Someone Else's Memories in 2020
- May 17, 2020, 4:44 a.m.
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- Public
I’m a lot different of a person than I was 18+ years ago when I first started using diary sites. A different person than I was 10 years ago. A lot different even than I was five years ago. Slowly I feel the change that I’ve been striving for for so long, though I can’t quite pinpoint when it started.
Perhaps, when I’m done changing, I’ll be the complete opposite of who I used to be. Diametrically opposed to someone who has always been so sentimental. The past has had such an influence on me. All the people I’ve known, whether I still know them or not, the distance between us vast regardless. The late nights talking to friends on messengers, the sentiment of diary sites and forums that made them seem artificially important to me even as they became obsolete. I wanted to believe that there was a point to it all, that it wasn’t in vain. I didn’t take the path that I expected I would take in life, didn’t find the success I naively expected to have. There really hasn’t been any success. I still haven’t done anything with music, or wrestling. Every half-baked idea I formed with friends never came to fruition. Relationships, jobs, almost every friendship, it all feels in retrospect as if made of sand, inevitably washed away by the tides. I at least have the memories, the distant bonds, the things saved on a hard drive or in my brain, the hundreds of lyrics I’ve written inspired by various people or events. It was so important to me, often it felt like it was all I had.
And yet I don’t want it. Not any more. It doesn’t even feel like it’s mine. I’m not that person that existed in that time period, that those people knew. As time goes on that person feels increasingly a stranger. The past was so important to me. At this point, it’s an albatross around my neck. There’s no redemption, or resolution to those past events. It’s a burden that I alone carry, that I wish not to. The desire to not be the only person sitting in an empty room grows. I too want to leave the scene and move on. To only focus on the future, without a sense of obligation, or guilt, or distraction toward what came before.
I can’t say I’m wiser, or more mature, or even more cynical. Just…different. Slowly accepting that just willpower isn’t enough to solve problems and self-motivate. Feeling the limitations of my efforts and personality as-is. Not only seeking the persona that I’ve created in my head that can take me where I want to go out of desperation, but also curiosity. Becoming less judgmental of others, because the person I want to become needs to be able to shrug off their criticism.
The worries and loneliness that have always been there are still present, though they’re wrapped in a fragile layer of acceptance. I’ve never been good with closure. Slowly I’m more able to accept that what’s done is done, regardless of how a situation or dynamic ended, if it ended at all.
Things in general are not bad right now, aside from the general worldwide pandemic and a back injury caused by gardening that so far is not going away. To summarize the major stuff from the last couple years:
Right after my last entry, I got a job at a plant tissue culture lab that I really enjoyed. Probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for several people in my D&D group working there, it’s just not something I would have considered. There were a lot of great people there and it was fun, and the place seemed to be growing quickly. After a few months, the company went through financial troubles and we went from three shifts to one and laid off about half of the employees. I survived that, worked a few more months, and then got laid off. It was pretty gloomy there after the first layoff, things never really recovered, nor did our faith in the company. A couple months after my wave of layoffs, everyone else got the axe. It was a promising startup, but bad management seems to have doomed it.
I don’t know if it was because of that or what, but I became at least passively depressed, if not more so for a while. Whatever depression(or worse) that I have ebbs and flows, but I just kind of shut down emotionally around that time. I stopped keeping up with texts and stopped responding to some friends/potential romantic interests on dating sites. I ended up doing Lyft driving again, though only after several weeks of not really doing anything and living off of my severance check.
Right before that, I moved into a new house, with the same roommate as before, as well as three other friends who came up from elsewhere in Oregon. We’d been talking about it for a while, but it was still somewhat surprising to see it come together. The apartment we had was pretty shitty, plus we had some weird-ass neighbors and it was next to a very loud high-traffic street. It’s been about a year, and it seems we’re going to do another year. I think after that I’ll be ready to live on my own, I don’t want to have roommates forever, you know?
My old roommate Ella visited sometime in the summer and the whole group of friends here that we used to hang out with met up due to that, well almost everyone. Including…Courtney. Who I hadn’t had any sort of contact with since whatever the fuck had happened a couple years prior. She acted like nothing had happened. We ended up starting to see each other, had a couple fun dates and hangouts at parties. It seemed like it was going well, but that didn’t last, just like before. She seemed different, and I’m still not sure what happened between her disappearing from my life and coming back into it. I suppose I’ll never know. A couple dumb things happened, and I ended up ending the friendship over text. Super lame, but I knew she wasn’t going to want to meet up any time soon. I’m assuming I won’t see her again, but who knows. I’m done putting in the effort though. In some ways I think I’m still in love with her, though I think it’s the ideal of her, and not the real person. In theory, she’s my dream girl. In practice, I could never have with her what I want to have, for many reasons.
I’ve been working at Intel for a few months in one of the manufacturing factories. It’s relatively easy work, though the shifts are long, and I’m doing night shift. I don’t really mind it, though it’s rare to sleep uninterrupted for more than a couple hours on this schedule, often a night’s sleep is a bunch of naps stapled together. I technically work for a staffing agency, though we have an indefinite assignment there. My goal is to get hired on, since it pays better and they have all sorts of crazy perks. To do that, I need to go back to school and finish up an associate’s. It should only take two or three semesters. I had planned to go back this summer, but then the pandemic happened, so who knows when I’ll go back. It’ll have to be online classes, since I have such an inconvenient schedule. I always fall off after a couple terms of trying to go to school full-time while working full-time. Having a concrete goal I’m working toward should help, plus I’ve learned not to put too much on my plate.
Part of the problem is that I always prioritize my social life over getting things done. I don’t have much of one now, understandably, just hanging out with the roommates and playing D&D over Skype once a week. Even once things go back to normal, I don’t plan on having as much of one. I’m not interested in being the guy that throws parties and spends his time, money and heart trying to bring people together. That’s not me anymore, or at least it won’t be in time. I need to focus on myself and getting done what I want to get done. There’s no way to try to hold on to everyone, and I’m accepting that. Hanging out with a few close friends and whoever I’m interested in romantically is enough. There’s no one in that spot, for now.
I got my first tattoo last year. I can see why people get addicted. Haven’t gotten another one yet, though I will once places open up again. I’ve known for years I wanted that one and the one I already have, but I’m not sure what I’ll get after that. I’d like something more complex, and a bit more colorful.
Also, when things get back to normal, I need to actually start taking care of myself. Going in to get a checkup, seeing if there’s anything wrong with me, etc. I just never go to a doctor/dentist/whatever unless I need to, which has been rare. Mostly just when I had a broken and infected tooth a couple of years ago. It does cost extra money, everything costs money, but it’s not a great strategy. I also need to find out the state of my mental health. I know for sure I have depression, I think it’s possible that I’m bipolar too, but that’s just my opinion. I’ve always been afraid of knowing what I have or don’t have. What if there’s nothing wrong with me and my feelings and thoughts are just bullshit? What if there’s something super wrong with me and I need a lot of medication? Once the genie goes out of the bottle, there’s no putting it back in. Still, I need to accept that just willpower isn’t enough to solve everything. If there is something that could help me be focused and more motivated, it’s worth looking into.
I’m beginning to understand why people delete things like this. Can you ever look completely forward when there are reminders of the past behind you? Someday, I’ll get to that point, but I think I’m a long ways off from it still. For now it’s the same as always, it’s good to be back and we’ll see if I stay up to date with this site or not.
Looking for peace ⋅ May 17, 2020
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