Sometimes I get to thinking
Most of the people I hang out with on a day to day basis in my current life never even knew me during the happiest time in my life.
Me as a happy, nice, funny guy must seem a completely abstract concept to them. "You were always smiling and laughing."
Now I have this vicious, ugly, bitter, tragically funny thing going for me now. And it hurts like fucking hell.
This town and its friendships are transient by nature. People come and stay for a few years while they go to college, maybe a few more, and then they move on with their lives. Not good for someone like me, someone who has always just wanted to find permanence.
I think about these people who mean so much to me, and I think about the fact that 3 years ago, they weren't a part of my life. They never knew the most important person that was ever in my life except as this kind of abstract concept from my past. They never even saw my band that was my mouthpiece for what I thought was really important for 5 years. In another 3 years, where are they gonna be? I only have one friend that I see on a regular basis these days that has been there longer than most, that I can comfortably believe we'll never drift apart when I go over all the worst case scenarios.
When I graduate from Rutgers finally (that is, provided I stop being a shithead, currently it's well past 4 on a school night and I am unprepared for my classes tomorrow) I won't feel any sense of accomplishment whatsoever. All I'll feel is a temporary relief...like I've struggled and gotten my breathing orifices to the surface of the water briefly, before I get dragged under again.
My family will be proud but probably like me, it will be more relief. Exactly how proud can you be of a son who graduated 5th in his high school class and took 7 years of wasting time and wasting your money to get a bachelor's degree? I'll get plenty of ecstatic pats on the back, followed quickly by, I'm certain, a resumption of the same worry that my family has for my ability to survive in this world. Instead of a fuckup college dropout/fuckup college student I'll be a fuckup college graduate.
I'll still be living with depression and laziness and I'll still be too overwhelmed by the problems in the world to know what to do about them and I'll still be failing at music probably because nobody really cares and I still won't have any money and I won't get a good job. My car will fall apart and I won't have enough money to repair it or get a new one because I can't ever build up a savings. And I'll still be haunted by the fact that at one point in my life I had everything I could ever want. Life wasn't perfect but it may as well have been, and I was completely happy in a very real way. And the idea that I might never have that again has cast a shadow over my entire life since then, a shadow from which I don't ever see myself emerging. I hate to sound melodramatic, but this is the way it sounds to be in my head every day of my life. Whenever I seem happy nowadays, it's an adaptation to be able to pile other emotions on top of the base of pain and ache that is ever-present.
I hope everyone else I've met in the last couple of years has a good life.
Me as a happy, nice, funny guy must seem a completely abstract concept to them. "You were always smiling and laughing."
Now I have this vicious, ugly, bitter, tragically funny thing going for me now. And it hurts like fucking hell.
This town and its friendships are transient by nature. People come and stay for a few years while they go to college, maybe a few more, and then they move on with their lives. Not good for someone like me, someone who has always just wanted to find permanence.
I think about these people who mean so much to me, and I think about the fact that 3 years ago, they weren't a part of my life. They never knew the most important person that was ever in my life except as this kind of abstract concept from my past. They never even saw my band that was my mouthpiece for what I thought was really important for 5 years. In another 3 years, where are they gonna be? I only have one friend that I see on a regular basis these days that has been there longer than most, that I can comfortably believe we'll never drift apart when I go over all the worst case scenarios.
When I graduate from Rutgers finally (that is, provided I stop being a shithead, currently it's well past 4 on a school night and I am unprepared for my classes tomorrow) I won't feel any sense of accomplishment whatsoever. All I'll feel is a temporary relief...like I've struggled and gotten my breathing orifices to the surface of the water briefly, before I get dragged under again.
My family will be proud but probably like me, it will be more relief. Exactly how proud can you be of a son who graduated 5th in his high school class and took 7 years of wasting time and wasting your money to get a bachelor's degree? I'll get plenty of ecstatic pats on the back, followed quickly by, I'm certain, a resumption of the same worry that my family has for my ability to survive in this world. Instead of a fuckup college dropout/fuckup college student I'll be a fuckup college graduate.
I'll still be living with depression and laziness and I'll still be too overwhelmed by the problems in the world to know what to do about them and I'll still be failing at music probably because nobody really cares and I still won't have any money and I won't get a good job. My car will fall apart and I won't have enough money to repair it or get a new one because I can't ever build up a savings. And I'll still be haunted by the fact that at one point in my life I had everything I could ever want. Life wasn't perfect but it may as well have been, and I was completely happy in a very real way. And the idea that I might never have that again has cast a shadow over my entire life since then, a shadow from which I don't ever see myself emerging. I hate to sound melodramatic, but this is the way it sounds to be in my head every day of my life. Whenever I seem happy nowadays, it's an adaptation to be able to pile other emotions on top of the base of pain and ache that is ever-present.
I hope everyone else I've met in the last couple of years has a good life.