(no subject)
I think it would be a fine idea for me to journal more and talk less. I can't seem to open my mouth without spilling forth hours of nonsensical ramblings, bitter adolescent rants, reflections and memories of a far too personal nature to make for comfortable conversation with most folk.
I miss my best friend growing up. We had appalling conversations, and always agreed how important it was, if you really wanted to know someone, never to hold anything back for the sake of appearing more together than you really were. She's kind of burnt now, and doesn't say much at all anymore. I envy her sometimes.
When I talk I can go on and on for ages, usually about myself, because I interest me, and I'm always turning the events of my life over and over in my head, trying to understand where I fit in the grand scheme of things, and how it all relates. I haven't got to know anyone in a long time. I seem to have reached that age where people just don't talk anymore, or if they do the words they choose play into a carefully crafted image. I try to be interested, try to glean some idea of who people are from the negative space behind whatever persona they've created, but they work so damn hard at keeping it all together, and I've learned hard the consequences of taking them apart again.
I've tried to mimic the behavior, do and say things that other people might find interesting rather than simply entertaining myself out loud - unfortunately, in 24 years, I've never quite developed the knack. I am easily outed in these attempts by my halting, stuttering speech and a permanent inability to remember more than half the lines I've practiced. Years ago I was discovered silently mouthing a phrase I had just uttered, flipping it round and round in my head to gauge if it was a normal sort of thing to say, and how it had sounded as it left my lips. Of course, being caught in the act of judging my own carefully pieced together sentence kind of spoiled any appearance of normalacy I might have secured to that point in the conversation.
I'm really quite obsessed by the whole situation - quite possibly because it leaves me in a very lonely place. Even people who like me are often (justifiably) wary of engaging me in conversation, because it is never known if I'll be spouting harmless fluff, nihilistic venom, or self-obsessing to the point of madness (which is usually the safest bet and least pleasant I'm sure for my friends.)
My favorite topics are generally those most avoided by others, and it's just kind of always been that way. I have diaries dating back to when I was 8 years old filled with lust, hatred, neurotic ramblings about my freakishness, the frighteningly fast passage of time, and a frequent desire to die in my sleep, rocked gently to death in the great cosmic arms of a benevolent universe.
No such luck.
Anyways, now as I've got some of that out of my system, I've got to go and read to the darling child who had the terrible misfortune of being born to me. Keep that one in your prayers as I've got high hopes she'll be nothing like me.