The easiest part of aloneness is being able to just breathe without having to perform for anyone. Like it or not, every relationship, new ones in particular, are performances. Whenever I talk to someone, especially out loud with my voice rather than typing words, I become so aware of this play we put on for each other. It isn't that it's fake, it's just that you have to articulate who you are in a certain way. To create an image of yourself that you want to project. How much of the bad parts do you let loose, and when? How much of your past do you share? How many times can you tell the same fucking stories over and over again every time you meet a new person?! Jesus FUCK, it's exhausting.
So yeah.
These past few years of isolation have been such a welcome relief from that. To simply exist as the fucked up person I am without having to explain it to anyone. To not make excuses for why I am this way, to allow myself to be this and that's it.
I feel like getting to know me is a burden. Often times I wonder if it's possible to leave my past behind and somehow start fresh. To not have to tell all my fucking stories ever again. But I guess life just isn't that way. And let's face it, I'm a mess. I need to be honest about that, so the stupid stories get regurgitated once again. And it all comes back... the shitty cards I've been dealt. No matter how hard I try to not let them carry over into my current life, they are ever present, and frankly it pisses me off. If there's anything I hate, it's people who wallow in their own bullshit and present themselves as victims all the time. FUCK, I hate that so much, and I catch myself doing it, too. I don't want to be a goddamned victim. Even if I am one, I don't want to be one. But that is so much easier to say than to do.
I looked back at this blog tonight, read over the past 2 1/2 years or so, and I guess things have lingered longer than I'd realized. Maybe I've been in denial, or maybe everything is such a blur that it's all become one prolonged dark experience without easily observable edges.
I want to be ready. A big part of me is ready, I think. Another big part of me isn't ready at all. It's so much more comfortable to be safe. The thing is, though, nothing about my life is actually safe anymore. Those past few years of stability I talked about here have been flushed down the toilet, so things are getting shaken up whether I want them to be shaken up or not. Most of me is ok with that. Terrified and stressed the fuck out, but ready for change, for sure. Lord knows I haven't been happy, although since my job came to an end, each day I have felt more and more like my old self before all the darkness piled on. Every day I feel myself creeping ever forward into the light. Most days I feel good. Truly good. That's huge. That isn't to say that I still don't have plenty of days where I can't imagine going on living at all, because those days are still there. But for the most part I am feeling a million times better than I was even a month or two ago. So yeah, I'm getting there. Maybe...
The thing of it is, I am a lot. I have always been a lot, but right now I am more than a lot. Getting to know me is a lot. I want to define myself based on the good parts that are coming back, not so much on the bad parts. How do I do that? How do I release this crutch of victimhood that I have been carrying around my entire fucking life?! How can I still be the sad and fucked up me who is also nice and funny and creative, without unpacking every little goddamned thing every time I meet someone new??? Jesus FUCK, I say.
This is why being alone is so much easier. But I don't think I want to be alone anymore...
