Sometimes I wish I had the tools to look at a blank wordpress page and not be consumed by negativity. I don’t mean to say I’m negative, but those are always the first thoughts that come to mind. I assume it’s because I spend almost every waking hour putting up the front that I’m actually really happy.
When I could be writing about my new car or the job that I love working at, instead I want to talk about how Jason Derulo’s music is so bad that I can’t help but listen to it every time it comes on the radio or VH1. It reinforces all the things that are good by how painful it is to hear.
Three months ago when I crashed the first STi I bought, I thought I turned some sort of psychological corner. For an instant there after I almost died, I cursed at the top of my lungs, screamed at a god I don’t believe in; it was the most cathartic moment of my life. It felt good. In the few weeks that followed, in a child-like way I yelled and banged shit each time I got upset over minor happenings. I won’t say I was losing my mind — because it wasn’t that — but I imagine it was along the same lines. I mean, in the few instances in my life that felt like I was navigating the point of no return, I’ve generally handled them through sorrow, through acting sorry for myself. This was different. Rather than reflecting my pain inward, I was finally letting it out. Finally.
But this phenomena quickly stopped. I act too rationally; I’m too aware of my surroundings; I rarely intentionally put myself out there to the point where I’m going to feel stupid afterwards. It’s like living in retrospect all the time, one major aspect of myself I cannot stand that I simultaneously can’t help. The existentialist would tell me “If you want to change something about yourself, just change it.” I’ve either not gained the necessary life experience to have the ability not to care, or it’s something that I can’t change even if I tried. Taking my worldview into account I tend to believe it’s the former, but I’ve been alive going on a quarter of a century and still feel the same way I did when I was a five year-old, so we’ll see.
It’s crazy that so many things I’ve done, and so many things I do, were/are with a specific future I’ve had in mind since I was 18 years old. I’m so far removed from the sad child I was then that it’s hard for me to tap into that person present day. After the emotional trauma of falling out of love all I ever thought about was how it possibly could have turned out the way it did. I thought about it, almost exclusively, for at least a year after it ended. Now I’m here, about five years later, and I don’t think about it nearly as much; I hardly ever think about the time I spent at Virginia Tech. The images I saw and the emotions I felt and the love I had in my heart during that wrinkle in time might as well be dead.
And still, I know that time was real. I know I loved that girl, and I know I loved the dream school I went to. The whole “out of sight out of mind” cliche isn’t totally accurate, but it completely outclasses the alternative. I wear these scars like they still mean something, even though I’ve done everything in my power to distance myself as far as I possibly can from them. I suppose it could just depend on the mood I’m in. When I want them to be there, they’re there. When I don’t, well, then those are the articles you’ll read that have nothing to do it.
Future Bets 