Today's Thought

Talking is pointless in a world where no one listens.

Solitary

Feeling broken; alone; useless. It's hard to feel anything but, at times. It didn't always used to be this way. Or maybe it did. I just don't know anymore. In my youth, I was never needed. I'd walk home from school - where I would spend the vast majority of my day talking to no one - and catch a couple of reruns of some random show... maybe "Who's The Boss?"... maybe "Star Trek: The Next Generation". At just after five, Mom and Dad would get home. Mom would be in a horrible mood every day, without fail, and spend the next hour or so in the kitchen preparing dinner for all of us. Dad would immediately retreat to the TV room every evening after work to play his guitar. It was never admitted, but I'm convinced a big part of this is because he just wanted to avoid Mom's I-haven't-eaten-all-day-and-now-I'm-pissed-at-the-whole-world wrath. He'd just hole-up in the TV room and crank whichever part of whichever song he was learning how to play that day. And since he was practicing, he'd usually put the song part on loop, playing it over and over... sometimes for hours at a time. This, of course, not only annoyed me, but also sent Mom into a deeper fury night after night. She'd stomp angrily down the hall, swing open the TV room door and yell at him to turn the music down... or off altogether. Then she'd huff and stomp back upstairs in a foul mood. This was routinely followed by Dad mumbling something like "bitch" to himself and continuing to play his music... if not louder now.

To avoid this embarrassing circus of a family life, I would spend as much time as I could in the peace of my own room. My room being next to the TV room with all of the music, it wasn't always quiet, but at least it was mine. I mostly just tried to lose myself in video games. They seemed to take me away from all of the drama I wanted nothing to do with. This domestic dynamic seemed to happen nightly. For years. It was like clockwork. And this is what was put into my head. This is what I assumed marriage was; two people who clearly made each other miserable and couldn't stand being around each other. Somehow, I had been relegated to a bargaining chip; a common ground between two factions at war. It might have been easier with the understanding and support of a sibling, but of course that was never in the cards for me. Instead, I would have to deal with the guilt of being the burden of both parties alone. If not for me, they could have just split and easily both gone on to find other partners who actually made them happy. But there I would continue to be... fucking up everything as usual.

Skip ahead a couple of decades...

Here I still am. Continuing to feel like a complete fuck-up. Continuing to feel like everything is my fault. I still feel alone. I still feel like I'm not needed. I still feel like I'm just in the way.

Sometimes I wonder if these are the only things I can feel anymore.

...With Liberty, And Drugs For All

I think the fact that pharmaceutical advertising is so rampant in this country is very telling about how messed up the US healthcare system is. Your health and well-being has been relegated to a mere business; an opportunity for multi-billion dollar corporations to make massive profits.

Look through just about any magazine these days. Watch any program on television. The advertising is everywhere. There's something very wrong when we are being told to request certain medications from our physicians, as if we're window-shopping for stuff that looks good. Instead, we should be letting our physicians - the actual medical experts - offer us medicine on their own when they feel it might actually help our condition(s).

We are taking medication for everything now. It's like we're afraid of feeling anything even resembling pain anymore. Or as I call it... life.

The Power

It's easy to believe that, as middle-class citizens, we have no power in our society. But what we often overlook is the fact that this society needs us to properly function. WE do the work. WE pay the taxes. WE put our lives and our hearts into making this the best place we can. It is all because of us that we are able to have the things we have. WE still have power.

If you don't like banks, pull your money from them and go with a credit union. If you don't like high gas prices, find ways to rely less on it; help to drive the demand for it down. If you think our medical system in this country is broken (and you're correct), stop taking so many of the drugs your physicians are blindly prescribing to you. You don't need most of them, and you're only helping to allow the pharmaceutical industry to keep its stranglehold on our healthcare. I could go on and on and on ... (Yes, I realize nobody wants me to do that.)

My point is: WE have the power as consumers. With every single spending choice we make, we are reshaping our society. Be smart with your money. Sure, money is ultimately unimportant, but we do need it to live comfortably. Spend only what you have already saved. Save whenever you can, even if it's only a little bit at a time. Every cent counts. The more you keep to yourself, the more power you will take back from those who currently rule you.

It all begins with you.

The Meltdown Begins

2014 is going to be an interesting year.

2013 wrapped up as a solid year for me. I was able to make a lot of personal progress and overcome some previous hang-ups. I've put many secret plans in motion for 2014, but unfortunately some of them have already hit a giant snag. ... I'm getting laid off. This setback will likely take me months to recover from. I've never been one to put much stock into the idea of having a career, which makes me a "loser" in some peoples' eyes. In my way of thinking, a job is just a job, and the only reason I work is because I essentially have no choice. (I work to live, I don't live to work.) With that said, I'd be lying if I said I've been handling this transition well. The truth is, even before the news of the lay-off, one of my major goals for 2014 was to finally begin therapy. This is something I've always wanted, and more accurately, NEEDED to do. Now with the loss of my insurance, that's going to be delayed until I can find more that will help cover it. But this is still the plan.

Some people will say that being in therapy means you're weak. I believe the opposite. We all have issues, and anyone who thinks they don't is only lying to themselves. Being in therapy means you're making an effort to work on those issues. It takes a lot of strength... and patience, to expose yourself and admit all of your flaws in order to begin rebuilding. I'm ready to do just that. You cannot grow if you don't change. Then again, maybe this is all just a crazy person talking.

Beyond Broken

I wear these earplugs as if somehow they will block the noise of my frustration with the world from me.

With each day I become more and more convinced that nobody will ever understand me. I feel like an outsider. I feel like an alien. I feel like a ghost. I always have. I'm here... but I'm not really here. I'm just something that gets in peoples' way and uses up valuable oxygen. After thirty-four years, I'm still unable to relate to just about everything other people talk about: children, brothers, sisters, friends, pets, weddings, houses, careers, college life, parties, clubs, high school romances, proms, summer breaks, etc, etc, etc, etc... These concepts are all completely foreign to me. They always have been. I'm not sure I belong in this world. Even crying. Fucking crying. Another thing that I can't relate to. I have no doubt that anyone who reads this will dismiss this entire rant as a simple pity-party. And maybe it is. But it's also exactly how I feel. And nobody truly knows how I feel because the world doesn't revolve around me. Only my world does. And my world is damaged.

Another thing nobody really knows about me is that I spend most of my life pretending. When others tell me about things, I pretend that I care about and understand their dilemmas. Most of the time, I barely even know what the fuck they're talking about. But I pretend anyway. My brain often doesn't work correctly. When someone asks me a question, my mind goes blank and it makes me feel stupid. Even if I know the answer. I never know what to say. And that makes me feel even more stupid.

I wish I could just cry like everyone else to get this frustration out of my head, but I can't. Instead, it continues to plague my brain like a cancer.

I'm still looking, but so far I haven't found the cure.

Reaching

How is it that I can sometimes feel so well-rounded and so broken at the same time? I feel fairly adjusted... on the right path... adapted to this life and the expectations it continually forces on me. Simultaneously, I often feel lost. As if the world offers me a handful of gifts and yanks them back just as I try to reach for them.