It is indeed a Black Day.
Not really though.
The day after. Somewhat reminiscent of the morning after. Only difference is, there's only a pill for the morning after. But enough about that.
I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. Mine was quite nice. Had the family (nuclear only, our nearest relatives are about 13 states away) home together for a nice home-cooked meal, played a bunch of board games and some cards and some foosball.
Overall, a good time with good folks. Missed some friends though. And today, well, I feel emptier than I have in years. It's so strange. Even now, after all the changes I've gone through, all the things I've learned about myself and others, I still seem to fluctuate from minute to minute from one absolute end of the spectrum to the other and back again. The only difference, it seems, is now I can control how I react to that fluctuation, and sometimes I can control the fluctuation itself, if I have the focus, the willpower, and the energy to do so.
I have come to get no enjoyment out of facebook anymore. I feel as I did a few years ago, sometimes, that I'm seeing totally different people that I don't really know on facebook. Furthermore, I feel well behind the curve of others' lives, relationships, education, and progress through life successfully. I feel as though I have failed in virtually every way, compared to others who seem to get everything right the first time, or second, or third, whereas I haven't even had my first chance yet. Or I have, and I've managed to bollocks it up so badly that I won't get another chance.
But every condition is temporary, and soon I won't feel this way at all, and I'll wonder how I once did. Well, maybe the facebook thing, but the behind-the-curve feeling I've been dealing with for a while; it's only just manifested as something I can pinpoint and talk about recently.
Death by a thousand cuts; that's what living feels like to me sometimes. Except I already have a thousand cuts, and life's starting on the next thousand.
I made a promise. I swore to keep living, keep trying, no matter how hard it was. And I'm not going to break that promise. But goddamn it's hard to keep getting up when the ground keeps crumbling beneath your feet with every step you take.
I will not break that promise.
*****************
Yesterday, after most of the Thanksgiving festivities had completed, my brother had started discussing the costs of his taking trips to ski resorts to snowboard. Long story short, there was an argument with my parents about money and the availability of stuff he wanted. He can be very ungrateful sometimes.
Ungrateful, and unaware. My parents have already spent well over $350 on a snowboard and related gear for him, and he had wanted a season pass to the ski resort for the winter. Personally, I was appalled that he had asked my parents for the snowboard, instead of just renting at the mountain. However...my mom thought of a great solution. Since we're tight on money as a family, and we have been for several years, Christmas presents in my family have become kind of a once-a-year treat by my parents for the kids, something they want that they can afford to splurge on occasionally. My mother suggested that the season pass be my brother's christmas present this year, at which point he exploded into something of a fit and explained that he wanted a new iPod for christmas.
Another long argument ensued, followed closely by my brother fleeing to his room at noone's suggestion or command, and my mother feeling bad for trying to make him feel a bit more responsible.
Every parent wants their child to have anything they want. Both my parents grew up dirt poor, so they were on the receiving end of parents who did not have the means. Naturally, they've tried their hardest to give each of their three children everything they've wanted; but there are limits. Especially after all the hospitalization stuff my mom's been through and the school I've been trying to navigate through. So the bottom line is, it's just not possible. My brother doesn't seem to understand that. Of course, he grew up in a generation different than mine; which may explain why I never felt so entitled as he. Kids his age and younger all have cellphones, videogame systems, just about anything they want whenever they ask for it, and he's gotten conditioned to that as the norm. Peer pressure, or peer presence, or whatever the hell it's called, is a huge influence on him. It never was so much on me. I'm a freak that way.
He also has quite a few friends with rich parents, though...and that may be the real and true source of the problem. Little tweenie idiots who feel entitled to everything, who feel they're better than anyone, and simply do not know the experience of not getting what they want. The few times I've had to be around them, I could feel the arrogant self-righteousness flowing off of them, the spoiled nature, the avarice, the pride. Children whose parents leave them alone for days in a house full of expensive trinkets and gadgets, parents who do not know how to say no to their children. Kids and adults I would be more than happy to cut down to size if given enough push. People like that, the greedy, prideful, self-serving people like that are the people that doom this world to things like war, pollution, prejudice. They make me sick. Karma needs to take a break from keeping me down in the dumps and alone and fat and single and not enjoying life and cut them down by slicing off their knees.
The injustices of this world are more than frustrating.
*****************
I've been talking to my mom about not continuing the nursing program next semester. At first, she didn't really have a reaction. Then, for about a week or so, she felt like that was a really bad idea. We had a nice long argument about it, making me feel like shit and her not much better, and we worked it out between us, more or less. In that argument, she had mentioned bringing the subject to my dad's attention, at which point I had told her that she wasn't listening and that dad wouldn't either. However, yesterday at thanksgiving, something happened that made me really appreciate my dad's observational skills.
His brother, my uncle Milton, the one whose wife is Reiki practitioner, called to say hello and season's greetings and all that jazz, and to talk about football, as they often do. However, after all those brotherly traditions, my dad started giving him updates on the family, how everyone was, what they're up to, school and work and home and all that....and he got to me in the list of family members, and this is what he said:
"Oh yeah, and Travis is finishing up his first semester in Nursing school, and he's trying to figure out if that's where he belongs."
I almost cried when I heard him say that. I mean, my dad and I have always had a pretty good relationship, but he's pretty intimidating sometimes, and usually discussing education (and especially changing or temporarily stopping education) is not a fun business, so I figured I was going to have to sit down and talk with him about my plans and feel really bad the whole time, and here he was understanding and accepting my plight. It was very touching.
There was another very touching moment last night, though it was a bit more on the sad side than anything else.
I forget what exactly had spurned the conversation, but at some point I had talked about moving down south and out of the house in the near future. My mom had been lying on the couch on the other side of the room as I sat by the fire holding a kitty, and she had sad in a voice that I couldn't really interpret that "I don't think I'm ready for you to leave yet." I wasn't sure if she was sad or if she was just being nice, but when I looked over she was crying. I told her I wasn't leaving at the moment, and that it certainly scared the hell out of me...a lot of times it seems like my parents are ashamed of me and they just want me out, but sometimes they say and do things like that and show that they don't mind having me around so much. It's a very broad spectrum of very intense emotions at my house. I had almost cried then too.
*****************
It's taken me about an hour to make this entry, due to interruptions and points where I've had to stop and think, so even though it says posted at 11:41, I actually posted it at about 12:50.
I'm working until 3:00 today, and then I'm not sure what I'm doing. I may nap, I may not. I'm pretty tired, I couldn't fall asleep last night either, and I haven't failed yet to have that recurring dream, though I also had a fairly long other dream that involved my meditating in a parking lot and then being intruded upon by some idiot I went to school with years ago, and my reaching into his mind with my aura and influencing his thoughts. It was very bizarre.
I only have four minutes before I lied about the time I actually posted this entry...so I'll be brief.
I already feel better...just writing out my feelings helps me disperse them, when I don't have the energy or the will to banish them the way I usually do. I don't feel that I'm getting weaker or less able to deal with problems, I just feel as though there are more that are making themselves known at the moment. Who knows what the future holds.
I do believe everything happens for a reason. And I still cling, however futilely, to foolish hope, and I will see where my destiny takes me.
-"So how do you deal with it? Not being with them all the time, not being able to grant them their every wish?"
-"With love. I deal with it with love. I know I can't be there for her every time, and I can't give her all of her dreams on a silver plate. But I make up for it by loving her with every fiber of my being. And that's enough."
----Masane discussing the ways of a single mother in Witchblade.
<3<3<3
The day after. Somewhat reminiscent of the morning after. Only difference is, there's only a pill for the morning after. But enough about that.
I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. Mine was quite nice. Had the family (nuclear only, our nearest relatives are about 13 states away) home together for a nice home-cooked meal, played a bunch of board games and some cards and some foosball.
Overall, a good time with good folks. Missed some friends though. And today, well, I feel emptier than I have in years. It's so strange. Even now, after all the changes I've gone through, all the things I've learned about myself and others, I still seem to fluctuate from minute to minute from one absolute end of the spectrum to the other and back again. The only difference, it seems, is now I can control how I react to that fluctuation, and sometimes I can control the fluctuation itself, if I have the focus, the willpower, and the energy to do so.
I have come to get no enjoyment out of facebook anymore. I feel as I did a few years ago, sometimes, that I'm seeing totally different people that I don't really know on facebook. Furthermore, I feel well behind the curve of others' lives, relationships, education, and progress through life successfully. I feel as though I have failed in virtually every way, compared to others who seem to get everything right the first time, or second, or third, whereas I haven't even had my first chance yet. Or I have, and I've managed to bollocks it up so badly that I won't get another chance.
But every condition is temporary, and soon I won't feel this way at all, and I'll wonder how I once did. Well, maybe the facebook thing, but the behind-the-curve feeling I've been dealing with for a while; it's only just manifested as something I can pinpoint and talk about recently.
Death by a thousand cuts; that's what living feels like to me sometimes. Except I already have a thousand cuts, and life's starting on the next thousand.
I made a promise. I swore to keep living, keep trying, no matter how hard it was. And I'm not going to break that promise. But goddamn it's hard to keep getting up when the ground keeps crumbling beneath your feet with every step you take.
I will not break that promise.
*****************
Yesterday, after most of the Thanksgiving festivities had completed, my brother had started discussing the costs of his taking trips to ski resorts to snowboard. Long story short, there was an argument with my parents about money and the availability of stuff he wanted. He can be very ungrateful sometimes.
Ungrateful, and unaware. My parents have already spent well over $350 on a snowboard and related gear for him, and he had wanted a season pass to the ski resort for the winter. Personally, I was appalled that he had asked my parents for the snowboard, instead of just renting at the mountain. However...my mom thought of a great solution. Since we're tight on money as a family, and we have been for several years, Christmas presents in my family have become kind of a once-a-year treat by my parents for the kids, something they want that they can afford to splurge on occasionally. My mother suggested that the season pass be my brother's christmas present this year, at which point he exploded into something of a fit and explained that he wanted a new iPod for christmas.
Another long argument ensued, followed closely by my brother fleeing to his room at noone's suggestion or command, and my mother feeling bad for trying to make him feel a bit more responsible.
Every parent wants their child to have anything they want. Both my parents grew up dirt poor, so they were on the receiving end of parents who did not have the means. Naturally, they've tried their hardest to give each of their three children everything they've wanted; but there are limits. Especially after all the hospitalization stuff my mom's been through and the school I've been trying to navigate through. So the bottom line is, it's just not possible. My brother doesn't seem to understand that. Of course, he grew up in a generation different than mine; which may explain why I never felt so entitled as he. Kids his age and younger all have cellphones, videogame systems, just about anything they want whenever they ask for it, and he's gotten conditioned to that as the norm. Peer pressure, or peer presence, or whatever the hell it's called, is a huge influence on him. It never was so much on me. I'm a freak that way.
He also has quite a few friends with rich parents, though...and that may be the real and true source of the problem. Little tweenie idiots who feel entitled to everything, who feel they're better than anyone, and simply do not know the experience of not getting what they want. The few times I've had to be around them, I could feel the arrogant self-righteousness flowing off of them, the spoiled nature, the avarice, the pride. Children whose parents leave them alone for days in a house full of expensive trinkets and gadgets, parents who do not know how to say no to their children. Kids and adults I would be more than happy to cut down to size if given enough push. People like that, the greedy, prideful, self-serving people like that are the people that doom this world to things like war, pollution, prejudice. They make me sick. Karma needs to take a break from keeping me down in the dumps and alone and fat and single and not enjoying life and cut them down by slicing off their knees.
The injustices of this world are more than frustrating.
*****************
I've been talking to my mom about not continuing the nursing program next semester. At first, she didn't really have a reaction. Then, for about a week or so, she felt like that was a really bad idea. We had a nice long argument about it, making me feel like shit and her not much better, and we worked it out between us, more or less. In that argument, she had mentioned bringing the subject to my dad's attention, at which point I had told her that she wasn't listening and that dad wouldn't either. However, yesterday at thanksgiving, something happened that made me really appreciate my dad's observational skills.
His brother, my uncle Milton, the one whose wife is Reiki practitioner, called to say hello and season's greetings and all that jazz, and to talk about football, as they often do. However, after all those brotherly traditions, my dad started giving him updates on the family, how everyone was, what they're up to, school and work and home and all that....and he got to me in the list of family members, and this is what he said:
"Oh yeah, and Travis is finishing up his first semester in Nursing school, and he's trying to figure out if that's where he belongs."
I almost cried when I heard him say that. I mean, my dad and I have always had a pretty good relationship, but he's pretty intimidating sometimes, and usually discussing education (and especially changing or temporarily stopping education) is not a fun business, so I figured I was going to have to sit down and talk with him about my plans and feel really bad the whole time, and here he was understanding and accepting my plight. It was very touching.
There was another very touching moment last night, though it was a bit more on the sad side than anything else.
I forget what exactly had spurned the conversation, but at some point I had talked about moving down south and out of the house in the near future. My mom had been lying on the couch on the other side of the room as I sat by the fire holding a kitty, and she had sad in a voice that I couldn't really interpret that "I don't think I'm ready for you to leave yet." I wasn't sure if she was sad or if she was just being nice, but when I looked over she was crying. I told her I wasn't leaving at the moment, and that it certainly scared the hell out of me...a lot of times it seems like my parents are ashamed of me and they just want me out, but sometimes they say and do things like that and show that they don't mind having me around so much. It's a very broad spectrum of very intense emotions at my house. I had almost cried then too.
*****************
It's taken me about an hour to make this entry, due to interruptions and points where I've had to stop and think, so even though it says posted at 11:41, I actually posted it at about 12:50.
I'm working until 3:00 today, and then I'm not sure what I'm doing. I may nap, I may not. I'm pretty tired, I couldn't fall asleep last night either, and I haven't failed yet to have that recurring dream, though I also had a fairly long other dream that involved my meditating in a parking lot and then being intruded upon by some idiot I went to school with years ago, and my reaching into his mind with my aura and influencing his thoughts. It was very bizarre.
I only have four minutes before I lied about the time I actually posted this entry...so I'll be brief.
I already feel better...just writing out my feelings helps me disperse them, when I don't have the energy or the will to banish them the way I usually do. I don't feel that I'm getting weaker or less able to deal with problems, I just feel as though there are more that are making themselves known at the moment. Who knows what the future holds.
I do believe everything happens for a reason. And I still cling, however futilely, to foolish hope, and I will see where my destiny takes me.
-"So how do you deal with it? Not being with them all the time, not being able to grant them their every wish?"
-"With love. I deal with it with love. I know I can't be there for her every time, and I can't give her all of her dreams on a silver plate. But I make up for it by loving her with every fiber of my being. And that's enough."
----Masane discussing the ways of a single mother in Witchblade.
<3<3<3