Woohoo! Found a new job! Oh, and other stuff.
I feel a million times better. I thought I'd blown it when I mentioned I had a dentist appointment on Tuesday (I start on Monday and I already had two days I couldn't work because I have to go get the rest of my stuff out of the apartment) but no, they want me in at 9:30 A.M. I guess the manager understood when I said, "About a third of one of my teeth is gone."
The last few weeks have been otherwise pretty uneventful, with the exception of a few nights ago...
Alright, so I just moved back home because I ran out of money, blah blah blah, right? So far, the only other person in the house that hasn't made me feel completely unwelcome is my mom. And she won't leave me alone. My brother acts like he hates me, and my stepdad, Ken... Well, he's sixty-four. He's turned into a mean old man all of a sudden, and if you do something he doesn't like? Well...
Tonight, during dinner, somehow the conversation turned to natural remedies. My mom started talking about, when my grandfather had a gash on his leg that wouldn't heal, my great-grandfather put maggots in it to clean it, and my stomach did about twenty backflips, so I said, "Stop it, I just ate." But the subject didn't drop, so I lost it and said, loudly, "Shut the Hell up!" I didn't mean to lose my temper, but it took me right back to freshman year, when I had a teacher that would talk about stuff like that and I had his class right after lunch (which, by the way, if you have some kind of weird growth on you, GO TO THE DOCTOR'S BEFORE IT GETS TO BE THE SIZE OF A GRAPEFRUIT, STUPID!) so every afternoon was a battle to keep my food down. Ken chewed me out when my mom left the room, insulted me and my brother for being unemployed, and threatened to kick me out if I did it again. When he stopped, I left the room, thinking that was it.
He came back down again to talk to me, and after a few circular points about how I'm wasting my life, he asked me how many boyfriends I've had.
Now... This weird for me to talk about with any kind of parental figure, I was really weirded out by the way the conversation just... went there. Not to mention it's kind of a sensitive spot for me. I already feel like such a lonely, pathetic loser, and I don't need anyone to make me feel worse. The only guys that have ever shown interest in me were either:
1. Huge, like, Human Blob proportions. I don't mind a little extra poundage, but when you're big enough to have fat rolls on your head, no thanks.
2. Mentally... off in some way. Crazy, retarded, drug-fried. Or all of the above.
3. Drunk and/or high. Someone I'd once considered a friend, and who is still dating one of my ex-roomates, recently propositioned me much the same way you would a nasty bar skank. And he was barely intoxicated, so there's no good excuse. Needless to say he's no longer my friend.
I don't think dating is that important right now. I never really have. But that doesn't stop me from feeling like crap every time someone else complains to me about their stupid relationship problems. I would kill somebody to have a relationship to complain about. To feel like someone actually cared for me, and accepted me. I feel like everybody's just intent on making me feel as bad about myself as possible, and there's nothing in the world I want more than for someone to say, "You know, you're a little bit crazy, and you have any number of other things wrong with you, but I don't care." But wanting something and actually having it are two very different matters. I could want it until the sun burns out, doesn't mean I'll ever have it. So when you say it's "unthinkable" that a twenty-one-year-old could have gone through life never having a boyfriend to someone who basically hates herself... It's not good.
I recently had a conversation like this with a good friend, and it pretty much ended the same way- with me shutting down because I was basically being told I was pathetic, and someone getting frustrated with me. I know Claire meant well, but she was pretty much telling me that until I changed almost everything about myself, I was going to be alone. I know that I have weird hair, and that not many people are willing to wear flashy eyeshadow, and that facial piercings (my lip used to be pierced but it rejected, so now it's just my nose and my ears) aren't for everybody. But you could, especially in Athens, a college town, walk twenty feet in any direction and find someone more extreme-looking than me. I still don't understand why I'm always looked at like an escaped circus freak when American ganguro girls wearing slutty clothes are considered acceptable. I may walk around in Goth Casual most of the time but at least I'm always covered up.
I don't know, maybe I'm not good enough, or interesting enough, to hold anyone's attention, or something like that. I feel like I bore people when I talk, so most of the time I just shut up. Nobody cares what I have to say, so why say anything? Even when my opinion is asked, most people I talk to are just looking for validation of their own statements. I'm sure that most of the friends I made in Athens are gonna forget me in two months. I don't make a huge impact on anybody. I've always failed. And it hurts because I've tried so hard to do everything I could for the people I cared about... As long as someone is my friend, they'll never be without a sympathetic ear, or a ride home, or someone to hang out with, or anything.
There was even someone I desperately wanted to be with, when I was seventeen and eighteen. He was my everything, my best friend, my Superman. He had his problems, a lot of them, but I didn't care. I just wanted him to love me back. And I couldn't even have that much. After I stood by him through everything he put me up against- his awful past, his drug addiction, everything. At this point, sometimes, I wonder if it was my fault, or if things were just... going to happen that way, one way or the other. In either case, I have no desire to ever go through all that again.
So I had an extremely awkward conversation about what a loser I am with my stepdad. Great. I hope he mentions it to my stepsister and she rips him a new asshole for talking to me that way. I didn't need anybody to remind me of how lonely I am, or that it's really horrible that I cry myself to sleep some nights because even after everything I've done to try to make myself into a more well-rounded person, I'm still so envious of my friends that don't have to have the same thoughts as I do. The "Well, maybe I am going to die alone" and the "I'm not really that disgusting, am I?" thoughts that make you just want to go to sleep and not wake up. Every time I think I've accepted my fate, someone comes along and just makes me feel like a pile of dog shit and I'm so tired of it. At this point, I feel like, if it's going to happen, it'll happen. If not, I'll have to live with it. I just don't want to settle for someone I don't want in order not to look like some pathetic nobody.
I understand that the way I live my life isn't normal. I just wish people would leave me the fuck alone about it because I'm not hurting anybody.