[796] Friendly Wager

I'm purely writing because I have a headache. Stupid thoughts about the future crept in.

I can feel how I've anchored my thoughts to the paycheck. I think to myself, “I can't do anything until...” or, “In 3 paychecks I'll be back to 'evenly broke.” I don't look for things to spend money on in between. I don't try to distract myself. I've zeroed in on paying off the credit cards, and then paycheck number 4 or 5, right around my birthday, I'll have “profit.” I'm hyper-obsessed with the dollar amounts at this point. Always in theory, I can start blowing money on nearly anything in the relatively short term. Here's $500 for more website work, why not? Here's a shit ton of supplies for the next room, or deck, or $600 to play on an excavator for a weekend.

My head is rushing to every possibility at once, because I haven't chosen. Part of me knows I'm perfectly content having what's “functional.” My clothing is an impressive assortment from things I got when they were too big to fit me right, to free and handed out at rallies or bars. Just like I never needed to bother getting a six pack to get laid, I never had to bother looking particularly fashionable. And then there's the whole impossible struggle with ever really giving a fuck what people think. You know, insofar as that can go for us normal adults.

Is there something to be gained if I were to just stop? Say I pay down this debt, and just pay my bills at the normal rate, and concentrate on stomaching the comforts as I've been enjoying them. Mind you, that's eating out and not thinking about the price of movie tickets, but it's not nothing. Is it enough? My mind and body say no before I begin typing the sentence. Why isn't it enough? Does it matter? Don't people tend to envy the drive (compulsion)? Don't I still have something to prove? Am I not still an indignant spite-filled ball of fuck you?

Of course I am. And any time I write a series of nonsense questions I don't intend to answer, nor have anyone address, it's because I'm lost in the sea of all of the things I'd be attempting to do with an ounce of access and dash of boredom. To not be able to help yourself to the creation of the future you imagine is not the same thing as an addiction to smoking. I mean, similar brain regions may be at play, but theoretically I'm not stressing myself out to the point of courting cancer in equal measure.

Maybe I'm just feeling exhausted with trying to account for it all. It's truly an impossible task to try and capture what happens when my mind hits “go.” It speaks to doing a dozen things at once, every drunk rant, and every brief glimpse at happiness for having pulled something off that seemed a world away. I'm surprised I don't routinely break out in tears every time I flip on the lights and adjust the temperature in my house. They were some of the smallest and relatively straight-forward things to account for that contributed an entire world of relief and appreciation I wasn't anticipating. Every ounce of mental satisfaction I ever discover, I will have desperately clawed from the abyss.

If people are the answer, I don't know what to make of finding the one's nearest me so...wanting. I don't know why I'm expected to pick up slack, but when need done so, I'm unreasonably insisted upon. I don't know why the sins of the past get erased for those with expectations of me, but my memory gets to be faulty and not trusted. I don't know why it felt like my duty and joy to entertain those who only grew in their resentment, why it's someone like my dad's obligation to forgive, or why those who seem to give and care need to feed the void of endless sacrifice.

Check the tapes. I was hoping for an oasis where all of the desperate, depressed, broke friends could live cheap. My first instinct was to build a house bigger than I needed so I could retain the people I had under my roof. Byron recalled, “Sometimes I think back and wonder, what went wrong?” Half joking, half not, when we went to the land to drop of the TVs, wondering what drove me out there. The story is written in excruciating detail. I don't know how you can miss it.

I want to retain or put my money to work. I want to be able to invite and account for those I claim to care about. I want to live the example of the kind of people I'd like to know more of. Those willing to sacrifice, and work, and focus, and live for their actual dreams instead of their negotiated realities. I want people who revel in their discomfort, because reprieve means victory over a worthy foe. I want people to believe in themselves and what they can accomplish as much as I do. It was supposed to be a reinforcing feedback loop and launch pad. It was supposed to be chances to safely testify and contribute to a shared future that wasn't marred by our hellish politics and doom for the future. There were many secrets and things to learn in pursuing this house and land. I always knew I could “work a job” and get paid to dress up and pretend.

I feel I've been in this shell for so long. The realities of doing the coffee shop in the mall crashed into me. The reality of having people who give no fucks beyond their next meal and digital racecar soccer match in my life. Increasingly, I feel totally removed from the arbitrary grabs at power Byron is pursuing, seemingly on point until he gets as bored as I do and casually adopts a new uniform or agenda. But I'm supposed to take him more seriously than he takes me?

Yes, buried in here is frustration for him as well, as his insistence regarding my move-out timeline and progress for nondescript “plans” is making me feel, well, whatever is less connotatively impactful than “mentally abused.” I'm pretty sure he somewhat resents how much I want to get away. (Every girl I've ever dated and offended friend to the point of broken relationship has their jaw drop through the floor at the audacity.) He's turning bully, I'm turning him into the litany of people I've had to learn to disregard. It's crass to reduce a 20+ year relationship to the last task you needed help with in moving TVs right? Here's to everyone forgetting my floor is what happened between me and my mom. Obviously, I was broken early, and none of you are safe. But feel free to look back through the record on which of us deviated from the reasonably predictable mean. Shit, more irony, he's as predictable as me.

Meantime. I need meaningful time. Lucky for me, even if I don't have friends, I'm going to get to see friends on Thursday and over the weekend. I'll get to do the mentally placating thing of “taking back” my agency by calling in a sick day (oooh naughty!). #fuckingkillme. I'm craving the day to day of physically chopping away at the challenges the land presents me. How many holes there are left to dig! I have a giant pile of shit I need to light on fire and not let get out of control! I need more bathroom, less dusty mud pit! In the (mean)time, I'll keep chugging along at work. Turns out, I actually am perfectly suited for this kind of gig in everything but driving philosophy. Collected crazy can commune with crazy in a tone that isn't condescending and with an underlying threat that doesn't provoke lashing out that wasn't coming anyway. It's still weird to be so perfectly and ill-suited at the same time.

If it's any consolation, I don't know why it would be, I feel less “rushing all over the place to nowhere” than I did before I started. My head still hurts and I’m still clenching, but, you know.