Finding yourself isn't really how it works in Journal of life stuff

“Finding yourself isn’t really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. ‘Finding yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.” -Emily McDowell

I know good advice when I hear it, and that is good advice. I bought a bike 2-3 months ago, I don’t remember when. I loved riding a bike as a kid, and I love it now as an adult. The wind in your hair, zooming around tight corners or technical terrain. Whee! But I ride mostly to explore the neighborhoods around me. The homes are beautiful. The homes I love looking at the most generally are 1-1.5 million dollar houses. The insane part, to me, is that I can actually, possibly, afford that. If my investments pan out. I wouldn’t afford it, but if you had told me, in 2015, that me living in a million dollar house was an achievable goal I’d have laughed in your face.

But I don’t think I want to live in those houses. Sure, I’d smile every day coming home to it because it’s just so damn pretty. But I’d also feel so empty in it. A house that big needs people, and I’d only ever feel good in a house that big if I had 10+ grand kids who could come over and fill it up. If my house became the congregating spot for family and friends. But I don’t even have a wife, much less children, so grand kids…yeah. No. Another thought is ‘Become active in a church, and have the after-church meetings your place, you’d have the room!’ but then the thought comes to mind that “oh, you’re just trying to remind everyone you are better than them with your fancy house!” and…no, I’m not. I’m a person with means to get something massive, trying to share it with others. And that thought, which occurred on tonight’s bike ride, before I read the quote I started this entry off with, is what made me realize the truth of that quote. I have forgotten who I used to be, but not entirely.

I always have loved people. But I also hate people. I love people because nothing on this planet is more important than another person. But I also hate people for all their petty, bullshit, stupid choices, short-sighted decisions, and lack of concern for others. I’m not some bleeding heart who sees a homeless person and just has to help them. The only homeless person I ever regret not helping was a girl who couldn’t have been more than 22 in Boston’s South Station. She only ever was there one day, in the spot where the blind guy normally sold papers. She didn’t look at anyone, she didn’t have a sign. Her soul looked broken. She didn’t look like the scammer-beggars common for South Station, she looked like a person with an actual need and desire to get out of that situation.

But I walked on by. I didn’t ask. I didn’t investigate. Why? Because I didn’t want to get conned again. I didn’t want to be taken advantage of. Because I didn’t want to know if I was wrong. But also, because I didn’t want to be called sexist, or a white knight, or all the other hate-filled terms people have for a man who dares help a woman. I let the world get to me, and that’s a horrible thing. Boston was a terrible place for me. I always knew that. I stayed far, far too long.

I always wanted to own a home…except not really. What I wanted was a place that felt like my own, but it didn’t have to be a house. Having rented for the past 10 years, I can tell you that renting can be great, but only if you pay a LOT more for the space you have than it’s actually worth. On the flip side, you don’t have to worry about expensive appliances breaking…except that you do; you only don’t have to worry about the cost of replacing them. But the repair doesn’t get done any faster than if you had a home of your own; and often slower. I could repair a lot of things myself if I could get the parts, but the maintenance guys only come by from 8-5.

The main advantage of renting is that if you are a nomad, you don’t lose all the money you’d lose if you had bought and resold a house. I can explain the math behind that, but it’s out of scope for what I’m writing. Suffice it to say, unless you live in a house for ~15 years, you are going to lose money selling it, outside of freak economic occurrences.

But everything else about renting is worse than owning a home. You have less space, parking is worse, neighbors are closer to you and care less about you than they would in a normal neighborhood. You have to deal with a management company who only wants your money in return for nothing, whereas in a house, as long as you pay your income tax, they mostly leave you alone. Yeah.

I don’t love Houston enough to really want to stay here. BBQ is great, I can drive anywhere I want. Parking is plentiful, but…it doesn’t feel like home. But nowhere really feels like home. Why?

Because, for me, home has always been and will always be, with someone. Home is where I have friends. Home is where I have people who care about me. The last time I really had friends I was 14. Since then, I had friends very briefly during college, and then not for the rest of college. Houghton was only ever special to me because of those friends. without them? It’s just a kinda-shitty college town that has nothing at all going for it outside of the color change in October and Winter Carnival.

I think a lot about where to live, because fundamentally I want to find someone, and I’ve always assumed I would have to move to them. The notion that a person would ever come to me is not one that ever appeared viable. At my core, I never believed I would be ‘worth it’ enough to someone for them to want to come to me. Every date I have ever planned assumed that I would go to them. That’s clearly wrong. I need to believe I am worth it. That’s an area for growth.

As a child, I loved physical contact. It’s why my father liked me so much up until I was a teen and the betrayal from him happened. He loved physical touch too, and I gave him all he wanted. I would give hugs to teachers, friends, anyone. I haven’t given anyone a hug in years. I would give reassuring pats on the shoulder to people who were struggling. One girl, one time, told me to not do that to her again, and since she told me that, I’ve never done it to anyone ever again. why did she say that? No idea. Maybe she viewed it as condescending? Does it matter? That is me changing an action that defined the best parts of me; that concern for others, because someone else didn’t understand the meaning correctly.

I’m starting to see too many branching possibilities for this conversation, my mind is getting overwhelmed. I’m going to stop this entry here. There’s plenty more to say on this topic. I have 20 years of bullshit to dig through to get back to the good person I used to be. “Good”? No. I never stopped being good. I stopped letting my little light shine. That light was meant for more than me. I foolishly let others convince me that I needed to hide it from the world. A mistake I will now work to rectify.