485: In Which Andy Ponders Maturity and His Own Conceit...
Yeah, I know I'm spamming you guys this morning, but I really have a lot of thoughts going, and I prefer teh shorter posts, if you don't mind...;P
So, off of this me starting to grow up (or into my self, I should say) lately, I can't help but think how, even one year ago, who I was and what I thought about that were quite a bit different; how much I've changed, even in that small time, pretty much. I mean, you take the fish and put him in a new bowl, and all kinds of amazing adjustments are made...
Me and
scottiron were recently talking about it, and his description of me when I first met him (in those long, turbulent conversations in which I floundered) was that I seemed very conceited in my ideas about myself and life, with a very high opinion of myself.
At first, I almost wanted to be offended... Until I realized he was utterly right. And I began to laugh at my former self, and pity him a little.
I really can't blame him; I mean, it was just one of many defense-mechanisms he needed to survive--in fact, one of the most important. (Luckily, most of these have--at least, I hope--begun to fall away, as they are no longer needed...) When you have everyone around you pretty much tearing you down day and night, you either succumb into depressive self-hate or egomania. And I freely indulged in both, in the constant roller-coaster of my emotions.
I certainly hope it's dimmed, but I can't say it's really gone away, to be honest of you. But I hope I've become a little more aware of it. It's like how I spent so much of my childhood alone, and am thus, as my Aunt says, 'socially retarded'--I still struggle and mess-up, but it's not like flipping a switch. Not when you've been doing these things practically your whole life.
I would love to be perfect and perfectly charming and wonderful and a saint and all that idealistic bullshit. But I'm not. Neither is anyone else, I don't think. And for someone who spent many of those solitary hours dreaming up scenarios of perfect happiness to distract me from my miserable existence... Well, it's just hard. But as someone who, also, always lands on his feet (or gets back up on them when he falls), I deal.
And that's the important thing. Always has been. I don't stay down. I keep on moving. No matter what. If it hurts too bad, I sit down for a minute. Sometimes--as on my epic Downtown-to-Whittier hike--I even have to lay down on the grass till the pain fades enough for me to get back up.
But I always do. Because I'm not gonna get to my destination by giving up. And even as I've got my eye on the prize (and massive, crippling back pain), I can still enjoy the scenery along the way.
So, some days, I hate myself, yes. I'm disgusted by this weak, petty, pathetic person. But I understand why he is, even if I'm not sure who he is. And some days I love him so damn much I think I'll explode. Some days I think all my insularity has driven me crazy. Some days I have such violent mood swings I wonder why I don't slit my wrists. (Then I remember, oh yeah, I don't like pain and am a bit queasy).
And some days I'm so impatient for the good stuff to start happening--until I realize, it kind already is, along with the bad stuff still happening. That's life, I guess.
And some days, yes, I really want someone to love me--even though they already do, but maybe not in the way I want. I despair of the fact that maybe I'll never be satisfied.
Some days I want to die.
But most days, I just think the world is too damn beautiful and, despite my shoddy eyes, no one will ever see these trees and these cars in the shadows of these streets the way I do. And strangely--cliche as it may sound--it's enough to keep me going.