I kind of feel on fire tonight. Not a
series of made basketball shots fire. More like a fire that each time
you try to extinguish it, it jumps and cackles. It looks like a low
hum and sends a new wave of heat through my body.
I exist. That feels like a weird thing to be compelled to say. But I do. I exist. The good and bad I cause exists. My opinion of either notwithstanding, it's there. It's a hopeless sentiment. It's a “love me, love me, I'm begging you please love me” kind of phrase. I spend so much time trapped in a moment, analyzing and over-analyzing, and reading and re-reading, chasing some kind of ground or contentment. I search and dig and tear things apart looking for the last morsel that may feed my starved soul. I romanticize and plead. I reminisce and pretend. I choke and mist. I poke for it like a curious child pokes a dead animal. Maybe, just maybe, it'll move.
I'm currently in the middle of uploading just a random slew of pictures I've taken over the years of all the people I've been shaped by or perhaps helped shape. People I've worked with, partied with, and vacationed with. People I've had long, deep, and drunk discussions. People I've looked out for or considered some measure of chosen family. People that shaped all of my ideas about the party environments or what kind of friend I thought I wanted to be. People who've kicked off my explorations into what love means. People I've known for 20 or 2 years.
And then I start to think about what kind of sin is at the heart of my being that makes them random collections of photographs instead of hundreds of people to maybe call or rely on. What rotten egg have I morphed into to collect this sea of forgotten names and otherwise would-be scrubbed from the record books kind of history?
I think it's one thing to hurt someone. People hurt each other all the time. People say the wrong, or deliberately mean thing. People fight over what makes them afraid or insecure. There's as much hurt available as there are words and the potential to fuck those words up. But what does it mean when people want to forget you altogether? What does it mean that you're so incredibly bad or painful to them that they'll delete your picture and pretend years of their life you were never a part of? I almost feel like I'm existentially protesting by uploading all of this. I was there. I said things. I mattered.
I do to other people what I do to myself. I hold my feet to the fire. This, of course, except when I didn't, and that didn't go well either. I have 742 blogs now. I'll be 30 in like 2 weeks. Even if I was an amazingly terrible person with lies and craziness surrounding me in a maelstrom of abject failure, how did I keep it up for so long? How has my disingenuous behavior carried me along slamming into wall after wall so hard it'd make Princess Diana jealous?
But I can't even carry that thought thread too far. You know who else is in those pictures? People who didn't leave. People who talk. People who created the moment too. I go back to a statement about dying with 5 solid friends many times. Some old guy somewhere saying if you manage to die with 5 people you can actually trust or rely on, you've got 4 more than most. The pain and emotion and investment is the perpetual dress rehearsal for the show that puts those 5 on display if you die first. It's okay to have been invested. It's okay to want a family and memories and to want to feel like you belong. It's okay to want to talk about when you've hurt someone and to wish to make it better. It's okay to miss it, even if you were the only one not in on the joke.
I think one of the hardest tasks I'll have to engage in as the years carry on is to keep the larger picture in mind. I'm allowed to own my genuine investment in friendship. I'm allowed to feel betrayed. I'm allowed to wish, not so secretly, that “everything” could “go back” to some kind of peace and normalcy. I can advocate for forgiveness. I can keep talking. I can leave my door open. I've already forgiven, even if it doesn't come with the same kind of trust or naive vigor from the past. It's okay for me to just want things to be better, and conversations to be honest, and to type till my heart's content. It's okay to give people as many excuses as I need to put their shitty and childish behavior somewhere it can be merely shitty and childish and not specifically to do with me. I need doses of delusion like an alcoholic drink sometimes.
I'm just not that mean. It doesn't feel that way, but me, making a statement about myself, am not doing or saying things just to be mean. I don't prey on people. I don't conceive of power as the extent to which I can make you do something. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not angry at you. I'm not even sure who the “you” is anymore that I'm trying to talk to. I'm just tired and dispirited. I'm just trying to take in the picture instead the blog, for once.
I exist. I came from where those pictures were taken. I told jokes with those people. I played next to them. I worked next to them. My ideas and hobbies and interests were directed by conversations and late nights with them. I fit somewhere. They laughed. I felt intermittently as good as I ever do. They helped me make myself believe in however many things about myself today. I can't go away. I won't. I was there, you were there. I won't erase you, because I won't erase me.
I exist. That feels like a weird thing to be compelled to say. But I do. I exist. The good and bad I cause exists. My opinion of either notwithstanding, it's there. It's a hopeless sentiment. It's a “love me, love me, I'm begging you please love me” kind of phrase. I spend so much time trapped in a moment, analyzing and over-analyzing, and reading and re-reading, chasing some kind of ground or contentment. I search and dig and tear things apart looking for the last morsel that may feed my starved soul. I romanticize and plead. I reminisce and pretend. I choke and mist. I poke for it like a curious child pokes a dead animal. Maybe, just maybe, it'll move.
I'm currently in the middle of uploading just a random slew of pictures I've taken over the years of all the people I've been shaped by or perhaps helped shape. People I've worked with, partied with, and vacationed with. People I've had long, deep, and drunk discussions. People I've looked out for or considered some measure of chosen family. People that shaped all of my ideas about the party environments or what kind of friend I thought I wanted to be. People who've kicked off my explorations into what love means. People I've known for 20 or 2 years.
And then I start to think about what kind of sin is at the heart of my being that makes them random collections of photographs instead of hundreds of people to maybe call or rely on. What rotten egg have I morphed into to collect this sea of forgotten names and otherwise would-be scrubbed from the record books kind of history?
I think it's one thing to hurt someone. People hurt each other all the time. People say the wrong, or deliberately mean thing. People fight over what makes them afraid or insecure. There's as much hurt available as there are words and the potential to fuck those words up. But what does it mean when people want to forget you altogether? What does it mean that you're so incredibly bad or painful to them that they'll delete your picture and pretend years of their life you were never a part of? I almost feel like I'm existentially protesting by uploading all of this. I was there. I said things. I mattered.
I do to other people what I do to myself. I hold my feet to the fire. This, of course, except when I didn't, and that didn't go well either. I have 742 blogs now. I'll be 30 in like 2 weeks. Even if I was an amazingly terrible person with lies and craziness surrounding me in a maelstrom of abject failure, how did I keep it up for so long? How has my disingenuous behavior carried me along slamming into wall after wall so hard it'd make Princess Diana jealous?
But I can't even carry that thought thread too far. You know who else is in those pictures? People who didn't leave. People who talk. People who created the moment too. I go back to a statement about dying with 5 solid friends many times. Some old guy somewhere saying if you manage to die with 5 people you can actually trust or rely on, you've got 4 more than most. The pain and emotion and investment is the perpetual dress rehearsal for the show that puts those 5 on display if you die first. It's okay to have been invested. It's okay to want a family and memories and to want to feel like you belong. It's okay to want to talk about when you've hurt someone and to wish to make it better. It's okay to miss it, even if you were the only one not in on the joke.
I think one of the hardest tasks I'll have to engage in as the years carry on is to keep the larger picture in mind. I'm allowed to own my genuine investment in friendship. I'm allowed to feel betrayed. I'm allowed to wish, not so secretly, that “everything” could “go back” to some kind of peace and normalcy. I can advocate for forgiveness. I can keep talking. I can leave my door open. I've already forgiven, even if it doesn't come with the same kind of trust or naive vigor from the past. It's okay for me to just want things to be better, and conversations to be honest, and to type till my heart's content. It's okay to give people as many excuses as I need to put their shitty and childish behavior somewhere it can be merely shitty and childish and not specifically to do with me. I need doses of delusion like an alcoholic drink sometimes.
I'm just not that mean. It doesn't feel that way, but me, making a statement about myself, am not doing or saying things just to be mean. I don't prey on people. I don't conceive of power as the extent to which I can make you do something. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not angry at you. I'm not even sure who the “you” is anymore that I'm trying to talk to. I'm just tired and dispirited. I'm just trying to take in the picture instead the blog, for once.
I exist. I came from where those pictures were taken. I told jokes with those people. I played next to them. I worked next to them. My ideas and hobbies and interests were directed by conversations and late nights with them. I fit somewhere. They laughed. I felt intermittently as good as I ever do. They helped me make myself believe in however many things about myself today. I can't go away. I won't. I was there, you were there. I won't erase you, because I won't erase me.
No comments:
Post a Comment