Ragged ends
It's an odd feeling. Knowing that other people can surpass me. Not an upsetting feeling you understand, just odd. For so long I was so wrapped up in myself, that I honestly never considered that there were other people who had suffered as much, if not more than I did. Or the possibility that they would hold up better under pressure. I'm glad that my real friends have that kind of strength. The strength to survive the terrible terrible ways people treat each other in this world. The strength not to be broken. I asked someone "why". Why did they not want punishment for those that wronged them. I knew when I asked that question, what the answer would be. But I wanted to hear someone besides me say it. Anger and rage are a waste. Hate is a waste. Although I have never balked at doing what needs to be done, nor would I not shed my morals and feelings to protect the people I love from harm. But I would only do these things because I had to. Not because I want to. The strength of my friends are what decide these things. That they choose to bear up under the abuses of their tormentors is thier right. I would be dishonoring them by imposing my rules and standards and punsihments on thier lives unasked for. My personal feelings are my own. And they are not always right. As I get older I realize more and more, that I have been guilty of so many of the things that I despised in people. I was judgemental, wrathful, vain, selfish, apathetic, and hyppocritical. I can't help but wonder why I have any friends at all. What bothered me as much as anything was seeing myself reflected in the person that was causing my friend grief. So many parallels in my behavior. I was so ashamed of myself that night. If I ever really hated myself, it was seeing myself in that other person's skin. I wish, like I have so many times before, that I had the courage to take my own life. For so many years I wasn't afriad of being killed, but I could never summon the courage to send myself to Hell. For all the good I've tried to do, for all the good I want to do, I still deserve to be punished. I deserve my empty house, my empty life. The hopelessness, the loneliness. To be honest, I'm getting off light. All I ever do is cause poeple to suffer. No matter what I do, it keeps turning out wrong. I don't want to be the bad guy. But I don't deserve to be anything else.