Don't Unplug Me, Or Just Shut Me Down, Please Just Love Me, With Your Steel Heart, I'd Reboot You, If You'd Look At Me, With Those Cold Eyes
--"Don't Unplug Me", All Caps
The problem with fighting with one's friends is that it never ends well. No matter what the root cause or who started what, fights with people you care about inevitably lead to truths that probably weren't worth revealing. I mean--I'm not talking about the tiny quibbles that blow over in the span of a day or so. I'm speaking about those knock-down, drag-out fights where two people don't speak for months (or longer). Those are the fights that kill, those are the moments that spoil the soul.
And the problem with me is that invariably I can't see the fault ever being mine, which I realize is a problem with a lot of people in these situations. But it isn't even that I refuse to admit it and am being simply stubborn; I honestly can't ever wrap my head around the concept that anything I do is wrong. Maybe it's from having such a malleable sense of ethics in the first place, but whatever it is, it's sometime been a problem in my dealings with the world in general.
I'm especially bad when it comes to people making decisions about their own life that would invariably take them away from mine. I'm not too keen on people seemingly wanting to get away from me. Epcot says it's because I have abandonment issues, which is probably true. However, I feel it has more to do with the fact that I never feel like people feel the same way I do. I always have this sense of isolation that I'm the only one whose ever felt the way I do at certain times. I have this sense that the way I look at the world is unique and not altogether healthy. And when people find out--when they find out, I mean--they get all weirded out. That's why they leave. All I can do is protest vehemently and not altogether nicely. I feel like I want to punish them for thinking I'm strange. I want them to suffer for making me feel like a weirdo when the truth is that a lot of my oddities are self-imposed.
----
When people like Toby say they want to take a break from me and from all that we've built, I take that personally. I take that as an affront to what I have to offer her. I mean--she's probably right in saying that it's only temporary. But you can never quite tell about sabbaticals. People go off to take a break from everything they've ever known and they just might find they like this new place better. It makes me nervous that I truly am expendable. It makes me feel she's learned she can from me and is discarding me like so much garbage.
What I really at times is a way to preserve how people feel at certain moments in their lives. I get the sense that if we could only "go back to the way things used to be," I could actually be happy forever. Nothing good ever comes of overhauling the way one person deals with another--not all at once, at least. I've found that when the change is gradual it tends to be for the best; when it's immediate and all-encompassing it tends to be for the worst. Think about it, nobody up and decides to a full-blown commitment. Most times you're lead there. But when people part, it's mostly due to a rash decision or some kind of emotional outburst. Yes, people might be lead there too, but it isn't nearly the same. You don't have to repair somebody wanting to get closer to you the way you have to mend yourself when somebody decides they don't want to be a part of your life.
When Toby says that she's "turning off" the life she used to have, it bothers me. I'm not something you can turn off. This isn't something you can turn off. As much as I wish I could just walk away cleanly and come back to my feelings like that, I'm not so easily capable of such stoicism. I tend to get hurt a lot when other people make decisions for me, decisions that concern me.
Yes, I get pretty temperamental when I'm upset. And, yes, I tend to take it out on those I should be playing nice with, but I don't how to deal evenly with something I consider somewhat monumental. Even if I can leave somebody without ever saying good-bye, it's only because I know they're coming back. When I have to mean it, when I have to say "good-bye" for real, I'm incapable. Because if it were my decision, I would never leave the people I really care about. No way. There are so few people who truly touch your life in such a way as to make it livable. Why on Earth would I choose to give that up? Why on Earth would I ever sit by and watch that walk out of my life?
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
The problem with fighting with one's friends is that it never ends well. No matter what the root cause or who started what, fights with people you care about inevitably lead to truths that probably weren't worth revealing. I mean--I'm not talking about the tiny quibbles that blow over in the span of a day or so. I'm speaking about those knock-down, drag-out fights where two people don't speak for months (or longer). Those are the fights that kill, those are the moments that spoil the soul.And the problem with me is that invariably I can't see the fault ever being mine, which I realize is a problem with a lot of people in these situations. But it isn't even that I refuse to admit it and am being simply stubborn; I honestly can't ever wrap my head around the concept that anything I do is wrong. Maybe it's from having such a malleable sense of ethics in the first place, but whatever it is, it's sometime been a problem in my dealings with the world in general.
I'm especially bad when it comes to people making decisions about their own life that would invariably take them away from mine. I'm not too keen on people seemingly wanting to get away from me. Epcot says it's because I have abandonment issues, which is probably true. However, I feel it has more to do with the fact that I never feel like people feel the same way I do. I always have this sense of isolation that I'm the only one whose ever felt the way I do at certain times. I have this sense that the way I look at the world is unique and not altogether healthy. And when people find out--when they find out, I mean--they get all weirded out. That's why they leave. All I can do is protest vehemently and not altogether nicely. I feel like I want to punish them for thinking I'm strange. I want them to suffer for making me feel like a weirdo when the truth is that a lot of my oddities are self-imposed.
----
When people like Toby say they want to take a break from me and from all that we've built, I take that personally. I take that as an affront to what I have to offer her. I mean--she's probably right in saying that it's only temporary. But you can never quite tell about sabbaticals. People go off to take a break from everything they've ever known and they just might find they like this new place better. It makes me nervous that I truly am expendable. It makes me feel she's learned she can from me and is discarding me like so much garbage.
What I really at times is a way to preserve how people feel at certain moments in their lives. I get the sense that if we could only "go back to the way things used to be," I could actually be happy forever. Nothing good ever comes of overhauling the way one person deals with another--not all at once, at least. I've found that when the change is gradual it tends to be for the best; when it's immediate and all-encompassing it tends to be for the worst. Think about it, nobody up and decides to a full-blown commitment. Most times you're lead there. But when people part, it's mostly due to a rash decision or some kind of emotional outburst. Yes, people might be lead there too, but it isn't nearly the same. You don't have to repair somebody wanting to get closer to you the way you have to mend yourself when somebody decides they don't want to be a part of your life.
When Toby says that she's "turning off" the life she used to have, it bothers me. I'm not something you can turn off. This isn't something you can turn off. As much as I wish I could just walk away cleanly and come back to my feelings like that, I'm not so easily capable of such stoicism. I tend to get hurt a lot when other people make decisions for me, decisions that concern me.
Yes, I get pretty temperamental when I'm upset. And, yes, I tend to take it out on those I should be playing nice with, but I don't how to deal evenly with something I consider somewhat monumental. Even if I can leave somebody without ever saying good-bye, it's only because I know they're coming back. When I have to mean it, when I have to say "good-bye" for real, I'm incapable. Because if it were my decision, I would never leave the people I really care about. No way. There are so few people who truly touch your life in such a way as to make it livable. Why on Earth would I choose to give that up? Why on Earth would I ever sit by and watch that walk out of my life?
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: All Caps, emotions, interaction, relationships, stoicism
posted by mojo shivers @ 2:38 AM
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