Twice is too much. But here we are. Every breath in feels like the deep one before the plunge. Every breath out, an unsatisfying answer to the hanging question.
Where am I now?
Things happen, everything changes, and all of a sudden all the thoughts that slept in the background wake, insistent, demanding your attention while the sky rains ashes and the building burns straight down.
Where have I gotten to, where is my life now, what am I doing or should I be doing…
Am I the person I want to be?
I try. I like who I am. But.
But it keeps coming back, the way I hurt the people around me, the feeling of claustrophobia like everything I say is going to come out wrong and I can’t figure out the rules and what these people want.
It started with my dad. It was so easy for him to point out everything wrong I did. All the loaded questions, how any stray word could turn into an avalanche of poison. How stupid and wrong everything I thought was, always, forever.
And the worst thing is he was my role model. That was how you were supposed to treat people, when they showed you weakness. So I did, and no matter how much I don’t want to or try to stop, it catches up with me.
No matter what I know sooner or later I’m going to say something that’ll upset someone, upset everyone, and it won’t be because we have a difference in opinion, it won’t be an acceptable thing to say that they take the wrong way, it won’t be an honest mistake or an understandable emotional response. It’ll be because I’m just like him and I can’t change. It’ll be because I’m terrible, and sooner or later everyone will hate me for it.
And I can look at those words and I know it’s not true, except it is. It’s carved in too deep. It’s the black hole into which my whole world will disappear, and I can’t escape it because I carry it with me.
Rationally, I can put the pieces together. I know that everyone has disagreements, that everyone finds people they just can’t get along with. I know that I’ve met plenty of people who I’ve gotten along with fine, but those don’t count because they were short friendships, and they never really got to know me. And the friends I have are just putting up with me, even if they haven’t said anything they’re still thinking it.
Rationally I know that just because my friend said it doesn’t make it true, and it’s not like what he said was terribly specific, but it’s enough. When you’re terrified of something being true there just isn’t a high standard of evidence.
Rationally I know this is what he does, that most of my issues with people have really just been with him, that my inability to escape my own demons has a lot to do with him putting his on me. That it’s never been as bad with anyone else as with him.
But no one’s responded to the text I sent letting them know I wouldn’t be around for a while because of my issues with him, a few lines I ended with sorry because nothing’s ever washing out the guilty feeling that I’ve been inflicting myself on them all these years.
…
I hate this all so much, because I don’t know who I am, if I’ve been fooling myself all these years. I don’t know if I deserve everything that’s happened, if what he said to me was the right thing for him to do. If he was just speaking up for everyone else, because everyone else was too afraid to. I’m the big scary monster, after all.
But I let myself doubt, because I have to. Because ignoring it is what real monsters do, the kind so lost in their self-delusion they can’t hear what other people say in case it punctures their carefully-constructed world.
It burns like fire but I’m consoled, because even if I’m as awful as he claims, even if the fears I want to believe are irrational are really just the ugly truth, at least this is something I know I’m doing right.
…
My ex listens patiently, though I’m afraid of relying on her too much. We’d talked just before my entire social life exploded around the pinprick of a handful of words spoken in anger by my oldest friend. Things are good between us, as friends at least.
And she’s the friend who always saw past the things I said to people and how they took it to what I meant, what I wanted. She’s the person who acknowledged it but accepted it in a way that hurt worse than anything.
She also knew him. They were closer than we were back in high school; me with either of them. She got him to break up with his abusive ex, talked him through his life going to shit has he quit college and sunk his life into a management position at the local Burger King.
It was strange listening to her stories about him. Like how he’d been buying her gifts and taking her out for lunch with money I’d loaned him that he couldn’t afford to pay back. How badly he treated her. How much he talked about how much he hated me.
She cut him out of her life a long time ago. When we talk about him occasionally, I try to defend him, make little pushes to try and get them to talk again, even a little. They were close once, and I want to believe he’s better, and that’s the reason I’m still friends with him. Even though it always rung hollow.
She’s been nice enough not to say I told you so.
Her being on my side doesn’t really count though. After all, she wasn’t there, she just knows what I told her.
Part of me is comforted, though. She knew me back then, knew me at my worst. And god, in high school we were awful to each other. Nevermind the break up and the things said in between. Even the things said recently.
She’s made some awful choices out of fear, and she’s definitely hurt me. But she’s a good person. She’s never treated people badly like I have, or like he has. And she seems to think I’m okay. She doesn’t have to, and I don’t really know why she does.
It’s not a lot, but it’s the kind of small hopes that makes me think maybe I’m not entirely crazy.
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