Up on melancholy hill, there's a broken tree...
So, the other day I came to a fairly sad realization. Well, not really, because I'm not living in Afghanistan and I'm not about to have a hurricane knock down my door or anything, but it's fairly sad none-the-less. I'm not happy. I think the only time I've really been happy and not just... floating, is my second year of school when the classes were challenging me but I was still proud of my work and I had friends that loved me for who I am and enjoyed doing things that I did and always grinned when I walked into a room. I miss my friends that I only knew for a year more than I missed people I've known for several. I realized that that might say something about my current relationships and how my friends know me, yes, and love me, but with my friends from last year, I could just be happy and crazy and myself around them because I knew that's how I felt and that's how I am. I feel like with some of my friends now... that we're drifting apart. And while I'm still myself around them, I don't have the energy or, perhaps, motivation to be all of myself with them. I feel... drained. And considering I spent the better part of 8 months working 5 hours, going to class for 6 hours, then going to the gym and still having the drive to be my full self around the people I cared about, that's saying something. Am I just keeping friendships because they make those people happy and therefore I should keep them? Do I only focus on what would make them happy and not myself? Well, I know that's not entirely true because I told my ex to hit the road when I finally clued in that he was making me miserable, and I knew that would make him unhappy, but he was actively causing me emotional pain. My current situation isn't causing me any sort of pain, but it's also not causing me happiness. But to change my situation would tear apart people I've been around to pieces. These aren't just people, they're the people closest to my heart. Oh I don't know. Maybe I'll read this later and it'll make sense. I'm feeling down, like I said.
Also, I realized that I'm not exactly all that smart. Or charismatic. Or brave. Or... Anything, really. I mean. I went to pastry school for two years and failed my final exam. Who does that?!?!? Me apparently. I can't believe I did that, even. It wouldn't have taken much more effort than I'd already put through, but, seriously! What kind of a loser am I? Stuck in a grocery store decorating cakes. Friends that I have to work twice as hard to maintain than they do to keep me around.
And, also, I've been reflecting on things that I do now and tracing their origins back to when I was bullied in elementry and Jr High/middle school.
For example: One day, I was going to the washroom, no big deal, everyone does it, when suddenly, in the middle of me taking a shit, three of my main bulliers started laughing at me. AT THE CONTENTS OF MY FECAL MATTER!!! I know I should have been laughing at them, but for some reason, I'd been so demoralized by these girls that TO THIS DAY I am still wary about using public washrooms. Not for germs, but because I can see those girls standing on the toilet paper dispenser and looking over the wall and laughing at me.
Another thing I did up until highschool was judge people horribly. Anyone who looked a certain way automatically went on my "AVOID" list. If they wore make-up, wore trendy clothes and talked a certain way, I went out of their way. Cause the only people I'd ever encountered that looked and talked like that were people who treated me like shit. Mom pointed out the other day that I would have avoided my own sister for that very reason, but I'd have seen my sister's kindness. I noticed kindness and she has it. I would have tolerated her, at least, maybe been an acquaintance, but I guess it's true. I wouldn't have been friends with her because she looks and talks exactly like the other girls that would go out of their way to bring me down on a daily basis.
I'm going to put something down now that I've never told anyone. Ever.
For about the first four years of my formal schooling career, I thought I was mentally challenged and just didn't know it. Until I made friends with someone who was obviously popular and still chose to be around me, I thought I only had the sympathy of someone who remains my best friend to this day. I thought she felt sorry for me and just hung out with me because she wanted to help me or something. I'm not even kidding, I thought I was mentally handicapped for several years.
And this worry carried over into Middle school where I didn't have any friends in my classes but the ones that had ditched me for cooler friends. The one person that could have prevented a lot of the daily torment I went through had moved away, and the only other friend I had left in the class was enthralled by a girl that had moved in up the street a few months previous and the new girl didn't want anything to do with me. I ended up meeting one of the most awesome people ever through a mutual friend and her world became mine for as long as it could. I love her to pieces and would be a very different person without her.
Then came The Bitch. She wasn't so bad at first, but eventually, she manipulated one of my best friends into being a total slave, something I think my friend hasn't fully recovered from yet (though she's a world better, she still hurts far easier than she did before The Bitch). She also attempted to manipulate me into her world, but I refused, always holding back for fear that she would turn out... well... exactly as she did.
I know other people had it worse. I know some people who had it waaaaay worse (My best guy friend and cousin to say the least). But one was in a fragile state of mind when he went really bad, and the other... Well, she has two moms and one of her moms (not my aunt) wanted a kid just to prove she could raise a kid. My dad told me the first thing she ever said to him was "There are no boys in our house. We don't need boys" Like... think of what her mom was like. Cause she's got a younger sister with a different other mom (she actually says 'other mum' it's sofreakingcute!!!!) and she's waaaaay different. So yeah. I know I didn't have it all that bad. But I still came home crying every day for a few years here and there and am still subconsciously affected by what happened to me as a kid. I hate it, but there's nothing I can do but what I've been doing, and that's working to overcome things that make me more self conscious than I appear to be./rant