There are days that life doesn’t even feel comfortable in your own skin. And others where your mind can be a scary place. I’ve lived in both places, and while I try not to dwell there anymore, there are days that things are what they are. Sometimes you need to just look around, realize what is going on, and move on.
Recently I’ve had several people come in and out of my life. People that I thought were good – but that’s a fault of mine, always seeing the potential irregardless of the person that potential inhabits – that turn out to be anything but. I’ve learned over the years that there are friends, and there are givers, and there are takers. Friends are a two way street. Givers give to appease some sort of guilt or need for self worth that, no matter how nice it may seem up front, slowly sucks away your soul. And takers, who only see things from their point of view and want only to leech from you whatever it is that benefits them.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest through the trees. Sometimes you think a pauper is a princess, or the other way around. But eventually, everyone’s true colors show through.
And so here I am, at my desk at near midnight, with a glass of wine and a side of insomnia, spilling my guts on a blog I haven’t looked at or even logged into in over a year. Well fuck me.
And then sometimes there are days when your family doesn’t feel like they even know you. Like you’ve built your own traditions on who you are, irregardless of who you are related to, but you still love them just the same. Or maybe there’s something they do or somewhere they go and they forget to invite you and it hurts. It hurts like fucking hell and you’re the oldest so you don’t want to really tell them that you cried at your desk when you saw the posts on Facebook about that awesome time you were never invited to. Maybe it’s when your friend who you trust with your whole life makes a joke, an innocent joke that you just happen to be the brunt of, and they have no way of knowing but the result of that night was you. In a hotel room. By yourself. Throwing your phone into the wall wishing it would break because then you’d have something tangible to be mad at which made a lot more sense than being mad at yourself for being so weak/hurt you were in tears for the first time in who knows how the fuck long.
Maybe there’s just that nerve exposed just enough that it hurts in ways you can’t ever anticipate but that when it happens you want to scream. You know it’s not anyone’s fault – they didn’t mean it – but it hurts just the same. Then your perception of someone is totally changed and someone you called a friend and trusted turns out to be one of the most pathological liars that you have ever met and you start to not trust yourself.
No. No, that’s not good. Because when you stop trusting yourself you end up typing a blog that no one will read and all of a sudden it’s 2am and you’re still at your desk in your home office alone with your cats and dogs. #winning #ornot
#fuckthis
And then you take a deep breath and calm down. Sip some more wine. And reread what you wrote about Robin Williams two years ago. You remember what madness is, why you have it, and how it makes you great even when no one else in the world believes in you. And then your friends reach out to you – not the crazy ones, the real ones – and you remember that you really have found your tribe. It may not be a big tribe, and you may not be blood related (but maybe you are), and either way it doesn’t matter because you realize that you’ve found your people. You can hear thoughts, and theirs never make you paranoid. They just help you remember that you are, truly, loved.
Then all of a sudden it’s okay to be in your skin. And
Just.
Be.
You.
Thank you, guys. I wouldn’t be here without you.
#findyourtribe #liveyourlife #loveyourfriends #beinyourskin