I feel like I’m spreading myself too thin. I also feel like this is only the kind of thing you can write after getting off of a 13 hour shift with nowhere guaranteed to go that won’t cause problems.
It’s piling up. The harder I work and the more money I make, I feel the resentment and speeches growing. I start the dress rehearsal for all the bullshit all of the bullshit people need to hear. I stop looking at the things in my life that are going right as an egregious leg up bestowed upon me by birth. I stop walking the fine political lines you might’ve established to keep the peace.
It’s my sense of fairness that’s pissed. It’s a well-documented trigger for apes and monkeys. One feels like it’s getting fucked, it’ll throw what you offer it back in your face. I feel like an indignant monkey ready to throw back people’s entire lives and feckless dialogue used to justify them.
Standard disclaimer, I’m going to overspeak and there’s people in my life willing to help. My point is stronger in lieu of them, because they’re often fucked in the exact same ways I am by the exact same kinds of worthless people.
Many people work hard. They put their lives in danger. They wake up early and go to bed late. They provide in 2 or 3 jobs. Obviously, and often, this isn’t fair. It’s simply not right. I don’t mean electricians shouldn’t fear getting electrified, but we’ve gotten to a point where we pretend there aren’t distinctions and just rewards for what it takes to keep the motor of society running.
I always put an asterisk next to my work ethic no matter how hard I feel I’m working. I’m not an ironworker. I’m not a police officer. My work is “service” hell bent on finding a way to “passively exploit.” The money I make feels earned, but I’m hardly going to go out of my way to work any harder to make considerably less doing something else. The cramps in my back and shoulders aren’t going to touch a construction worker’s, but I feel them nonetheless.
Without engendering a pissing match regarding whose job means what to whom, we’ve lost a basic sense of humanity and dialogue that one imagines used to help mitigate circumstances that are fundamentally not right or unduly unfair. You need a hand? Of course I have one. You’re working hard to fix something? I’ll do a heck of a job recognizing your effort and offering what I can.
I’ve tried to be that person for more than I know how to count. One of my friends actually specifically messaged me to tell me after reading about when Colin stole from me how she took it for granted how willing I was to offer her cash when I was study money flush. She thought it was pretty cool that I was so willing to look out for and try to plan for things in a way that accounted for my friends.
And you know what? That is cool. It’s that kind of shit that makes me wince when I’m too quick with the word “sociopath.” It’s what gives me confidence when I dive into something, knowing it’s hardly whether or not I’ll find my way up, but whether or not I’ll be able to bring anyone with. I remember every gesture of friendship I try to uphold that I don’t expect from anyone else. If you were to quiz me, I could probably recall most if not all of every drink or meal you’ve covered for me. It registers deeply how little I tend to expect from anyone.
I try to speak to my life like I do my balance sheet. The numbers on there reflect the harsher side of reality. $50 is missing for 2 full tanks of gas automatically. $50 more gone to “spending” like the emergency overpriced antifreeze I had to buy today. I’ll hide $100 in the paypal account and call it untouchable or a jump start on next month’s greenhouse savings. I’ll pay my “rent” 2 months in advance. By the time there’s a number for all the money I really have, it looks depressed no matter how many hours I worked that day.
Thus, when I have a goal in life, I can certainly start with a picture, but what all has to be glued to it or cut off in order for it to work? I get my garage livable and start my quest to keep practically all the money I earn. I’ll try to be hood rich until I can figure out what to invest in that pays back quicker without me having to be present. So what then? Throw a party? For the 4 or 5 friends I still have in the area that are working all the time? Or maybe for the friends practically turned acquaintances that found their townie rut that never needed it to contain our dynamic.
I’ll need a whole show. I’ll need to razzle and dazzle new souls into a more “mature” form of the flashing lights and sick beats of a choice party house. I’ll need to have money in the bank to fly out or fly out to the people I’d still take a chance on our hanging out not being forced.
But that’s a ways off and drifting a bit away from the point. Right now is where I’m frequently moved to say “stuck.” Right now I had adopted a floor to sleep on, my car when things got pinched. Right now I’m working open to close most days of the week and sneaking about Byron’s apartment. Right now I’m waiting for someone to accompany me to the land so I can pretend to be an electrician in the off chance something goes terribly wrong and a ride might prove vital. Right now, after all the resources I’ve freely offered in my life, all the souls moved through where I’ve lived, all the opportunities I’m still focused on trying to include people in on, despite an excessively heavy list of shit I need to buy to even have a place to live, I get the side eye.
Byron’s roommate charge is an inept and insecure child. By virtue of me simply being a man, he acts like my presence is an overt problem. He’ll burst into the house, and Byron’s room, in the middle of the night to whine about his problems. I don’t think he could recognize a light switch or what it does. He’ll take the garbage out to the porch when he lives across the street from the dumpster. (You know, he reminds me of my brother…) He’s managed to untrain Ike if you leave the dog alone with him too long. And he’s angry that Byron told me, “As long as I have a place to live, you have a place to stay.” Words I relied on to my peril.
I’ve never needed that kind of help. I don’t overspend. I’m not an addict. I often over-offer for what I’m hoping to obtain from someone. I wouldn’t even need that kind of help if Colin and Byron would have better communicated. The idea that people who, literally need Byron at times to keep them alive, would look down on me like I want to be in their worthless presence is appalling. The idea that people I’ve looked out for in so many goddamn ways would leave me to have to pivot between parking lots and floors is just fucking wrong.
People act like my “ego” or intransigence is some kind of personality flaw or in-built defect I have trouble taming. Never can they imagine that I work until I pass out. Never does it occur to them that you can form a “strong opinion” when you’ve read a dozen books on the topic or 60 articles that week that you saved and intend to take further notes and better organize. Why would anyone ever suspect that what they said or did was actually a shitty thing to do or be and that’s why I called them a cunt? It’s NEVER, and I mean fucking NEVER YOUR FUCKING FAULT.
You didn’t leave me hanging, I just didn’t plan right. Of course, I should’ve suspected that I’d be fucked no matter what and I’d have to lean on finances owed for years or money that luckily came in because worked picked up for my dad this month. I’m not trying to make the garage livable, I’m leeching off Byron’s apartment for as long as I can, biding my time until I can throw Rob off the porch and claim his room. I’m not a man of my word who tries to support what he believes in and people he thinks have a good idea, I’ve just wasted money dicking around pretending to be some businessman who’s all-over-the-place mind and poor organization has had me pissing away thousands!
Wanting to help shouldn’t make you want to die. Working hard needs to pay out more than monetarily. I keep cashing in on people's’ resentment, and it’s turning me into them. I don’t want any more. I’m full.
I want to give up. I want to say fuck group projects and fuck where you get in life. I want to pull my money together, do reckless but profitable things, and just mind to my business like a faceless IU football fan wandering back from the game. I want to pretend, just like you, that nothing else matters but my personal budget and enough-to-deal-with interpersonal problems. I want to be fucking done with you. Because if you offered your floor, I don’t feel I could trust it. Not like you could trust mine, have trusted mine. My extra bed, my living room, my food, my alcohol. My careful attention to dance around your feelings because we lost whatever happened to bring us together in the first place and speaking plainly around you isn’t okay anymore. My time. Did you know I worked for free for Rob? Or you think anything remotely grateful pops into his head when his friends can crowd around my big screen that occupies his living room?
I just want somewhere I can lay down and not be fucked with. If this is the universe’s way of getting me to too closely empathize with the homeless, add that to the reasons the universe can go fuck itself. Tomorrow I’m going to try and eat my breakfast at 8:15 instead of 8:00 so maybe Rob will be gone and won’t have to see me or feel uncomfortable eating (because I promise you, the secret and purpose of life is irony) MY old oatmeal next to me. Or, I won’t.
