Right off, you might find yourself uncomfortable with my “pro-suicide” sentiment. That’s reasonable. The idea remains the same. If you are unduly and perpetually suffering, I get it. Granted, overwhelmingly are people petty and naive and blow things up beyond all reason. As well they rarely appreciate just how quickly time can move when you’re standing still and it’ll be over soon enough.
This also doesn’t mean I’d tell you to kill yourself. I did that all through high school because it seemed to work 100% of the time in a reverse psychology way to keep friends alive. No record maintains without a blemish though, and I learned the hard way that some people are more committed and ballsy than others. That methodology went right out the window, and it’s wildly clear why I’m not a psychologist.
How many of you thought “Naturally, I’ll encourage someone to slit their wrists because they’ll see the error of their ways upon contemplating how cool we are with each other!” I’ll venture none. But this is what happens when your metric for what’s “too much” is broken and you adhere to lazy cartoonish conceptions of power and consequence. In a sense, I feel like I’m watching people encourage the same thing, every day, it just takes longer.
It should always be clear, if we’re going to remain friends, that rarely is it about “you” or “me.” We’re products of a larger culture I happen to mostly despise. Some days it is harder to think and cope with fallout after fallout and be met with silence, indifference, or mostly hopeless shots in the dark meant more to take my temperature than actually say something.
My mind, when left to its own devises, can concoct convincing stories about the relative space I inhabit with regard to the people in my life. This happens because I have nothing but vague impressions, old memories, and scant conversations. I’ve been criticized that I need to be comfortable hearing and discussing things in ways other than “how I want it.” How do you think that is? What do you think I require before I respect what you say? Do I believe my friends want to be told I hate them? Are you comfortable granting me the same license?
How often I talk about the difference between “real” and “fake” when it seems I find a problem with a new word every day. The idea that reality is what you make of it, and this is what we have to show for it, is the most frustration I can find. That we’re slaves to a boring and soul-sucking game and desperately cling to a facade.
I realize, it’s because I’m desperate for something I thought I had. I remember family dinners and thinking there was something powerful and familiar and reliable by having those people in my life. I remember constant conversations and challenges to what I said. I remember when people were enthusiastic and took chances and found the time. It’s not me having watched a happy-go-lucky movie or enthralled by some teen fantasy novel that gave me ideas about how much better it could be. You idiots did it to me.
That’s why I can feel alone. Fuck if you never find the patience to actually have a “boring” conversation attempting to line up perspectives. It’s that I had a “family” idea that bore its teeth when shit got real. I sit either in silence or with Hatsam as we discuss the different reasons we’ve been blown off. I watched over years people become quiet, swallow stress, and adopt the act. And I think for all the years talking about it, watching the ducks fall in line, and then stewing in it is worthy of hate.
And so maybe, in an important life preserving sort of way, more parts of me need to die. I need to stop bringing up the past and deal with whatever you are right now. I need to stop pretending what I thought or felt was made of anything more than what tricked me with regard to family growing up. I need to tune out the romanticized understandings of past eras and choke down the sloppy mess as I conceive of it now.
I’ve watched my catalyst nature play out in real time a lot lately. If you’re a little crazy, I can provoke you to go over the edge. If the energy needs to be sucked out of the room, I can bring it to a dead stop. It’s this I consider when I talk about the regulating influence of friends. I’ve accelerated the implications, as far as I can discern them, of our current dynamic. The goal posts and in-bounds lines that seem to be constantly moving. I’ve unduly burdened you with granting me a reason to be patient or softer spoken. I found utility in it and sought to take it for granted. It’s my mistake.
This has been the struggle to fight for that “more” which seems like it slipped through my fingers. I’m now putting that fight out of its misery. You might call it the friendly adult thing to do.
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