There’s no hiding…
Whether we like it or not, life tends to jump up and bite us on the ass, usually repeatedly. We get reminded of things we’d rather not, or pushed into doing things we think are bad at the time, things that are hard and we don’t want to deal with. Though, usually these things are done for the better. I hide my past, I find thinking about what I did and didn’t do back there, hurts a lot. Because what happens in the past, affects you in the here and now, or in my case, what doesn’t happen. At some point, I quit living. I became content to live on the sidelines and watch from distance at other people living. I was too young to make this kind of assessment of what happened, of course, but looking back on it now, that is exactly what happened. I didn’t push myself to get involved and nobody did it for me, to reach out to people and try to make friends, or to encourage and strengthen those friendships that had formed, though they didn’t dissolve till much later, they certainly didn’t make me very happy. My life for all intents and purposes, was just me. I thought I could do it on my own, that I didn’t need anybody else, and after awhile, I felt like people didn’t want me around, so I didn’t have anybody else, and the situation wasn’t going to change. I had no idea about anything, and the little I did know, I used in the quiet business of becoming depressed. Of course, being the little boy that wasn’t involved with anything and nobody cared about, brought with it its share of insults and comments at my expense. I became angry on the inside, but you’d never know it from looking at me at the time. On the outside, I taught myself to function normally, to do what I was supposed to do and attract as little attention to myself as possible. Figuring if nobody noticed me, they’d leave me alone and I’d be ok, but, as human nature often conflicts, at the same time, wishing I would be noticed, and be, liked. To have friends who would notice if I was there or wasn’t and would want me around. To be back in a social circle where I’d actually learn what was and wasn’t popular and what was going on around me. It didn’t happen. Not because people didn’t try, not at first, of course, but later, but because I didn’t change. I seemed disinterested, and people just kinda went away. I was scared to try to re-enter the world, it only took a year or so, and I’d completely failed to develop, and didn’t know how to dive in anymore, and nobody was aware to help.
Time attempted to heal, after 3 years, and entering high-school, things were different, the immature picking and issues vanished as suddenly those same people were introduced into a new food-chain. I, on the other hand, was used to the sidelines, and was content (I hate that word now, content sucks.) to continue as-is. Occasionally, during high school, I hit stages where I had a desire to get involved, but, I didn’t feel supported to try to get involved in anything, there felt like there was always some hurdle, somebody who would be inconvenienced and me, not wanting to cause trouble, just quietly accepted that I can’t do this or that, that the hurdles were too hard to be overcome by my small amount of ambition to change. Good things did happen of course, things that I could do that didn’t get overshadowed by the logistics of it. Of course, those things were temporary, as I didn’t ever maintain involvement, something would end, or somebody would be less around in my life, because of various reasons, and I’d be right back where I started. As a result, I expect anything good that begins to end, way before I’m ready for it to. My biggest logistical problem in my life, since I was 15, has always been, driving. I don’t drive. I’m scared of it, because it’s an unknown. I didn’t feel like I had a reason to need to for the longest time, nothing to do, nowhere to be, so, don’t need to drive to get there. My fear of driving led to me avoiding signing up for driver’s ed. (Though I finally did a year and a half or 2 years late.) But for all the time, despite mentioning of me driving by my parents, particularly my father, I don’t remember ever being encouraged or the offer of help to do it. Just comments like “I should drive.” Or “we should get you driving” where we is really me, and until I actually do most of it myself, I’d get no offers of help. Now, I’m not blaming other people for my stupidity, if I had had a larger desire to actually do it, that could’ve overcame my fear of it, which is probably a perfectly normal fear. Then I’d have been able to do it myself and I wouldn’t be writing this now.
It’s still just me who will be the one doing it, and I’m going to have to build up the motivation and confidence to do it, but it isn’t easy, not for me.
The things that did come easy have shaped my life though, in one way or another, but I haven’t pursued them fully. I finally figured out I was accepted in my class in senior year. It was something as simple as not having to tell somebody your name to pick up a schedule, which made me realize, I wasn’t the boy that nobody knew existed. Unfortunately, I found that out too late. As seems to be my life story, always late. I figured out there were things I wanted to do, too late to do them. If I had just tried to get out there and do them, I could’ve done it, if I had just pushed myself. I hate myself for being that little boy who didn’t do anything, and let it all fly by, and let the regrets stack up. I suppose I’ve been rebuilding myself since Senior year, I’ve learned more about pop-culture in that time, from my huge interest in music, of all types, (my collection contains songs from about 1961 to present now. ) I learned that I liked a lot of the same music as people I watched in middle and high-school did, and there was no reason that I should’ve seen myself as that different from other people. I learned that I really like being in environments where there’s a lot of human interaction, and I would really like to get into broadcasting, and be on radio, not for glamour of being famous, but just because I like playing music for other people and getting feedback. I’m more comfortable with myself and my developing hobbies and interests, though I still don’t aid them and push myself enough to actually go through with things, I’m trying though. I still have to learn how to maintain and put enough energy into friendships so I’m not alone and unhappy all the time. I have to learn who I am, and express it every day, because it’s my personality that needs to show, it is what was lost, so many years ago, when I vanished to the sidelines. I need time to do that, to put time into myself and not into things for other people. I can’t control the amount of time that events of life and fate are going to take, but I can control what I choose to put time into for the time left over, and those things, are going to be for me. I am a person, with thoughts, feelings and desires, and the sooner I stop pretending that that’s not the case, and that I don’t have things I want out of life, the better off I’ll be.
So, this, is my life, my journey into finding myself, the self I lost so long ago. Myself, the person the world calls, Chris.
