(no subject)
I just don't know anymore....about anything. I'm so fucking sad sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. And numb. And uncaring. I've lost sight of the person I once was. The person who actually liked helping people with their problems, the person who always had something to be smiling about, the person who could wear her heart on her sleeve without even thinking about it. Now, with few exceptions, I sit there screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" quietly in my head when other people tell me about their lives or their sticky situations. Because, frankly, they never quite measure up, so why the hell would I wanna hear about 'em? I hardly smile anymore "just because," a trait that my grandmother swore made her day. I've stopped revealing the inner-depths of me to those people who swear they're "not like everyone else"...too stupid at the time to see behind their masks, I blurt it all out....but they really are like everyone else and I'm forced to bite my tongue, left with that uneasy feeling of having just been used.
It's so hard to focus on the good when you're completely overwhelmed with the bad. It's suffocating me, beating me down into quietude...I keep retreating farther and farther back into myself, reserving my thoughts, my feelings, my persona for me and only me. When I finally begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel I've been stuck in, the door slams shut right when I reach it, like a slap in the face. Over and over again.
I know those of you reading this are thinking of commenting, "you should talk to someone." Please don't. I'm well aware of that option and I realize ya'll are just trying to help, to show your support, and I thank you for that. I choose not to go down that road, though, for reasons that many of you probably won't understand. I don't feel like being told repetitively I should think more positively is gonna help. I already know that I need to do that, to focus on the good. But how do you do that when the good seems so small and trivial? When the bad keeps on coming? "Oh, phew, at least my car started this morning....this day is gonna be AWESOME!" ??? No, I don't think so. I feel like I have nothing to look forward to anymore, and that's just sad. I have so much ambition for the future but no confidence or faith that any of it will actually work out. Simply because the past and present haven't afforded me with any lucky breaks when I've needed them the most. It's so hard to keep holding on when you don't have much to hold on to.
Maybe it's just the holidays adding to the weight...Thanksgiving and Christmas, more than any other time of year, reflected the very idea of family and love. Tradition brought my mom's entire side of the family-every last aunt and uncle, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc.-to my grandmother's house in Cedar Rapids on Christmas Eve. And to my aunt and uncle's house in CR for Thanksgiving. Without fail, for 20 years I participated in this ritual. I spent hours with my grandma dipping pretzels in white chocolate and sprinkling green and red sugar on them, rummaging in her attic for the Christmas decorations, gearing up in anticipation of opening a whole slew of presents all together down in their basement at the end of the night, finding out who received the annual gag gift. Now, the prayer said before our Thanksgiving meal expresses sadness that many of our loved ones cannot be at the table with us. This year at Thanksgiving, instead of the 30 or so people who used to show up, it was just me, my dad, my bro, his girlfriend, my aunt and uncle and their son. Other cousins stayed home with families of their own now.......Christmas with my mom's side isn't even going to happen this year. We're going to Missouri to see my dad's sister and her family. It'll be fun, but not the same. Nothing will ever be the same. And it's so fucking difficult for me to accept that. I have so many expectations of what the holidays are supposed to be like and I can't let them go because I don't want to lose those memories. Ugh, I'm rambling incoherently now.....then again, I don't really expect anyone to understand.
...sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got.