lie. To be sure, if she, despite the enormous odds, did want to be with me and thought me fit to share her life with me, I would most likely agree to be with her. But I doubt that will happen, and I'm not expecting it to. The best I can figure, me wanting to be with her stems from three things: 1) The fact that I never got to be with her in the past. I never got to be her boyfriend, I never got to see any part of her naked, I never got to have her love me. 2) That I am lonely and have been thinking a lot about my future, which I want to include a wife and at least one child. 3) That I feel like my "true love" will never come, that I will always be alone, that no one could ever actually want to be with me in a lasting relationship.Psychologically, it seems obvious that I am using First Love to overcome some of my issues and that I don't really want to be with her.
But psychology isn't always right. And you know, it's easy to say that fate doesn't exist, but crazy things happen that make people say, "It was fate." So which is it for me? Is it fate or coincidence? Is it true or a lie?
Does assuming the worst of the the man say more about me, her, or the nature of the world?
Work was terrible. We worked an hour longer than usual, which may not sound like a big deal, but it is nonstop physical work, and my body is used to working for three and a half hours, four hours max, not the five hours I did tonight. And I didn't care for the people I was working with. Usually, the people around me are nice and energetic, the sort that put a smile on my face simply because I enjoy being around them; tonight, the people were distant and quiet. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it wasn't a fun atmosphere, and while work isn't supposed to be, it typically is for me, because of the lively atmosphere. It really didn't help that there were no cute girls around me tonight; it may be shallow, but when a cute girl is near me, even if she doesn't talk to me or even notices my existence, I feel better. Have you ever been in a room with drab walls, perhaps a dark shade of orange? It isn't pleasant. Then, when you go into a room with bright walls, it's like the world has brightened. That's what it's like for me when a cute girl is near.
Of course, what I think is "cute" is different from what most people think. I can't explain it, but the physical appearance is secondary to the personality. The girl doesn't have to be bubbly or outgoing for me to think she's cute, it's not something as simple as that, but physical detriments are easily overlooked if I think her personality looks good. It is a very, very hard thing to explain, but often, when I look at people, I can tell what sort of person they are, in a very general way. If a person is bitchy or controlling, it's easy for me to tell within a few minutes of seeing and being around them. Likewise, if a person is kind and sweet, I can tell. I don't claim to be right all the time, and I don't consider this a sixth sense or anything, but people rarely hide who they are so to such an extent that their personalities cannot be discerned.
What really made work bad was that I felt nervous all through the night. Well, it was the combination of everything, but even if I had been surrounded by cute girls, I might have still been tense. I've been talking to a girl on Facebook for the past few months, someone from my past that I haven't seen in years. Dammit, it's First Love. Why play silly games? I've said that I've only been close to two girls, and have already revealed enough information so that if either of them read this blog, they'd know who I am and want to strangle me, so I might as well be open and upfront about things. I've been talking to First Love; I messaged her wanting someone to talk to, someone that knew who I was and what I was like, so I wouldn't have to explain things. The first thing she said to me was that she is engaged and has a young daughter, not even two years old. It didn't bother me, but it did shock me a little; only a little though, as it seems that every other person I know is either married, engaged, has a kid, or some combination thereof. We talked, and I complained whenever I felt shitty (which was most of the time), and she never said anything bad to me, like, "Quit your bitching." No, she was supportive, saying things like, "I hate that you feel so terrible, I really do." It felt good.
But here's something useful to know about me - I imagine things. I understand the way plot works, so I can see trails in reality, one thing leading to another, to another, and so on.. Another way to put it is that I assume bad things, or good things, because they'd make for a good book, movie, or TV show. So, because First Love has only ever talked about her daughter, and has said next to nothing about her fiance or her life or feelings, I took it as a possible sign of her unhappiness. That's fine; there is nothing wrong with thinking that a person may want a different life. But just thinking it wasn't good enough for me, oh no. Yesterday, I had to ask her whether she was really happy. And, because I don't do anything simply, I even said that if she wasn't happy, I would do everything in my power to make her happy. Maybe not now, but in the future. I would definitely make her happy in the future.
Now, First Love is a smart cookie. She always has been. She's intuitive and insightful. So she certainly is going to think I'm just concerned for a friend and wanting to be helpful, right? There's no way she's going to read deeper into it and realize that I'm a gigantic idiot that actually wants to be the one that makes her happy, right? Right?
So now I'm waiting for her reply, which I expect will be the online equivalent of her slapping me and a statement to the effect of, "Don't think you're so special."
The worst part of all this is that I am 80% certain that me wanting to be with her and have a life with her is a lie. To be sure, if she, despite the enormous odds, did want to be with me and thought me fit to share her life with me, I would most likely agree to be with her. But I doubt that will happen, and I'm not expecting it to. The best I can figure, me wanting to be with her stems from three things: 1) The fact that I never got to be with her in the past. I never got to be her boyfriend, I never got to see any part of her naked, I never got to have her love me. 2) That I am lonely and have been thinking a lot about my future, which I want to include a wife and at least one child. 3) That I feel like my "true love" will never come, that I will always be alone, that no one could ever actually want to be with me in a lasting relationship.Psychologically, it seems obvious that I am using First Love to overcome some of my issues and that I don't really want to be with her.
But psychology isn't always right. And you know, it's easy to say that fate doesn't exist, but crazy things happen that make people say, "It was fate." So which is it for me? Is it fate or coincidence? Is it true or a lie?
Monday, January 2, 2012
Heavy Introduction
Living is hard. Can I give up on it? Let's take a vote - keep going or throw in the towel?
Does that sound bad? How about something different - should I keep trying to live in the world of people or just give up and isolate myself?
That's the question of the year. I'll need to have an answer before this time, 2013. If I don't, then I might as well give up altogether.
I have always been a lonely person. I had a lot of friends in school but few outside. All of my free time was spent by myself, and I always envied my brother, who was constantly hanging out with friends or talking to them on the phone. That didn't change after high school. It has never changed.
However, I've never really wanted "friends - those people you spend time with, who help you waste away the hours. No, what I wanted were true friends, the kind you share your innermost thoughts with, the kind that don't mind when you call them in the middle of the night crying, the kind that actually encourage that sort of thing. Does those people even exist? Or are they all idealistic images created by authors and screenwriters?
I've had two relationships in my life. Both involved girls, stretched across several years, and included several periods, each one lasting a few months, where the other person and I did not speak to one another. The first one started right before the summer of my senior year of high school. She was my first real love, and I struggle with my feelings for her even now. She made me be open, emotionally but most importantly, sexually. What's funny though is that we never touched one another. We communicated over the phone and saw each other a good couple of times, but things never progressed physically, mostly because I was an incredibly shy and naive person that actually thought she didn't want me to touch her unless we were officially "dating." I should have made a move on her, but I didn't. Mistakes of youth. Over the phone, we had a lot of fun with one another; there's an implication there, so I don't have to be too explicit. Read into it. We did eventually kiss, and that was my first kiss, but that happened about three years later, when I was around 19. It was random and very nice, but it wasn't an admission of her love for me or anything like that. We were with some two common friends, who were dating, and who liked me . . .
The second relationship I had started online. I had been a member of a small forum, and my first love joined the forum. She brought along some other friends of hers. (Aside: When I saw that three new people were all from Tennessee, the state from which we all hail, and asked First Love if she knew them, she said no. Which was a blatant lie. She may have been kidding, but I think she was trying to keep me from getting to know them, out of fear that a certain person would steal me from her. Which is exactly what happened.) I started talking to one of these friends, who was very friendly and spent a lot of time online, like I did. She had cerebral palsy and had to use a wheelchair to get around most of the time, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at her. She liked to call herself a cowgirl, so that's the name I'll use. (It sounds better than "Wheelchair," which was my first thought.) Anyways, Cowgirl and I got along swimmingly, and her boyfriend/fiance had this weird situation; they were in a sort of open relationship. There are a lot of details involved that I may get into in the future, but to be short about it, Cowgirl and I were attracted to one another, and her boyfriend gave the go-ahead for us to do whatever we wanted. (I think First Love hated this, and I can completely understand why. But it's hard to feel bad because it was one giant clusterfuck of a situation.)
Cowgirl and I started just talking online. Then we started talking on the phone. Then, because we didn't live too incredibly far from one another (about a forty-five minute drive), we decided that we could see each other in person every now and then. Her fiance actually lived a greater distance from her than I. The first time I met Cowgirl in person, and her fiance who I was sort-of friends with, she gave me a big hug, and we were all excited to see each other, but nothing much happened. We planned a trip to visit First Love, and that trip was what really started things.
The trip involved me and Cowgirl's fiance going to Cowgirl's house, then driving for an hour or so to where First Love lived, to surprise her and make her feel good, because her friends had come to visit. It was also to please us, because we wanted to see her, as the distance had kept us all apart from one another. Surprise her we did, at her workplace even, and though memories are hazy, I distinctly remember turning a dark shade of red when Cowgirl brought up how I had always loved First Love and wanted to be with her, though we were never really together. After she got off work, we went to a local park, where I suddenly got mopey for some reason, and that's when I got my first kiss from First Love. It was simple, just a peck on the lips, but it brightened me up and gave me so much energy I didn't know what to do. I think she did it out of pity, out of concern for me being sad, to cheer me up, but I don't discount the possibility that it was her acting on her true feelings, that a part of her always wanted to be with me. While I don't discount that possibility, I certainly do think it is very unlikely.
After we said goodbye to First Love, Cowgirl gave me my second first kiss, this one far more than a peck on the lips. That kind of kiss I've never gotten from First Love, and have only gotten from one other person, though that was a bad situation, too, and arose out of desperation. But that's not really worth telling and can be ignored, except for the fact that because of it, I have french-kissed two girls and not one.
Cowgirl's fiance planned to take me home, then go back to Cowgirl's house, but we got terrifically lost, due in large part to me not knowing anything about where anything is. However, I must admit that the situation could have been avoided had I only called my parents and explained where we were and asked for directions. The thought did occur to me, but I chose to ignore it. For good reason.
Cowgirl's fiance, because he lived so far away, often slept on the living room couch when he visited, then made the long drive home the next day, so they could spend more time with each other. I assumed that, if we got lost, the same could apply to me and I'd be allowed to spend the night. I assumed right because that's what happened. So, Cowgirl, her fiance, and I got to talk some more at her house, and when her mother went to bed, we got to lie on the living room floor and really enjoy each other's company. It wasn't a threesome, and I didn't get to relieve myself, and it was very strange, but it was the first sexual thing I had done with another person, and it was wonderful. I'll skip the torrid details (though I wouldn't mind sharing them if anybody wanted to hear them), but I got to see Cowgirl's face in ecstasy for the first time and was touched for the first time. It still remains a fond, and pretty funny, memory.
My relationship with Cowgirl lasted for several years, and most of that time, she was engaged to her fiance. Once, for a few weeks, they broke up, and I got to be her official boyfriend for a short time, before they made up and I became the "other man" again. But even though we weren't dating most of the time, it was like we were. We shared our thoughts with one another, had a hell of a lot of "fun" together, and loved one another, to some degree. We had our ups and downs, and our odd relationship finally ended for good when I started acting like a supreme asshole; I was upset, though I didn't realize it at the time, that she had found another fiance, after she and her previous one had broken up for good. I wanted her for myself, something she had never been. I had never minded sharing her, but I wanted her to come to me in the end, and it never happened. It was all for the better though, because I couldn't take care of her the way she needed, give her the support she had to have, and she couldn't do that for me either.
My relationship with First Love was more rocky. Ever since high school, we'd had periods where we knew each other and periods where we didn't, but we always found our way back. Or I made my way back to her; I don't remember too much. (The same thing happened with me and Cowgirl, though with less frequency. That's how I am - I'll want to be close then pull away, scared and trying to ditch them before they ditch me.) What finally made us stop talking altogether was when I tried to tell her about a dream I had where she died. This was when we happened to both be going to the same community college, and I was actually talking to her in person. She didn't want to hear it, being stressed out over her own life, and I walked away. I was angry, because it seemed like she never cared, it seemed like no one ever cared, so I decided to stop bothering. With her and with everyone else. That happened after Cowgirl kicked me out of her apartment (true story; I might elaborate on that later), and in the years since then, I've been wasting my life, forming no real bonds with anybody and actively trying to avoid being close to other people. "I don't need them," I told myself. "Life's more fun when I just watch anime, play video games, and do my own thing. If I try to spend time with people or get close to them, I'll just end up being rejected, even if they seem to like me at first." And I did have fun; I did enjoy myself, and those years were hassle-free and filled with joy.
Then, my computer broke. I could suddenly no longer watch anime or browse the internet. We didn't have the money to fix it, of course. It was winter, and times were tough. We lost cable, too, and soon I couldn't watch TV either. We had one converter box, to allow us to watch local channels, but that went in the living room, and it only worked with an antenna, which we were lucky to be able to afford. (We even had to take it back once, to get the $40 for gas.) With no computer and no TV, and games I had played to death, I found that my life was empty, devoid of anything that mattered. I had no friends, nobody to think about me, and nobody to even think about. I hated First Love and Cowgirl, for abandoning me, for not loving me; I hated the world, for all of the troubles and all of the hardships. I hated everything.
Thanks to the local library, I passed the time by reading books. That rekindled a love I had ignored for the better part of a decade. I had always loved to read when I was a kid, but I had stopped during high school, due in part to having to read so much for my classes and in part to owning a computer with the internet. I have since embraced reading again, and writing as well, which I loved to do when I was young.
The library also, thankfully, had manga, the Japanese comics that commonly feature stories of love and friendship instead of just superheroes in tights. (There are plenty of manga series all about action, however.) One series they had in its entirety was Fruits Basket, about people that don't belong. I had seen the anime (Japanese animation) adaptation of the first eight volumes of the series, which has a total of twenty-three volumes, and coincidentally (or not), it was a series that First Love and I had both seen and talked about during a certain period of our relationship. In the series, there is a large, extended family that is cursed; thirteen members transform into thirteen different animals when hugged by the opposite sex (and when incredibly stressed out or sick); the animals they turn into are based on the twelve zodiac animals, plus the cat that was omitted from God's banquet. First Love compared me to the character of Yuki, who turns into a rat but is very kind and gentle. Yuki is beautiful and often referred to as Prince Yuki by his classmates, due to his beauty and extremely polite manners. She said that I was like a prince. But that is neither here nor there.
Fruits Basket, being about loneliness and isolation and friendship, struck a chord with me, and I often ending up crying while reading it. It made me realize that I needed to fit in somewhere, that I needed to be cared about by someone - that I needed to care about someone else. Since then, I've tried to open my heart up, bit by bit, and now here I am, open to other people but still very much afraid and sure that no one will like me. And though I don't get angry with people, I still assume that they don't care and that I'm just bothering them. And I don't want to be a bother.
So a lot has changed, and I have greatly improved and taken a lot of necessary steps, but I am nowhere close to finding what I want, that special person that will love me for who I am and who I can be with forever. There are people who care about me, and for that I am so incredibly thankful, and I understand myself and who I am more than I ever have before, but lying in bed in the dark, when I want to put my arms around someone, no one is there. And all I can do is either imagine a girl that doesn't exist or think of a girl that isn't available and might never be. I feel like all I do is cause problems for people. And for myself, of course. So do I try to find a new girl to fill the void in my heart? Do I keep wishing my First Love would be my eternal love? Do I realize that loving someone doesn't mean wanting to be with them in a romantic relationship? Or do I give up and go back to how I used to be, enjoying hobbies and shunning society? That would be so much easier, and it might be the better choice. There's no guarantee I'll ever find love, after all. There's no guarantee I'll ever truly be happy. Why not settle for a psuedo-happiness and save myself this trouble?
If only I could easily do that.
Does that sound bad? How about something different - should I keep trying to live in the world of people or just give up and isolate myself?
That's the question of the year. I'll need to have an answer before this time, 2013. If I don't, then I might as well give up altogether.
I have always been a lonely person. I had a lot of friends in school but few outside. All of my free time was spent by myself, and I always envied my brother, who was constantly hanging out with friends or talking to them on the phone. That didn't change after high school. It has never changed.
However, I've never really wanted "friends - those people you spend time with, who help you waste away the hours. No, what I wanted were true friends, the kind you share your innermost thoughts with, the kind that don't mind when you call them in the middle of the night crying, the kind that actually encourage that sort of thing. Does those people even exist? Or are they all idealistic images created by authors and screenwriters?
I've had two relationships in my life. Both involved girls, stretched across several years, and included several periods, each one lasting a few months, where the other person and I did not speak to one another. The first one started right before the summer of my senior year of high school. She was my first real love, and I struggle with my feelings for her even now. She made me be open, emotionally but most importantly, sexually. What's funny though is that we never touched one another. We communicated over the phone and saw each other a good couple of times, but things never progressed physically, mostly because I was an incredibly shy and naive person that actually thought she didn't want me to touch her unless we were officially "dating." I should have made a move on her, but I didn't. Mistakes of youth. Over the phone, we had a lot of fun with one another; there's an implication there, so I don't have to be too explicit. Read into it. We did eventually kiss, and that was my first kiss, but that happened about three years later, when I was around 19. It was random and very nice, but it wasn't an admission of her love for me or anything like that. We were with some two common friends, who were dating, and who liked me . . .
The second relationship I had started online. I had been a member of a small forum, and my first love joined the forum. She brought along some other friends of hers. (Aside: When I saw that three new people were all from Tennessee, the state from which we all hail, and asked First Love if she knew them, she said no. Which was a blatant lie. She may have been kidding, but I think she was trying to keep me from getting to know them, out of fear that a certain person would steal me from her. Which is exactly what happened.) I started talking to one of these friends, who was very friendly and spent a lot of time online, like I did. She had cerebral palsy and had to use a wheelchair to get around most of the time, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at her. She liked to call herself a cowgirl, so that's the name I'll use. (It sounds better than "Wheelchair," which was my first thought.) Anyways, Cowgirl and I got along swimmingly, and her boyfriend/fiance had this weird situation; they were in a sort of open relationship. There are a lot of details involved that I may get into in the future, but to be short about it, Cowgirl and I were attracted to one another, and her boyfriend gave the go-ahead for us to do whatever we wanted. (I think First Love hated this, and I can completely understand why. But it's hard to feel bad because it was one giant clusterfuck of a situation.)
Cowgirl and I started just talking online. Then we started talking on the phone. Then, because we didn't live too incredibly far from one another (about a forty-five minute drive), we decided that we could see each other in person every now and then. Her fiance actually lived a greater distance from her than I. The first time I met Cowgirl in person, and her fiance who I was sort-of friends with, she gave me a big hug, and we were all excited to see each other, but nothing much happened. We planned a trip to visit First Love, and that trip was what really started things.
The trip involved me and Cowgirl's fiance going to Cowgirl's house, then driving for an hour or so to where First Love lived, to surprise her and make her feel good, because her friends had come to visit. It was also to please us, because we wanted to see her, as the distance had kept us all apart from one another. Surprise her we did, at her workplace even, and though memories are hazy, I distinctly remember turning a dark shade of red when Cowgirl brought up how I had always loved First Love and wanted to be with her, though we were never really together. After she got off work, we went to a local park, where I suddenly got mopey for some reason, and that's when I got my first kiss from First Love. It was simple, just a peck on the lips, but it brightened me up and gave me so much energy I didn't know what to do. I think she did it out of pity, out of concern for me being sad, to cheer me up, but I don't discount the possibility that it was her acting on her true feelings, that a part of her always wanted to be with me. While I don't discount that possibility, I certainly do think it is very unlikely.
After we said goodbye to First Love, Cowgirl gave me my second first kiss, this one far more than a peck on the lips. That kind of kiss I've never gotten from First Love, and have only gotten from one other person, though that was a bad situation, too, and arose out of desperation. But that's not really worth telling and can be ignored, except for the fact that because of it, I have french-kissed two girls and not one.
Cowgirl's fiance planned to take me home, then go back to Cowgirl's house, but we got terrifically lost, due in large part to me not knowing anything about where anything is. However, I must admit that the situation could have been avoided had I only called my parents and explained where we were and asked for directions. The thought did occur to me, but I chose to ignore it. For good reason.
Cowgirl's fiance, because he lived so far away, often slept on the living room couch when he visited, then made the long drive home the next day, so they could spend more time with each other. I assumed that, if we got lost, the same could apply to me and I'd be allowed to spend the night. I assumed right because that's what happened. So, Cowgirl, her fiance, and I got to talk some more at her house, and when her mother went to bed, we got to lie on the living room floor and really enjoy each other's company. It wasn't a threesome, and I didn't get to relieve myself, and it was very strange, but it was the first sexual thing I had done with another person, and it was wonderful. I'll skip the torrid details (though I wouldn't mind sharing them if anybody wanted to hear them), but I got to see Cowgirl's face in ecstasy for the first time and was touched for the first time. It still remains a fond, and pretty funny, memory.
My relationship with Cowgirl lasted for several years, and most of that time, she was engaged to her fiance. Once, for a few weeks, they broke up, and I got to be her official boyfriend for a short time, before they made up and I became the "other man" again. But even though we weren't dating most of the time, it was like we were. We shared our thoughts with one another, had a hell of a lot of "fun" together, and loved one another, to some degree. We had our ups and downs, and our odd relationship finally ended for good when I started acting like a supreme asshole; I was upset, though I didn't realize it at the time, that she had found another fiance, after she and her previous one had broken up for good. I wanted her for myself, something she had never been. I had never minded sharing her, but I wanted her to come to me in the end, and it never happened. It was all for the better though, because I couldn't take care of her the way she needed, give her the support she had to have, and she couldn't do that for me either.
My relationship with First Love was more rocky. Ever since high school, we'd had periods where we knew each other and periods where we didn't, but we always found our way back. Or I made my way back to her; I don't remember too much. (The same thing happened with me and Cowgirl, though with less frequency. That's how I am - I'll want to be close then pull away, scared and trying to ditch them before they ditch me.) What finally made us stop talking altogether was when I tried to tell her about a dream I had where she died. This was when we happened to both be going to the same community college, and I was actually talking to her in person. She didn't want to hear it, being stressed out over her own life, and I walked away. I was angry, because it seemed like she never cared, it seemed like no one ever cared, so I decided to stop bothering. With her and with everyone else. That happened after Cowgirl kicked me out of her apartment (true story; I might elaborate on that later), and in the years since then, I've been wasting my life, forming no real bonds with anybody and actively trying to avoid being close to other people. "I don't need them," I told myself. "Life's more fun when I just watch anime, play video games, and do my own thing. If I try to spend time with people or get close to them, I'll just end up being rejected, even if they seem to like me at first." And I did have fun; I did enjoy myself, and those years were hassle-free and filled with joy.
Then, my computer broke. I could suddenly no longer watch anime or browse the internet. We didn't have the money to fix it, of course. It was winter, and times were tough. We lost cable, too, and soon I couldn't watch TV either. We had one converter box, to allow us to watch local channels, but that went in the living room, and it only worked with an antenna, which we were lucky to be able to afford. (We even had to take it back once, to get the $40 for gas.) With no computer and no TV, and games I had played to death, I found that my life was empty, devoid of anything that mattered. I had no friends, nobody to think about me, and nobody to even think about. I hated First Love and Cowgirl, for abandoning me, for not loving me; I hated the world, for all of the troubles and all of the hardships. I hated everything.
Thanks to the local library, I passed the time by reading books. That rekindled a love I had ignored for the better part of a decade. I had always loved to read when I was a kid, but I had stopped during high school, due in part to having to read so much for my classes and in part to owning a computer with the internet. I have since embraced reading again, and writing as well, which I loved to do when I was young.
The library also, thankfully, had manga, the Japanese comics that commonly feature stories of love and friendship instead of just superheroes in tights. (There are plenty of manga series all about action, however.) One series they had in its entirety was Fruits Basket, about people that don't belong. I had seen the anime (Japanese animation) adaptation of the first eight volumes of the series, which has a total of twenty-three volumes, and coincidentally (or not), it was a series that First Love and I had both seen and talked about during a certain period of our relationship. In the series, there is a large, extended family that is cursed; thirteen members transform into thirteen different animals when hugged by the opposite sex (and when incredibly stressed out or sick); the animals they turn into are based on the twelve zodiac animals, plus the cat that was omitted from God's banquet. First Love compared me to the character of Yuki, who turns into a rat but is very kind and gentle. Yuki is beautiful and often referred to as Prince Yuki by his classmates, due to his beauty and extremely polite manners. She said that I was like a prince. But that is neither here nor there.
Fruits Basket, being about loneliness and isolation and friendship, struck a chord with me, and I often ending up crying while reading it. It made me realize that I needed to fit in somewhere, that I needed to be cared about by someone - that I needed to care about someone else. Since then, I've tried to open my heart up, bit by bit, and now here I am, open to other people but still very much afraid and sure that no one will like me. And though I don't get angry with people, I still assume that they don't care and that I'm just bothering them. And I don't want to be a bother.
So a lot has changed, and I have greatly improved and taken a lot of necessary steps, but I am nowhere close to finding what I want, that special person that will love me for who I am and who I can be with forever. There are people who care about me, and for that I am so incredibly thankful, and I understand myself and who I am more than I ever have before, but lying in bed in the dark, when I want to put my arms around someone, no one is there. And all I can do is either imagine a girl that doesn't exist or think of a girl that isn't available and might never be. I feel like all I do is cause problems for people. And for myself, of course. So do I try to find a new girl to fill the void in my heart? Do I keep wishing my First Love would be my eternal love? Do I realize that loving someone doesn't mean wanting to be with them in a romantic relationship? Or do I give up and go back to how I used to be, enjoying hobbies and shunning society? That would be so much easier, and it might be the better choice. There's no guarantee I'll ever find love, after all. There's no guarantee I'll ever truly be happy. Why not settle for a psuedo-happiness and save myself this trouble?
If only I could easily do that.
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