So, it's that time of the year again
As the title says.
Normally, around this time of the year, I fall into fits of madness and rage and despair mostly due to my unhinged side coming out in full play, magnified by loneliness in a season for love and family.
It has been better this year. Oddly enough, since I haven't really been doing anything. Which may have been the point. Work keeps me busy, too busy to dwell on things, and more to the point, there haven't been any traumatic events this year (unlike last year, or the year before that, or the year before that as well). That does serve to bolster me against emotional upheavals. There's something to be said in favour of a boring life.
I have been happier this year. Happiness really is a choice. I make a conscious effort to smile, to make myself embrace joy instead of clinging to pain and sadness. There are too many things in life that could get us down. Life is hard enough without having to bear the burden of sadness. So I skate across the surface, with a different facade from before, a joyful smile and cheer to all I meet.
I look back and hope to embrace my past self. Who was hurt, who hurt others and was mad and sad, selfish and generous and holding nothing and too much back. I do not think I could love someone such as myself, but I could live with her. I kind of have to, considering disassociative personality disorder could be an issue.
Learning to let go is an important life skill. Feigning simplicity until it's no longer an act...there is joy in being uncomplicated. I like cute things, pretty things, penguins and idols. I love music and singing and I secretly want to dance. I'm silly and goofy and not very graceful or tidy, but somehow I manage. Dancing through life~ Even if it's not entirely me, it's a side of me that I'm happy to show the world, the side that is happy to be unremarkably nothing.
The geeky, the crazy, the sadism...subverted to benign eccentricities. A blunted knife doesn't cut as well, even if it can still be used to poke an eye out in a jiffy. I've never really changed, if I even can change. I reinvent my external face every so often, and this is the most successful iteration yet. I might even keep it.
Who knows? It seems to suit me. Still, I miss the intensity of feeling, of emotions so intense I want to crawl right out of my skin, of rage and sensation so primeval I could claw at my skin and raise great furrows and not even express a fraction of the turmoil underneath. There is a flatness to this existence that I am grateful for, a condition oddly familiar to someone who has once been on anti-depressants. This happiness is fleeting and possibly hollow, though I try to put a good face on it.
I am...content. Not truly happy, just...not unhappy. And considering all the things that has happened in my life, this is not unwelcome. Excitement pales after a while, and calmness can be appreciated on a cool day with no others to disturb you. I do get...restless occasionally though. Nothing to ignite my passions, to the point where I doubt that I even possess the faculty to even have them. There is a disconnect within myself, from the me who felt so intensely that it could tear a mind apart, and this present self where Zen is a hidden byword. I'm still myself, but I do find myself...bored. At times.
And then I remember what happened before, and resolve never to get into situations I cannot safely extricate myself from. I stand on the sidelines now, admiring because it is safer to look than to touch and feel and experience. You can't break something you never touched. I can describe the shape and look of it, but I do not touch it for myself. I am clumsy, and will probably break things if allowed to handle them. Things, people, feelings. I can pay for the first, not for the next two. There is no restitution for that. Not anywhere near enough.
And no, no one ever offered to pay me for the damages I suffered either, but such is life. There is risk, and one must absorb losses as they come. Any insurance company could tell you that.
I no longer feel special. Or particularly loved. I am loved, to some extent, but so is everyone else, in their own way. I am unremarkable. Nothing to earmark me from a crowd, unless I happen to be standing up in an Asian city, then yes, I will stand out whether I like it or not. Heh, height jokes never get old.
I wonder why hiding myself feels so normal, because it feels unnatural to talk about who I really am, instead of the persona I play. I feel somewhat disgusted when I feel obliged to cover up my gay side. I don't even know why I cover it up. I just...feel completely uncomfortable telling other people about it. It's none of their business, and normally it's not even an issue until they make completely insensitive comments that offend me, but I just swallow my objections and soldier on. I am not very brave, when I think about it. I like to think I am, but I really am not. I'm not brave enough to admit who I really am, after all. If I even know who I am.
Thing is, I blend in relatively well. Not perfectly, but well enough that people don't straight up ask me if I'm gay. Haha. It amuses me. But yet, when they do find out, they're not particularly surprised either. I'm...unconventional, after all. The stereotypes bother me a lot. LGBT don't have to look a certain way. We're just people. And people come in all shapes and sizes. Why be limited to just one thing? That's the one thing that always gets me. I can usually tell with some people, not because of how they look, but by how they act and what they talk about. There are tells, if you know what you're looking for. But then again, why should it matter? I'm far more interested in people beyond gender and sexuality. It's a part of who they are, but it's not the totality of their existence. Just as it's not a totality of mine. Part of why I don't discuss it, but it would be nice if I could talk about it. Sometimes. Nice to feel...untrammelled. Free, to some extent. An illusion, but a nice one nevertheless.
Look at me getting all maudlin. Well, I should get going. Nothing good will come of dwelling on these things.
I should know. I've been there before.
Normally, around this time of the year, I fall into fits of madness and rage and despair mostly due to my unhinged side coming out in full play, magnified by loneliness in a season for love and family.
It has been better this year. Oddly enough, since I haven't really been doing anything. Which may have been the point. Work keeps me busy, too busy to dwell on things, and more to the point, there haven't been any traumatic events this year (unlike last year, or the year before that, or the year before that as well). That does serve to bolster me against emotional upheavals. There's something to be said in favour of a boring life.
I have been happier this year. Happiness really is a choice. I make a conscious effort to smile, to make myself embrace joy instead of clinging to pain and sadness. There are too many things in life that could get us down. Life is hard enough without having to bear the burden of sadness. So I skate across the surface, with a different facade from before, a joyful smile and cheer to all I meet.
I look back and hope to embrace my past self. Who was hurt, who hurt others and was mad and sad, selfish and generous and holding nothing and too much back. I do not think I could love someone such as myself, but I could live with her. I kind of have to, considering disassociative personality disorder could be an issue.
Learning to let go is an important life skill. Feigning simplicity until it's no longer an act...there is joy in being uncomplicated. I like cute things, pretty things, penguins and idols. I love music and singing and I secretly want to dance. I'm silly and goofy and not very graceful or tidy, but somehow I manage. Dancing through life~ Even if it's not entirely me, it's a side of me that I'm happy to show the world, the side that is happy to be unremarkably nothing.
The geeky, the crazy, the sadism...subverted to benign eccentricities. A blunted knife doesn't cut as well, even if it can still be used to poke an eye out in a jiffy. I've never really changed, if I even can change. I reinvent my external face every so often, and this is the most successful iteration yet. I might even keep it.
Who knows? It seems to suit me. Still, I miss the intensity of feeling, of emotions so intense I want to crawl right out of my skin, of rage and sensation so primeval I could claw at my skin and raise great furrows and not even express a fraction of the turmoil underneath. There is a flatness to this existence that I am grateful for, a condition oddly familiar to someone who has once been on anti-depressants. This happiness is fleeting and possibly hollow, though I try to put a good face on it.
I am...content. Not truly happy, just...not unhappy. And considering all the things that has happened in my life, this is not unwelcome. Excitement pales after a while, and calmness can be appreciated on a cool day with no others to disturb you. I do get...restless occasionally though. Nothing to ignite my passions, to the point where I doubt that I even possess the faculty to even have them. There is a disconnect within myself, from the me who felt so intensely that it could tear a mind apart, and this present self where Zen is a hidden byword. I'm still myself, but I do find myself...bored. At times.
And then I remember what happened before, and resolve never to get into situations I cannot safely extricate myself from. I stand on the sidelines now, admiring because it is safer to look than to touch and feel and experience. You can't break something you never touched. I can describe the shape and look of it, but I do not touch it for myself. I am clumsy, and will probably break things if allowed to handle them. Things, people, feelings. I can pay for the first, not for the next two. There is no restitution for that. Not anywhere near enough.
And no, no one ever offered to pay me for the damages I suffered either, but such is life. There is risk, and one must absorb losses as they come. Any insurance company could tell you that.
I no longer feel special. Or particularly loved. I am loved, to some extent, but so is everyone else, in their own way. I am unremarkable. Nothing to earmark me from a crowd, unless I happen to be standing up in an Asian city, then yes, I will stand out whether I like it or not. Heh, height jokes never get old.
I wonder why hiding myself feels so normal, because it feels unnatural to talk about who I really am, instead of the persona I play. I feel somewhat disgusted when I feel obliged to cover up my gay side. I don't even know why I cover it up. I just...feel completely uncomfortable telling other people about it. It's none of their business, and normally it's not even an issue until they make completely insensitive comments that offend me, but I just swallow my objections and soldier on. I am not very brave, when I think about it. I like to think I am, but I really am not. I'm not brave enough to admit who I really am, after all. If I even know who I am.
Thing is, I blend in relatively well. Not perfectly, but well enough that people don't straight up ask me if I'm gay. Haha. It amuses me. But yet, when they do find out, they're not particularly surprised either. I'm...unconventional, after all. The stereotypes bother me a lot. LGBT don't have to look a certain way. We're just people. And people come in all shapes and sizes. Why be limited to just one thing? That's the one thing that always gets me. I can usually tell with some people, not because of how they look, but by how they act and what they talk about. There are tells, if you know what you're looking for. But then again, why should it matter? I'm far more interested in people beyond gender and sexuality. It's a part of who they are, but it's not the totality of their existence. Just as it's not a totality of mine. Part of why I don't discuss it, but it would be nice if I could talk about it. Sometimes. Nice to feel...untrammelled. Free, to some extent. An illusion, but a nice one nevertheless.
Look at me getting all maudlin. Well, I should get going. Nothing good will come of dwelling on these things.
I should know. I've been there before.