The chances are...
In honor of Day 51 w/out cigarettes, the gloomy day outside, and a personal funk I've been in today, I decided its reflection time in regards to my seeming inability to quit haranguing myself for shit that went down in the past.
I'm a naturally self-critical person. I get that from Mom, and I don't think it is a bad thing. It allows you to take looks at yourself and say, 'Hey, that was stupid. Don't do it again.' Some would argue that its a bad quality, but most of the time I'm grateful for the moments that I feel stupid so I can do my best to avoid feeling stupid about them in the future. Usually this methodology works out A-OK for me. I do something or say something to someone that makes me put my foot in my mouth. I learn the lesson and move on. Most of the time it works, but, like with everything in life, there are always exceptions.
The times/situations in which I beat myself months even years after the fact are usually situations in which I made multiple bad decisions under faulty logic which I came to see afterward. For example, any of the numerous groups of friends that I've been close with but then become alienated from (the most recent being the Maggie/Ali/Kristin group). The other criteria I can think of would be someone I especially cared for. For example, at random intervals I'll sit around and beat myself up over how truly badly I handled the situation with Shereen.
So WHY? Why do I do this? Is there something inside of me that instinctively needs to do this? (Other than Catholicism?) Is there a part of me that likes making myself feel like crap? I sincerely don't think so, because I can tell you today has been shit piled on top of shit. After some application of thought, I think it boils down to a couple of things.
The situations I beat myself up in were ones that didn't have happy endings. With the exceptions of Cat and Bekah, I've haven't been able to sustain an honest friendship with my ex-girlfriends successfully. Something inside of me insists that I should have been able to work these friendships out. In most cases I feel as if I become a stranger to them and them to me. There are of course always silver linings. With the exception of Sara, I've at least been able to be cordial with my ex's. Shereen works the front desk in my residence hall and we still chit-chat every now and then. I usually maintain a friendship with at least one member of a former group of friends that I'm in.
So the question then becomes - why is that the happy endings don't come? For obvious reasons, there's no way I'm going to detail every bit of every falling out I've had with girls and friends. The common denominator in most of situations though is communication. Either I don't say something in the right way or I'm not really hearing (understanding) what they are telling me. Friendships with exes also have the added slew of things that prevent me from establishing a friendship - lingering feelings, hurt feelings, whichever. Whatever it is, my point gets misconstrued along the way, either through my intentional machinations or unintentional.
Following that, the only question left to answer is why I still beat myself up over it. The answer to that one is obvious I think - I feel bad. I feel bad I hurt their feelings, sure, but honestly I feel worse over the fact that I was unable to do anything to change it. I believe that with any amount of hard work in friendships, you can make things right. When I feel like I've done everything I can and it still isn't good enough, it just sucks for me. This makes sense because it factors back into my hero complex. And that also pisses me off to think that after four years I haven't made any real progress trying to deal with it. I rather just used chemicals to ignore them. But thats an important lesson to learn all its own.
So what conclusions can I come to? Well, that I think I can always make things right between people also implies that I believe that in some weird way they need me. That is hubris, and is completely and utterly wrong. When I think about exes, I worry about how much I fucked them up because of their knowing me. Now I will force myself to stop, and take a look at all of them. When I do that, I can see every single one that I still have any sort of contact with is doing GREAT. Really great. They're all still beautiful and smart, most have boyfriends, and are doing fine in school. Cat's even getting married soon! Same with old groups of friends. They're studying abroad, getting jobs, and getting married and stuff. Their lives are awesome, and so I should not let my life be any less awesome because I couldn't make it work between them.
The lesson is that people get over shit, and so should I. When I do take time to analyze most friendships that never worked out, I always remember it takes two to tango, and that I am not always the one at fault. Most of the time sure, but not always. And even so, I need to let it go. That is healthy, natural, and what every single other ex and former friend of mine has done. They were blessed with the same amount of chances to make their lives great as I was - my only responsibility is to take the chances I am given, and not worry about the chances that they take or deny.
And like my lj handle says, there's an infinite amount of chances out there.
To Happiness,
Luke
PS - And to be just a littttle bit glib, its totally their loss. I'm an awesome friend.
I'm a naturally self-critical person. I get that from Mom, and I don't think it is a bad thing. It allows you to take looks at yourself and say, 'Hey, that was stupid. Don't do it again.' Some would argue that its a bad quality, but most of the time I'm grateful for the moments that I feel stupid so I can do my best to avoid feeling stupid about them in the future. Usually this methodology works out A-OK for me. I do something or say something to someone that makes me put my foot in my mouth. I learn the lesson and move on. Most of the time it works, but, like with everything in life, there are always exceptions.
The times/situations in which I beat myself months even years after the fact are usually situations in which I made multiple bad decisions under faulty logic which I came to see afterward. For example, any of the numerous groups of friends that I've been close with but then become alienated from (the most recent being the Maggie/Ali/Kristin group). The other criteria I can think of would be someone I especially cared for. For example, at random intervals I'll sit around and beat myself up over how truly badly I handled the situation with Shereen.
So WHY? Why do I do this? Is there something inside of me that instinctively needs to do this? (Other than Catholicism?) Is there a part of me that likes making myself feel like crap? I sincerely don't think so, because I can tell you today has been shit piled on top of shit. After some application of thought, I think it boils down to a couple of things.
The situations I beat myself up in were ones that didn't have happy endings. With the exceptions of Cat and Bekah, I've haven't been able to sustain an honest friendship with my ex-girlfriends successfully. Something inside of me insists that I should have been able to work these friendships out. In most cases I feel as if I become a stranger to them and them to me. There are of course always silver linings. With the exception of Sara, I've at least been able to be cordial with my ex's. Shereen works the front desk in my residence hall and we still chit-chat every now and then. I usually maintain a friendship with at least one member of a former group of friends that I'm in.
So the question then becomes - why is that the happy endings don't come? For obvious reasons, there's no way I'm going to detail every bit of every falling out I've had with girls and friends. The common denominator in most of situations though is communication. Either I don't say something in the right way or I'm not really hearing (understanding) what they are telling me. Friendships with exes also have the added slew of things that prevent me from establishing a friendship - lingering feelings, hurt feelings, whichever. Whatever it is, my point gets misconstrued along the way, either through my intentional machinations or unintentional.
Following that, the only question left to answer is why I still beat myself up over it. The answer to that one is obvious I think - I feel bad. I feel bad I hurt their feelings, sure, but honestly I feel worse over the fact that I was unable to do anything to change it. I believe that with any amount of hard work in friendships, you can make things right. When I feel like I've done everything I can and it still isn't good enough, it just sucks for me. This makes sense because it factors back into my hero complex. And that also pisses me off to think that after four years I haven't made any real progress trying to deal with it. I rather just used chemicals to ignore them. But thats an important lesson to learn all its own.
So what conclusions can I come to? Well, that I think I can always make things right between people also implies that I believe that in some weird way they need me. That is hubris, and is completely and utterly wrong. When I think about exes, I worry about how much I fucked them up because of their knowing me. Now I will force myself to stop, and take a look at all of them. When I do that, I can see every single one that I still have any sort of contact with is doing GREAT. Really great. They're all still beautiful and smart, most have boyfriends, and are doing fine in school. Cat's even getting married soon! Same with old groups of friends. They're studying abroad, getting jobs, and getting married and stuff. Their lives are awesome, and so I should not let my life be any less awesome because I couldn't make it work between them.
The lesson is that people get over shit, and so should I. When I do take time to analyze most friendships that never worked out, I always remember it takes two to tango, and that I am not always the one at fault. Most of the time sure, but not always. And even so, I need to let it go. That is healthy, natural, and what every single other ex and former friend of mine has done. They were blessed with the same amount of chances to make their lives great as I was - my only responsibility is to take the chances I am given, and not worry about the chances that they take or deny.
And like my lj handle says, there's an infinite amount of chances out there.
To Happiness,
Luke
PS - And to be just a littttle bit glib, its totally their loss. I'm an awesome friend.