mirror mirror on the wall...
Sigh.
I wonder how often I begin these entries with a sigh, often times with reason. This is not one of those times, though, so I begin with sigh that has meaning but no relevance. I don't know exactly what I wish to talk about, so this will more than likely take a random leap into something depressing, or I will rant on about my life in some way or another. Yet, isn't that all I really have to talk about? My life? I'm not a worldly person in the sense that I don't really care about current events in the world, so how can I speak of those when I haven't any idea about them? Sure I could speak about some silly celebrity, but to what end? Or I could talk about music, or books I'm reading, but in truth, they aren't what causes me to write. My life, or lack of a life as I prefer to see it, is what troubles me, it's what brings me to this site too write out what I'm feeling. Is that such a boring thing that I have to pretend like I need to write about other things? Is it narcissistic to always be talking about myself, or in some way selfish? But again, what else do I have to talk about if not myself, than who, for who else is in my life that I can talk about? Which than raises the question, if I'm speaking of whoever, isn't that indirectly writing about my life again, as my only perspective is based off of mine and what happens to my life in regards to that person? I guess everyone is, in part, narcissistic, or maybe just selfish. I guess in reality that isn't a bad thing but I have always strived not to be selfish, and yet when I write it's always about me, me me me. Although I know I can't be narcissistic because I really despise myself, and it doesn't seem to fit well with the definition of narcissism.
But why do I despise myself? Aside from the obvious reason of feeling like a failure and burden on the world, what is it that really makes me self-loathe. To be truthful I think the overral problem lays with my body, and having been raised as male. When mind and body don't fit, and social conditioning doesn't fit, it doesn't seem like the healthiest place for love of ones self to grow. While I don't think having love for yourself is a bad thing, quite the contrary, it is good to feel well about yourself, it is one of the ways to being happy. If you aren't happy with yourself than how can you be happy in life. On another note, too much leads to narcissism/selfishness/etc. and that is, as far as I'm concerned, a bad thing. I differiniate between narcissism and having a healthy amount of love for yourself, because the former has to do with an unhealthy amount while the latter is a more healthy/happy based equation.
Anyway, to get back on this current topic. Being raised male, and having a male body... is one hell of an easy way to create self hate. I hate my body, any features that someone sees in my as attractive I can't see. I've been in situations before where people have made references to my appearance, such as 'hot' with stephanie, and again 'hot' with some random girl who I've never even met before. It's happend multiple times, and everytime I just shrug it off because I don't care, and quite frankly have no idea, because all I see in the mirror is a false reflection. I don't see "me", I see Nick Murray, I see someone who I am not, that never should have been. And yet I'm always reminded about it, that everyone else sees Nick Murray, and I have to throw on a face, a mask if you will, and pretend. Always pretending, always acting.
To my credit, I really did push back on social conditioning and what have you while growing up. Be it my nature by default, or just how I reacted too it, I've always been a quiet person that keeps to himself. I think that is mostly due to having strife within me, and although I didn't "know" what was wrong, that strife is what prevented me from going along with everything, why I was always outside of the box. Why, while growing up, I could never feel comfortable around a group of guys, or when partaking in 'guy' things, like sports. There are times when I kind of enjoyed it because they were my "friends", and it was kinda fun, but overrall the sporty things I did I never felt comfortable doing. Point and case, wrestling in sixth grade. Absolutely hated it, but I somehow felt I had to do it, for whatever reason, but that is of course because of the split between mind and body. I knew that I didn't want too, and that was only reinforced when I started wrestling and realized how uncomfortable it made me. I eventually quit, thankfully.
Seventh grade I played "football", or at least the Junior High equivalent to football. I stuck with it the whole season, but I never enjoyed it, I think the may reason I did it was because of the friends I grew up with were doing it, so I did. But I'll be damned if I ever enjoyed it. Needless to say I didn't do it again in eighth grade, or any time after that. No more sports for me, aside from P.E. in highschool. Which I hated, a lot. I don't mind running, running felt good, and certain things we did weren't bad. I always tried to do weight lifting too, because in my head I thought if I could get muscles and look more manly it would help reassert that male persona and maybe I'd feel more comfortable in my own skin. Of course that was never true, and I was never able to keep a steady regiment up with weight lifting.
P.E. was always my own personal hell, especially when we did things like football, or lacrosse, or hockey. I HATED doing those, so much, because for one I felt uncomfortable doing it, I disliked sports in general and lastly I looked like a fool, and knew that most of the kids probably made fun of me at some point. Not all of course, and I don't think most of the girls cared(aside from some I'm sure) but the guys I knew did. A few didn't the ones I considered 'friends' but the rest, and especially the "jocks" did. Not usually ever to my face but it's obvious they did. One time this guy, Luke, while I was running at one point he said too me, " you look like a fairy. " I had long hair at the time, as I did through most of highschool aside from the begining of my freshman year, so my hair would bounce when I ran. I ignored him, as I do every comment like that I come across. But damn, it hurts to be called names, and at the time I shrugged it off, it still eats at me. Because I know that while he had the balls to say that too me that day, there is every other day that he says shit with friends when I am not in hearing range. Thankfully P.E. was only for two years.
Anyway, so I pushed against sporty stuff, and guy stuff in general. I had a small contingent of friends up until my sophmore year, and after that it was only Bret, whom I saw every so often, generally on weekends obviously. Until my junior year when I met Evan, and than became friends with a few of her friends. But I never had any male-male friends after my freshman year, Bret wasn't sporty, and I didn't really have "male" friends aside from me, I don't count Jessy, James or Tim because they... I just don't count them as friends, even though Jessy really wanted to be good friends with me, I knew that I didn't want him as one. Chelsea was a "Friend", aka just school, and Brent was someone I felt comfortable around and am willing to call a friend, even though we never really talked much and only talked on occasion at school. Buddy was/is kind of a friend, he's someone I could hang out with and talk too because he's a good person to have a conversation with, but as a 'friend friend' i can't say he was. I suppose you could sum up my friends throughout my life were Bret and Evan. Nick was a friend, Ryan "was" a friend, but after Nick died... that ended, same with Ronnie, both were friends, albeit their interests were 100% different than mine, but I considered them pretty good friends. But when Nick died... that all ended. Travis is a cool guy, but we never really kept in touch, so oh well. Most of the people from before highschool I don't consider "friends", just people from the past. I miss Nick though, even though our friendship probably wouldn't have been much in the later parts of highschool, he was still a good friend before that, and I regret having not spent more time with him, even if I didn't enjoy the things he did. He wasn't a very smart kid, but he knew how to live, and how to be happy. To do this day I'd rather be dead a thousand times over if that meant he wouldn't be, because he had so much potential in being happy and living the life he wanted, and instead someone like me lives on.
So that's my dissapointing and sad talk about friends. I realize now that the only two people, and I won't include Nick because.... well, nevermind, but anyway, that the only two people I've considered actual close friends is Bret and Evan, and with two completely different relationships. With Evan, I can be.. me, albeit when I met her I wasn't fully aware of everything, and was a confused person for a good deal of the time, but I was still able to be myself with her, and talk too her and be open with her. I didn't have to put on that mask that I did with everyone else. Whereas with Bret, I have to put on that mask, but that mask is such a perfect fit after so many years it's almost like slipping into another persons personality and I'm able to enjoy my time with him now. I think it's better now because I know the "Real me", and that I've always put a mask on around him. So knowing that helps me able to just let go and embrace that mask to have a good time around him. It may not be a healthy thing in the long run, but in the mean time it is the best means of escaping my self. I've never been really talkative about my true feelings with him, I'm a good liar, be that a bad or good thing, and I know how to be vague yet detailed. So it works out in the end.
To tie this all up, I've always pushed back and resisted being male, even though I never knew why, and just thought I was different. I didn't feel special, or unqiue, just different. I still am, of course, everyone is different in their own right, but I at least know there is a place that I can somehow fit into, and given an reason to all those years of feeling out of the loop and uncomfortable. It's good to have definition like that, and I don't feel limited by it in the slightest. Which is a promising realization, perhaps I can somehow find a way to be more open to more definition in my life, so I can be more true to myself and finally be free. Be free of these chains, and be myself, and never worry about that mask that's been my guise for all my life.
It'll be a good day when I can look into the mirror and see Nicole, and not Nick.
I wonder how often I begin these entries with a sigh, often times with reason. This is not one of those times, though, so I begin with sigh that has meaning but no relevance. I don't know exactly what I wish to talk about, so this will more than likely take a random leap into something depressing, or I will rant on about my life in some way or another. Yet, isn't that all I really have to talk about? My life? I'm not a worldly person in the sense that I don't really care about current events in the world, so how can I speak of those when I haven't any idea about them? Sure I could speak about some silly celebrity, but to what end? Or I could talk about music, or books I'm reading, but in truth, they aren't what causes me to write. My life, or lack of a life as I prefer to see it, is what troubles me, it's what brings me to this site too write out what I'm feeling. Is that such a boring thing that I have to pretend like I need to write about other things? Is it narcissistic to always be talking about myself, or in some way selfish? But again, what else do I have to talk about if not myself, than who, for who else is in my life that I can talk about? Which than raises the question, if I'm speaking of whoever, isn't that indirectly writing about my life again, as my only perspective is based off of mine and what happens to my life in regards to that person? I guess everyone is, in part, narcissistic, or maybe just selfish. I guess in reality that isn't a bad thing but I have always strived not to be selfish, and yet when I write it's always about me, me me me. Although I know I can't be narcissistic because I really despise myself, and it doesn't seem to fit well with the definition of narcissism.
But why do I despise myself? Aside from the obvious reason of feeling like a failure and burden on the world, what is it that really makes me self-loathe. To be truthful I think the overral problem lays with my body, and having been raised as male. When mind and body don't fit, and social conditioning doesn't fit, it doesn't seem like the healthiest place for love of ones self to grow. While I don't think having love for yourself is a bad thing, quite the contrary, it is good to feel well about yourself, it is one of the ways to being happy. If you aren't happy with yourself than how can you be happy in life. On another note, too much leads to narcissism/selfishness/etc. and that is, as far as I'm concerned, a bad thing. I differiniate between narcissism and having a healthy amount of love for yourself, because the former has to do with an unhealthy amount while the latter is a more healthy/happy based equation.
Anyway, to get back on this current topic. Being raised male, and having a male body... is one hell of an easy way to create self hate. I hate my body, any features that someone sees in my as attractive I can't see. I've been in situations before where people have made references to my appearance, such as 'hot' with stephanie, and again 'hot' with some random girl who I've never even met before. It's happend multiple times, and everytime I just shrug it off because I don't care, and quite frankly have no idea, because all I see in the mirror is a false reflection. I don't see "me", I see Nick Murray, I see someone who I am not, that never should have been. And yet I'm always reminded about it, that everyone else sees Nick Murray, and I have to throw on a face, a mask if you will, and pretend. Always pretending, always acting.
To my credit, I really did push back on social conditioning and what have you while growing up. Be it my nature by default, or just how I reacted too it, I've always been a quiet person that keeps to himself. I think that is mostly due to having strife within me, and although I didn't "know" what was wrong, that strife is what prevented me from going along with everything, why I was always outside of the box. Why, while growing up, I could never feel comfortable around a group of guys, or when partaking in 'guy' things, like sports. There are times when I kind of enjoyed it because they were my "friends", and it was kinda fun, but overrall the sporty things I did I never felt comfortable doing. Point and case, wrestling in sixth grade. Absolutely hated it, but I somehow felt I had to do it, for whatever reason, but that is of course because of the split between mind and body. I knew that I didn't want too, and that was only reinforced when I started wrestling and realized how uncomfortable it made me. I eventually quit, thankfully.
Seventh grade I played "football", or at least the Junior High equivalent to football. I stuck with it the whole season, but I never enjoyed it, I think the may reason I did it was because of the friends I grew up with were doing it, so I did. But I'll be damned if I ever enjoyed it. Needless to say I didn't do it again in eighth grade, or any time after that. No more sports for me, aside from P.E. in highschool. Which I hated, a lot. I don't mind running, running felt good, and certain things we did weren't bad. I always tried to do weight lifting too, because in my head I thought if I could get muscles and look more manly it would help reassert that male persona and maybe I'd feel more comfortable in my own skin. Of course that was never true, and I was never able to keep a steady regiment up with weight lifting.
P.E. was always my own personal hell, especially when we did things like football, or lacrosse, or hockey. I HATED doing those, so much, because for one I felt uncomfortable doing it, I disliked sports in general and lastly I looked like a fool, and knew that most of the kids probably made fun of me at some point. Not all of course, and I don't think most of the girls cared(aside from some I'm sure) but the guys I knew did. A few didn't the ones I considered 'friends' but the rest, and especially the "jocks" did. Not usually ever to my face but it's obvious they did. One time this guy, Luke, while I was running at one point he said too me, " you look like a fairy. " I had long hair at the time, as I did through most of highschool aside from the begining of my freshman year, so my hair would bounce when I ran. I ignored him, as I do every comment like that I come across. But damn, it hurts to be called names, and at the time I shrugged it off, it still eats at me. Because I know that while he had the balls to say that too me that day, there is every other day that he says shit with friends when I am not in hearing range. Thankfully P.E. was only for two years.
Anyway, so I pushed against sporty stuff, and guy stuff in general. I had a small contingent of friends up until my sophmore year, and after that it was only Bret, whom I saw every so often, generally on weekends obviously. Until my junior year when I met Evan, and than became friends with a few of her friends. But I never had any male-male friends after my freshman year, Bret wasn't sporty, and I didn't really have "male" friends aside from me, I don't count Jessy, James or Tim because they... I just don't count them as friends, even though Jessy really wanted to be good friends with me, I knew that I didn't want him as one. Chelsea was a "Friend", aka just school, and Brent was someone I felt comfortable around and am willing to call a friend, even though we never really talked much and only talked on occasion at school. Buddy was/is kind of a friend, he's someone I could hang out with and talk too because he's a good person to have a conversation with, but as a 'friend friend' i can't say he was. I suppose you could sum up my friends throughout my life were Bret and Evan. Nick was a friend, Ryan "was" a friend, but after Nick died... that ended, same with Ronnie, both were friends, albeit their interests were 100% different than mine, but I considered them pretty good friends. But when Nick died... that all ended. Travis is a cool guy, but we never really kept in touch, so oh well. Most of the people from before highschool I don't consider "friends", just people from the past. I miss Nick though, even though our friendship probably wouldn't have been much in the later parts of highschool, he was still a good friend before that, and I regret having not spent more time with him, even if I didn't enjoy the things he did. He wasn't a very smart kid, but he knew how to live, and how to be happy. To do this day I'd rather be dead a thousand times over if that meant he wouldn't be, because he had so much potential in being happy and living the life he wanted, and instead someone like me lives on.
So that's my dissapointing and sad talk about friends. I realize now that the only two people, and I won't include Nick because.... well, nevermind, but anyway, that the only two people I've considered actual close friends is Bret and Evan, and with two completely different relationships. With Evan, I can be.. me, albeit when I met her I wasn't fully aware of everything, and was a confused person for a good deal of the time, but I was still able to be myself with her, and talk too her and be open with her. I didn't have to put on that mask that I did with everyone else. Whereas with Bret, I have to put on that mask, but that mask is such a perfect fit after so many years it's almost like slipping into another persons personality and I'm able to enjoy my time with him now. I think it's better now because I know the "Real me", and that I've always put a mask on around him. So knowing that helps me able to just let go and embrace that mask to have a good time around him. It may not be a healthy thing in the long run, but in the mean time it is the best means of escaping my self. I've never been really talkative about my true feelings with him, I'm a good liar, be that a bad or good thing, and I know how to be vague yet detailed. So it works out in the end.
To tie this all up, I've always pushed back and resisted being male, even though I never knew why, and just thought I was different. I didn't feel special, or unqiue, just different. I still am, of course, everyone is different in their own right, but I at least know there is a place that I can somehow fit into, and given an reason to all those years of feeling out of the loop and uncomfortable. It's good to have definition like that, and I don't feel limited by it in the slightest. Which is a promising realization, perhaps I can somehow find a way to be more open to more definition in my life, so I can be more true to myself and finally be free. Be free of these chains, and be myself, and never worry about that mask that's been my guise for all my life.
It'll be a good day when I can look into the mirror and see Nicole, and not Nick.