Emo-morphisis

I wish I could be a person who wasn't so sentimental.
It bothers me losing touch with people. Even people I've once considered friends and have hurt me.

I had a good friend once. She was a former co-worker. We had a falling out and I remember we had an argument over my being "fake". I called what she often dished out as "brutal honesty" a sign of her own insecurity.

With those words, we parted.

But her words turned over in my head. Even now though it was 2 years ago our fight had happened. And I realized how right she may have been about the person I was then. Because I was so into my depression and my pain I didn't realize she was hurting even more. Life had treated us so shitty then. She had gotten the brunt of most of it since she was young. Her life was turbulent, violent, loud. Mine was a more silent emotional suffering. I had sunk so deep into my depression then that I didn't acknowledge the abundance of good things around me. I didn't realize anyone else's pain. I just quietly accepted my selfishness.

In that, I think I drove her into her own anger and jealousy even further. The things I had, she lacked. Stable family structure, long-term friends. She had no one. She lived with her boyfriend and his family for 4 yrs. Her family abandoned her. She made her own way when she was young. She told me horror stories from her past like they were nothing. Like it didn't bother her at all. But you would have to not be human for them to not have affected you.

I think we were jealous of each other in different ways. I was fascinated at how she seemingly overcame her circumstances and noted her independence as worthy of admiration. She looked at my smothering mother and familial structure as something she had never had but wanted. She took an odd attraction to my mother. Almost like she was fighting her for attention coming out of the stock room to say hi to her when I told her my mother was stopping by the store to visit. She even called my cell to talk to my mother to wish her a happy birthday.

Then her boyfriend betrayed her, cheated on her, and left her. I had no idea. It would've explained her constant sad demeanor but I didn't realize it until after we had parted and I came upon an old blog of hers.

To this day I think that's why I have clung to so many people with unusual eccentricities and befriended them. People that by definition would be considered social outcasts in this world. Friends most people wouldn't be able to tolerate in a room for more than 5 minutes. In essence, I've developed this superhero complex trying to save people and give them a helping hand and a listening ear.

It got to the point I was over-exerting myself and causing myself more emotional stress and pain than before. So I rationed my attention to those I could and if I couldn't help them I began to accept the fact that some things were out of my control. Even in my own life I began to realize this.

In throwing myself into good local causes I think I lost a part of myself that used to ignite the writer in me. I've kept my own pain silent again but this time I shared it with no one for fear they'd hate me for my complaining when I should have nothing to complain about. Like she did. And I've even kept it from my writing. I became afraid of judgement. In that emotional pain and suffering there was life and color in the words I chose. Now I let it die inside me and push it back choosing to swallow it non-chalantly as one would acknowledge their daily swallowing of their own sailva.

Everyday, I feel myself slipping more under into the crashing waves of an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, losing my desire to fulfill my extraordinary dreams. I've lost passion in the things I once thought worth pursuing. I'm content with the fact I've not honed the discipline to pursue them.

And even though I feel myself slipping into this trance I don't feel the urge to fight it anymore.

And that scares me incredibly.

I'm not sure what to do or how to act on it. If I can even save myself from slipping into the dark shadows of dullness. Of assimilation. Of loss of my own individuality.

So I decided to blog again. To find some spark of passion. To save my life. To release my pain.

I'm typing for my life and in this I'm hoping to find the person I once was. Maybe not entirely. But the person that once loved the world of books and writing and lived vicariously through the vivid worlds the words of authors brought to life in my mind. I want to be able to do the same for people.

At the same time, I shouldn't always need the suffering, and depression, and the pain to be vibrant. I shouldn't have to slip back into the darkness I fought so hard to escape.

Is it in my happiness that I've lost passion? I'm living well now. I have a decent job. I have a working car. I have a loving family. The things I should have acknowledged before as a blessing I'm now acknowledging as I grow older.

Is writing only at its best when you're at your worst?

I don't want to believe it.

It reminds me of the backlash of Mary J. Blige when she got married and put out an album about happy relationships and love rather than her usual songs about broken-heartedness and domestic abuse. Her album sales dropped and the urban community screamed 'murder' of the R&B artist. Why should she sacrafice her happiness for her art? Why should I? Just because the content is different doesn't mean she's lost her skill as a singer as I haven't lost mine as a writer.

But still I want to become better and better. And then there are times I want to let the words slip into a bottomless ocean and lose them there and not even try to search for them.

I'm emo. Oh my god....I am so emo......

I think this is the most insightful blog I've written in a while.

Once in a while I think about reaching out to her. My old friend. To let her know I understand now. That I'm sorry I didn't count my blessings like I should have. That I'm sorry I didn't share more of those blessings with her. That I didn't offer her the hope or consolation she needed. But I know everything happens for a reason and people come in and out of your life like the seasons.

And in the end, no matter how many leaves you have the things that root you to the ground is what makes you truly grow.