In the interest of keeping everyone on the same page:

May 05, 2009 09:55

This is what I posted in my MySpace blog the same day as my last entry here. I titled it "Other People."

***
Other people seem to be okay. I don't mean other people like the ones in Darfur, but other people I know.

Used to know, I suppose, is more accurate.

I used to know other people. Other people used to know me. There wasn't a lot to know, really, but there it was. Now, not so much. I occasionally peek in on other people I used to know with the help of MySpace or LiveJournal, and they seem to be doing well, on the whole. It is somehow comforting to me that the pervasive darkness and chaos that fill my world are largely confined there.

Other people have those things, too, obviously. Darkness and chaos are everywhere, just as light and order are everywhere. Other people seem to have those things mostly in balance, even if they don't see that. I suppose other people might say the same about me.

Or they would, if they were talking about me. I am fairly certain they are not, beyond the occasional "remember Eddie? What's he up to?" sort of remark. I am, to the world at large, a casual memory. Some other people probably have negative or angry memories of me, but none that make a lasting impression. That's okay. I'm glad I haven't screwed anyone up too badly. At least, I hope I haven't.

I miss other people. There are a few, whom I treasure beyond my capacity to express, who continually make their presence known in my dark, chaotic world. But my relationships with other people are limited. I am far distant from other people. Physically, I am removed from the other people I knew, and who knew me. There are other people here, obviously, but I don't know them and have no real way to connect with them. More than that, though, I am removed from other people because who I am is so far submerged beneath the facade I maintain for purely practical reasons.

I work with other people, who I imagine think of me as quiet and reserved, perhaps intelligent and clever, but mostly sad and frustrated.

I recently went to school with other people, who I imagine thought of me as talented but unreliable. I expect this to resume in the fall. Hopefully I will appear less unreliable than in the past, as I'm not sure they give graduate degrees to the unreliable.

I occasionally play games with other people, who I imagine think of me as reasonably artistic and under a great deal of stress.

The other people I used to know are a different matter. I imagine most other people find the melancholy lump of human in front of them a pretty poor return on all the effort they invest to reach out to me. I make an effort to hold back the anger and frustration and loneliness when I talk to other people, but that doesn't leave me a lot to work with, so I'm not sure what ends up coming across.

I do not blame other people for my state. I doubt I'd be able to muster much effort to talk to me either. It's just not worth the trouble.

But to get back to my original point, I'm glad other people mostly seem okay. The other people I used to know appear largely unchanged from the way I remember them - as charming or intelligent or kind or beautiful or some combination of pleasant traits as they ever were. I wish I could shake off the darkness and chaos and rejoin the other people I used to know.

I'm not sure that will ever be possible, even when I am free of the immediate cause of my isolation. I am afraid - deeply, terribly afraid - that these last few long years have poisoned the person other people knew me to be. I cannot remember how life used to feel, but I occasionally come across something I wrote long ago and I can't help feeling like it was the work of someone else. The old me, I fear, is just one more other person I used to know.
***

I appreciate the comments, and I don't mean to worry anyone (any more than usual, that is). I am, in a general sense, okay. My living situation, which has been wearing on me for years, feels like it is about to finally wear right through me, but it is also drawing to a close. For real this time, because we need to vacate the house so it can be fixed up for new tenants. It's out of my hands, so I can't cave this time.

I will try, in the coming weeks, to be more communicative. I'll be moving back to Hendersonville this summer, and that is change I can believe in. :)
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