Nothing like it was supposed to be, the way it looked from the outside, the way we thought it would feel when we were still young and naive. So preoccupied with becoming, who’d have thought the easiest thing to miss is the freedom to simply be?
Once, I knew things without knowing that now I can’t remember. Once, things came swiftly and easily, so long as they weren’t thought about directly. But time passes, and the gifts that were given to us so easily must be earned or lost, it seems.
Nothing changes, because there is a me in the future who will look back on the me now thinking the same things. The past I remember now will be a memory of a memory. The past that is thus to me now will barely be anything at all.
But it’ll all happen, have happened, be happening.
Everything changes, but towards what? We can only tell the stories that make sense of our lives in retrospect. Our lives are only sensical backwards. That we must live them forwards feels like an oversight, or a cruel joke.
Will I pay for my foolishness, will I be rewarded by virtue? Will it be a comedy, a tragedy, or an object lesson for someone else’s play? Will I matter in the way I want to, or in some other way I cannot fathom?
Will the ultimate consequence of my existence be something like the determination of the spin of a particle in the final moments before the heat death of the universe? Or the minute shifting of the arrangement of molecules before another big bang? Or nothing, just stochastic white noise indistinguishable from any other.
This is what happens, boys and girls, when thoughts are left to rot and fester.
T.S. Eliot knows, as does Nietzsche. Others, I’m sure, but those were the two that stood out to me when I was growing up, that showed me that I wasn’t alone in the intellectual abyss that is uncertainty.
It’s hard, looking back, trying to figure out just what exactly it was that fucked me up. It was never even a question that I was different, it goes back such a long way that on some level it seems like I was just always going to be like this.
But then there’s the question of my home life, and what role that played. I was an only child, you understand, and both of my parents worked. They had their own lives, and I just wasn’t part of that, and we didn’t really have a ‘family life.’ I mean, we did things as a family, sort of, but I wasn’t really there. I was an accessory, there because I couldn’t be left at home, and the most important thing about me was that I not be annoying or an inconvenience to them.
It was lonely. It still surprises me how unused people are to loneliness, how ill-equipped they are to deal with it. There was never really anyone for me to turn to for emotional support. Literally the only time I’ve ever been honest with my father about something that mattered to me, my words were “Fuck you, you can’t hurt me anymore.” I was going through a messy break up, came home for the weekend and spent most of it sobbing into whatever furniture was immediately available. He was making fun of me for being a whiny baby or something like that.
I mean, mum meant well. She tried, but she tried like it was an obligation to fulfill. Little moments scattered throughout my childhood like boxes being checked off. And she just didn’t know how to give me more if I needed it. I tried to ask, tried to explain a few times. It always hurt worse, because she’d try, but she had no idea what I needed because neither did I, because I was the kid, and it felt like I was just making trouble for both of us.
Our house had a basement, a first floor, and a second floor. My father worked in the basement, he had his office and his wood shop. It was a good day when he’d just stay down there. My mother was in the living room, on the first floor, with the dogs. She’d watch the football, or hockey, or cricket, or formula one, or sappy movies or who knows what else. Dad would join her now and then, especially in the mornings or at night.
I’d be upstairs, reading or on the computer. It was nice, having my own space. All of us, having our own space.
But is it really any surprise that one of the defining features of my life has been looking for someone I could actually connect with?
And, you know, it’s self-reinforcing. I got good at being on my own. I learned early on that no one was going to figure everything out for me, that it was just me. It hurt like fucking hell, filled me with dread and anxiety and the persistent feeling that I was just treading water, that sooner or later it was just going to be too much for me to handle by myself and that when it was, I was fucked.
It’s gotten better, with time. It hasn’t gone away. Sometimes it feels like I’ve finally won, but it comes back. The girl leaves, the good times fade, and sooner or later it’s just me.
From what I gather, the experience isn’t entirely uncommon. Everyone’s afraid of being alone, etcetera.
I worry though, that the problem is that I’ve just had too much. It’s gotten to me.
Really, when you get down to it, I’m more comfortable with myself than with people. I instinctively hide from real human interaction. It ends badly, I get hurt. Usually when people open up they expect to find similar stuff between you, expect this sort of emotional baseline, this beautiful commonality shared between all people.
But all my parts aren’t working right. I’ve got good at faking normal, from the outside, though over enough time it’s not hard to figure out.
And what it boils down to is that instead of social circles and nights spent having fun with other people and the desire for company, I’ve got introspection and hours spent alone with my thoughts.
It’s like all those weird things that live in caves or the deep parts of the ocean where light never reaches. I’ve spent so much time somewhere else, and I got weird.
And… I don’t really regret that. It’s just difficult, because I can’t go back. Normal for me just isn’t like normal for everyone else, and the thing about being strange they don’t warn you about is not being able to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing next, because what works for everyone else probably won’t work for you.
I don’t know. Just venting. Just tired. Just… trying to figure out.
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