Author: james

  • Molting

    Molting, molting, molting.

    When I finally realized it was a reflection my own, I was staring at
    A hideous, unpleasant monstrosity stood before me
    A layer of glistening new skin obscured by
    Leaflets of dried up, decrepit death dangling on my body

    At any moment it could go
    Like the last autumn leaf on a tree
    The wind pushing and kicking it, commanding the deceased plant
    Fall off! Fall off!
    Yet the final strand remains attached

    Or that loose tooth; birth’s remnants
    Wedged into your gums, yet connected to nothing
    Patches of raw, damaged flesh bleeding through
    Exposed to the world and her extremities too soon

    That reflection I see, my own
    Known nothing can be done until the molting is complete
    And that the days between we will be witnessing
    This awkward, uncomfortable creature.
    Molting

    (sometimes I don’t understand my drafts. This was originally sitting around titled: Dreams – February 12, 2011. It certainly was no dream?)

  • Why I Don’t Like The Beatles

    Someone once asked me why I made the bold claim that I don’t like The Beatles. Following this exchange, they demanded the I put my response up publicly somewhere (complimenting my writing, it was nice.)– I’d be a dirty scumbag if I only said I did and didn’t, so I’m finally getting around to it.

    Task complete.

    Prompt: “I’m sorry, but I need an explanation about why you dislike the Beatles.

    You know, I was compelled to tackle this immediately upon reading it. Those words Need. and Now. must be some kind of sorcery, but I resisted it and knew that typing on my phone was not the vehicle for a proper reply.

    Unfortunately, neither is right now, because I’m as tired as dirt (considering what dirt is, I figure it is about as tired as matter on this planet gets). Thus, I will answer this right now!

    First off, I never claimed I disliked The Beatles. I respect them enough to ever go that far. I just can’t profess to really like them. Their impact, especially culturally, commercially, and in the realm of recording technology is a phenomenon that could very well be unparalleled. On top of that, even if the songs don’t always do it for me, we are talking about some of the best modern day songwriting there is, but I already said it– they just don’t do it for me. When you’re that good, or that big, there will be those who think that you are hyped up too much. Think of it like atoms in the air. Carbon and oxygen are great, they dominate the show, but think of poor hydrogen or helium. Those guys are amazing too. Maybe they got fed up and that’s why they are so utterly explosive (especially when you split them).

    The Beatles are like carbon to me. Ubiquitous, but not holistically impressive. I have my moods where I can get into it, but for me, nothing they have done ever will be able to always send me to that place that something like Steely Dan’s Aja does from Wayne Shorter’s Sax solo soaring into the heavens, fueled by the pure thrust and thunder of Steve Gadd’s drumming frenzy all the way through the outro vamp that so slyly fades that you almost forget that– somewhere– that jam is still being played as those chords slowly swell in and out like never ending waves crashing into the shore. Or the way Paul Simon seemingly weaves together the perfectly phrased, perfectly picked string of words in a manner so right, yet still so musical that you’d almost mistake it for the inspired word of God itself.

    Hyperbole aside, there are just so many things, musically, that hit me a lot harder than The Beatles ever did, that when so many people love them so much, I just wonder how they aren’t affected the same way by the things that I hear and process that move me so strongly. And then I remember, that’s music! And that’s what make a collection of musicians such as The Beatles so good, because they reach across every spectrum and bring in masses of individuals from every collective of personality and background you can dream up.

    And that, in so many (too many) words, is why I just don’t care for them so much.

    My apologies for not giving that explanation “now” !

  • how to estrange yourself from everyone you know in 2300 words or less

    If you have an aversion to brutal honesty, hit the back button, X out of the window, or turn off the computer– continue to live in your self-constructed fantasy world of ignorance where you are comfortable and breathe easy.  I am about to put pretty much everyone on blast like a failed NASA launch.

    I have a problem. I am too nice. I respect people too much. I can’t help it. Individually, I like you. Under the guise of people, I can’t stand you all. I am very clear headed right now. It isn’t my character to do this, this doesn’t make friends, and it certainly doesn’t keep them, but here’s the thing, I am actually very lonely. Why? Because most of you aren’t truly there. So what does it matter if I further alienate myself? I’m already extra-terrestrial, so I might as well spread the truth.

    First off. You. If I think about it, you confound me, but that makes no sense, because on paper, you appear to lack the ability to confound me. I don’t understand what your draw is to me if you don’t value what I say. What I say and think should carry more weight than you, why? The simplified answer is that I am magnitudes smarter than you, but the actual answer is that I use my brain a lot more. I have for my entire life. I’ve made my living off of using my brain. Maybe you secretly have learned to appreciate that, and that is the appeal, but you don’t show appreciation for it, only that you’re threatened. I’ve said this, but you don’t respect my friends, nor do any people in your circle. Those people are the kind who have looked past me like vapor my entire life– one of the primary driving forces in my life to be so good at everything I do. The crux of people is this: if you don’t open yourself up to the people that other people care about, you show you don’t care about that person. I’m very accepting, even though deep down I might be angry, as exhibited here, I am mostly accepting than anything, and I want to give everyone as many chances as I can. It is why I ultimately connect with anyone who gives me the time of day, but it humiliates me when I give people chances and they don’t give other people that I care for chances. Why should I care about you, when you don’t care about them?

    And that brings me to you. What can I say. Life takes its course, sure, but people don’t change like that. I love you, too, but you can’t dictate who you want me to be around the people you are close with now. If you aren’t planning on being close with someone for life, then don’t come on like you will be then change so drastically that my behavior, when I am myself, is seemingly so unacceptable that you reprimand me for it. You only expose yourself as an ass, and more importantly, the ignorant one. I don’t reprimand you for appearing to be a rock when you’re really just a grey cloth that is drastically moved by the wind, because I know as stable as we all are, we do that. I accept you either way, now use that high functioning brain of yours to realize the same thing, then hey, just because we all don’t have the same level of world experience, accept who I am going to be. Who all of your old friends are going to be. And let us be them. Invite us to be that around your new circles, because we got you to where you are. Here is the harshest thing I will say, and you might not think it so, but think on it, and know it is— you know better.

    And you. You also will know who you are. Grow up. You’re not 16. Quit acting like it. You live in a total bubble. You also know better then to let this. You think you’re grown up now. Physically, you sure are. Intellectually, well, you’re very close. Emotionally, your progress has been retarded.  It is embarrassing because you know you are, and you’re letting your shelter, your unnatural comfort constrain you to that. There is a reason all of my other friends have grown to dislike you without knowing you. As charming and lovely as you are, you are selfish, and you hurt people. You know it, but you act like you don’t, or you feel so bad that you think that the only thing you can do is stay away until the heat cools off. That isn’t how it works. Ash is ash. It cools, and as far as matter goes, it is the same, but its form is irrevocably altered. If you would give people like me a chance, you’d see that there are those of us who reside closely to your little bubble, but also are beyond it in many ways, we have your best interest in mind because we care, but you don’t let us care. You won’t trust us, and it insults people like us when you think we are some child from that bubble. Once again, you have all this potential to be great, but how many years are you going to waste before you decide to show some bravery and REALLY grow up, just a little. Grow.

    And then there is you. You actually might not know who you are, because you are great too, but you know that too well. All you know is how great you are, how you’re the leader of all your circles, you know that self-righteousness so well that you missed a handful of the closest, most valuable brothers and sisters you have had being alienated from you. In my own case, for over a year, and I guess that was somewhat overt. Here’s the thing: I take a lot of the blame for it, and I do publicly, but I don’t know if you realize how much of it was you, too. Just the fact that it seemed like the load was plopped on my shoulders solely, because of my extraneous situation doesn’t mean that it was all me, yet I was the fall guy. I don’t know what to say. Just like everyone else, you’re fantastic, but you’re also filled with pores and flaws like the rest of us. When you’re ready to start figuring this out to its full extent, you’ll see that a lot of people you’ve drifted from weren’t necessarily people who naturally drifted away, but those who were estranged. You’re not a beautiful flower, you’re an ugly man. That’s what we all are, and that.. is what makes us beautiful. Examine yourself. Examine yourself for a long time.

    You. You know who you are. You’re so selfish. Especially right now. But you and I seem content to spend our lives knowing each other, in a never ending game of selfishness limbo. You’re outdoing me for the time being. Granted, I’ve even said, this is your time to be selfish some, but you’re letting it take command too much. You’re even being selfish in regards to me. Look– take what you want, what you know you need, but quit trying to move on to something further in your life and hold on to what you have to move past. That’s truly what makes you selfish. Either stay stagnant and reside where you have the past couple years, or let it go, cut it off for a while and make something of yourself. Look, you played a large role in forcing me to do that very thing. I knew I had to be selfish, but I didn’t let myself fully be selfish, because when I decided to cut myself from that umbilical, I let it go, I moved on, I bit many bullets, and am still recovering from it. But I did what was supposed to be done, and I did it as right as I could. Quit being so self-absorbed that you are alienating me, and torturing other parties closely involved. You’ve got only so long to make up your mind before the people who really have invested in you truly give up to the point where you never recover quite the same. Wake. Up.

    And you. The nice transition over. I don’t even know what to say about you. Get over it. Good Lord, do I ever care about you, even still, but I know what I’ve done. I’ve been removed from it so far that I can think about you, or revisit old memories, feel what I felt then, then an instant later, feel the present. The past. The present. We are separate. I am separate. You’ve dragged this out long enough. I am sure anyone who experiences any fallout from your resentment can no longer stand it, but more importantly, on some level, you shouldn’t be able to either. Let it go. I knew I was giving everything up. I was hoping I wasn’t, but I’d never be so callous as to actually expect that. I’m sorry for how much pain I’ve caused, but isn’t it about time that you started to realize how much more pain I saved you from? I was the Titanic. As bad as it looks that I kicked everyone off, it was better than sinking everyone with me. So yes– it is about time you start to understand that. Then maybe you will quit doing everything you can to purge me from your life, because I am not going to try and become a major piece again, but we each deserve to have the option of being a minor piece. Stop it.

    Oh and you. You’re an ass. I don’t even know if you really know it. It doesn’t matter, but pretty much everyone else thinks you are too, yet, because we all have our own bounty of faults, that doesn’t matter. This is especially true when we realize it. I don’t hold legitimate grudges. A grudge is something for short-lived anger. You are obviously ignorant if that’s how you see it. Nobody knows if you truly feel anything because you keep subjecting yourself to what, to anyone else, is guaranteed pain, and on the same vein, you will pursue something that should very obviously cause other people you know pain. But opportunity is opportunity. In the real world, everyone is not an opportunist. Think about it some more. It isn’t a puzzle.

    And you. You definitely know who you are because I am taking your own words. You’re right you have it good. Too good? I wouldn’t go that far, you’re working on what could almost be alchemical principles– equivalent exchange and what not, but what do you get? You get out of something that was a good thing for a long time, but also stifled you for a long time. Yet, that connection doesn’t entirely sever. Then you get the girl that we correctly identify as the dream girl, in the sense that they just don’t make many like her. You parade around in your ideal world where, even though you still win out on these things, you still get to run away like you always do. We admire you for your ability to run and be free, but seriously, either decide that you are done running, or accept that you can’t have everything even when it is waiting there for you. It isn’t that I, or anyone else is bitter that things have worked out so well for you, but you’re being selfish about it. In the immediate, you might be lonely, but you take for granted the fact that you can wake up every morning and have that one person you can’t wait to talk to– and you get to communicate with them while everyone else is second in line. You know, life sucks, and it is messed up for all of us. You don’t get a lot of time to enjoy it all right now, but you have a lot you can enjoy, even if it is abstracted. That compounds greatly. More than anything else: who cares if you don’t deserve it. Anyone who has spent anytime in their own mind knows that, objectively, we deserve nothing, at best. It is better to enjoy what you don’t deserve as much as you can, then let it waste away. It does make me a little jealous that I will always be playing second fiddle to you, but quit wasting that, because it pisses me off. I’ll gladly spend it.

    To all of you: get the hell out of your bubbles, your self-wrapped, self-absorbed, thick film of cloud fogging everything around you. If you did two things: respected yourself and respected everyone around you then we’d all be much happier. Instead, we are all just ignorant and insufferable. And the ugly side effects of that fact is that I further disconnect myself from everyone.

    Because I’d never care to feel any of these types of things for any of you if I didn’t first care ever so deeply for you all. And instead, I just demonstrate why I feel alone and forgotten. I only hit on a few of you before I became exhausted, but I could have kept going. And I am only that much more critical with myself. When I wake up tomorrow, I very well may have no friends left, yet, when I go to sleep tonight, I don’t really have any, either.

    Grow up. Examine yourself.

  • “The Roaring Twenties,” History Says

    You’re weak. You aren’t usually, but right now, you’re weak. You need somebody to talk to. You need to spread that weakness out, knead it as if it were a cramp, but, tonight, there is no one.

    You’ve laid out this string of thoughts in your head on more than one occasion, but now that you’re finally putting it out there, you know it isn’t going to be the same. The sanctity of the thought– the feeling’s lineage– has been lost. You do it anyway.

    You are depressed right now. You might be for the next few hours. You might be for the next few days. Your common state is far away from this, but you can’t avoid these things when they hit. You don’t take comfort, but at least can find some stability in knowing  you aren’t alone. Successful people, happy people, miserable ones, lonely ones, the deceased, and unborn, all do, or will experience it to some degree. You don’t beat yourself up anymore. Not since you read that girl’s comic, you more easily accept that this comes on with no purpose. You were inspired by something; that’s a good sign.

    You know beating yourself up about it will lead to no good. You just accept it.

    When you feel this way, you open up that album of ugly thoughts. You try to keep it out of reach; put it on the top shelf, but somehow it keeps getting knocked down and you trip over it. It is in front of you right now. You open it.

    You feel alone. That’s not a big deal, but you feel increasingly alone. Each day that passes, you feel a little bit more alone. You have those friends that are out of the country right now. Of those, the one you actually talk to regularly isn’t around right now. He has his own thing he is going through, but when you do talk to him, one of you always feels distracted. It’s like you’re looking at each other and trying to make out details through a thick layer of fog. You only really know that the person is there, but for all you know, it is just an impostor. You have the friends who are all busy with work, and when not with work, with things such as fiancé/eés, spouses, or lives. Or the one who is on the relationship seesaw, up and down, on and off; she rarely feels like she is even there anymore. Or one of the newer ones, but you don’t feel like it is a two way street on opening up to each other, plus they don’t live nearby. There is the globetrotter, the one who will become The Dude when he is older, and so on.

    You know this doesn’t even count all the estranged ones. You feel like estrangement is all you’re good at. You get close, then the bomb gets planted. It ticks until one day it ticks no more, and all that is left is rubble. And this is why you feel increasingly alone. You forecast each day and expect another one to drop off. You will either watch them slip away, or you will cut their hand off. You don’t feel good.

    Never mind that you often feel like you need to be the one who is there for them. The iron curtain of security. You don’t even want to think about your family.

    You are losing your imagination. You’ve seen it. You’ve been stuck at home. You’re twenty-five years old, and stuck at home. It hasn’t quite been two years, but it feels like much longer. You want to start your life, but you can’t seem to do it. As long as you live here, you feel like that is impossible. You’re living in a coffin; trapped in a box, and buried beneath the ground. You no longer can see yourself getting out. You can’t imagine that day. You lost your imagination. You realize you lost your hope, too.

    You own nothing. You’re American. Sole-proprietorship is hardwired into your brain, but you don’t have your own place, you have to share your car, you don’t even have your own laptop anymore. You’re upset by how much weight this carries. You’re also upset at how much these things stack.

    You’ve keep busy by caring. You care a lot. You care for a lot. Even though you know numerous who sometimes feel nobody is going out of their way to care for them, you look into the mirror and reject it. On a day like today, you feel like nobody really cares unless you care. You don’t want to reach out today. You don’t know if you want to reach out ever. You plan to either sink, or have someone come pull you out of the arctic.

    You can’t figure out if you’re useful. You have come to think you are, because you grew up feeling more talented than most. You worked hard to become better, but you find those who have less of both far ahead of you. You get opportunities, and you sleep through them, instead of attacking it. Your true talent might come in the form of squandering everything away.

    You don’t like any of this. You wonder, skeptically, who compiled this album. It is revolting. A disgusting, dangerous collection of thoughts, feelings, and memories, but you keep turning the pages.

    You never thought your 20’s would be like this. History says the Great Depression came at the end of the 20’s. You would rather be paralleling history. Your Great Depression has come a bit sooner.

    You’re bored. You thought you gave up boredom with your teens, but these days, you are often bored. You know if you think about that boredom any further, you’re just going to flip back to page one.

    You close the album. You know that this is just a pothole, and when you zoom out this is the final upswing. You just have to find enough thrust to outrun gravity. But for today, you are weak. You aren’t happy about that, but you accept it.

    You accept it. In an effort of obscurity, you tuck as much of it you can into your pocket, then you carry on. Right now, it’s all you can do. Different than it was in the past, and different it will be, for now, this is your life.

     

  • joy, pores, love, pours

    I occasionally pick up work doing Wedding Photography and/or Videography for my neighbor, Josh. It is semi-reglar enough to say that I see a lot of weddings. I had the fortune of working one this past Saturday. First, let me say that Readyville, Tennessee is one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I’ve had the pleasure of spending the day in. That aside, it is interesting to work these weddings because you sometimes get to take a peek into the lives of strangers– on one of their most memorable days in their lives.

    src: https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.federalregister.gov/EP28AP10.007/original.gis.

    I admit, I was out of it on Saturday. I certainly didn’t say more that a word or two to the bridge and groom of this wedding, but in filming it, I had the task of the close up on the groom’s face during the ceremony. Who knows anything about the lives of those two individuals, or what kind of marriage they will have, but it sure impacted me, sitting there, effectively staring at this guy’s face because it is my job, and just watching the joy continually erupt out of him and every pore, orifice, and expressive muscle in his face. I’ve been to a lot of weddings in my short life, but that guy really expressed the most joy of anyone I’ve seen getting married. May they have an everlasting, happy marriage.

    I’ve been writing about insecurities lately, and I have no intention of slowing down. I’m trying to tackle something big. One might think that the last two, on trust and care are big insecurities, but, for me, that is child’s play. I guess there are internal, emotional things that I feel everyone knows are insecurities for me. In a sense, they almost aren’t insecurities, because I am insecure about them, but I’m not insecure about bringing them to light. If I get ballsy, I might tackle 2 tonight.

    I’ve always thought of love as something beyond the scope of time. How can I not? How can we not? Many of us are conditioned to. Assuming your parents don’t have any marriage ending issues at any point, then we see marriage as this symbolic extension of deep, affectionate love for another. A binding love that is meant for life. Some use the term soul mates; something that is beyond our concept of time as mortal, physical beings. Or, as someone who is and has been raised in the Christian faith, another example of love everlasting.

    Hear that high pitch ringing above your head getting louder? Here it comes.. the insecurity drop.

    I struggle to hell and high water with this concept. It was a naive and very low period of my life, but I had a spell where I just didn’t believe in the idea of love at all. I don’t struggle to the same magnitude anymore, but I struggle to believe in our abilities, once again, as mortal, physical beings to always feel that same joy and affection that I clearly saw on that groom’s face this weekend. I see that same struggle all over. I see it in the foundation I was raised on, my parents. I alarmingly hear of it from some of my closest, lifelong friends I’ve ever had. If you walk down a crowded street, you see it. If you turn on the TV, you see it. If you go to church, you see it. If you go to the store, you see it. If you read the news, literature, or the writings on bathroom stalls, you see it. If you talk to anyone outside your faux-comforting bubble of your inner circle, you see it. If you hang around that faux-comforting inner circle long enough, over a lifetime, you experience it.

    I’m not trying to come off as pessimistic, because I still believe in this, and I believe that I will attain it within my life, but it simply is a struggle; a weakness; an insecurity. Because sometimes I just feel like we are playing the biggest con of all against ourselves, and that, my friends, is the scariest prospect of all.

  • an open tunnel

    To me, love is just an open tunnel. That tunnel rarely seems to bring anything but pain.

    I loved a girl for a few years. First, we were barely more than acquaintances through a mutual friend. There was never a day that I was aware of her existence that I didn’t like her. Then we were friends. For a lon time we were friends. Then I was truly able to take that affection, and close friendship, and care for her. Quite later, that tunnel opened up on her end. Over some more time, I can truly say I loved her.

    I loved her for a long time. I loved her more than I ever realized I could love someone. I loved her through harder times than I ever foresaw. Each day, I loved her more and more. I never ran out of love to give, but I was not equipped with enough experience and wisdom in my life to that point to prevent what came. I was strangled; a choke point finally closed and I ran out of that ability to let that love, that care, flow.

    Each day, I woke up trying to be renewed, and love would eek out, but I experienced pain in conjunction with that love. Eventually, it was more pain than love, and I made one of the hardest choices in my life to barricade that tunnel until time healed the broken. Not since that choice have I come anywhere remotely close to caring for anyone on that level.

    To this day, the one I loved so dear still won’t talk or associate with me. She must still feel the same level of pain I do. It still hurts more, though. Over a year later and I only get one real correspondence; an e-mail, a dream, and part of a letter, and like that it is back to that long forgotten, long abandoned tunnel to eachother’s hearts, eachother’s lives.

    A couple months ago, I actually cared for a girl again. I didn’t think I had it in me. We were good friends. I was terrified. It wasn’t much, just care, and a very trusting friendship. I was afraid of the care. I was afraid of ruining a friendship already going through a rough patch. I was probably most afraid of the astronomically long shot odds of actually having a chance to have that care materialize; pebbles of rubble sliding through the cracks, then rocks, then boulders, until that tunnel was open again. I wasn’t looking for that, but it was nice to at least be able to care again.

    It turned for the worst. I wanted those feelings out of the way. In a confusing, poorly represented attempt to simplify, I presented myself and my care to her, like a loyal knight approaching the throne revealing a plot to betray the throne he protects. I wanted not to care more, I wanted to just keep my trusted friend, and care a little, on my own, on the side, just to remember myself that I am human, and contrary to my conditioning, love is not pain, but something that can bring life.

    The worst happened. I wasn’t rejected. I wasn’t accepted. I still don’t know what that means. I wish that she had the guts to have rejected me. In my gut, I wanted that. In my heart, I guess I wished she had the crazinness to accept me, I only wished for it when my mind was away.

    Now, we don’t talk at all. There is no communication. I don’t get to represent myself. I don’t get to represent my trampled feelings. I don’t get a chance to be understanding. I don’t get to be friends, at all. I’m the square root of a negative number.

    Someone I consider a best friend asked her on a date. They went on a date. It was some of the sharpest, most venomous pain that ever coursed through me. I care not, to the best of my abilities, to know anything beyond that one thing I found out. I try to live beyond it, but more often than I like it creeps in my bed at night, and forces itself upon me. I feel terrible those nights and converted mornings.

    A date? A date? A date?? I never even got a friendship. I don’t even know if I get to apologize for the stress I put her under. I don’t expect anyone will ever apologize to me, or not when it will hold any relevancy to my feelings.

    I see my friends. Some are married. They were stronger than me. They didn’t burn out; or maybe it was they weren’t extinguished.

    I see my friends. They still get to talk to their ex’s. They get to drift apart a little more naturally with someone wth whom they literally shared their life with. They have things fall in place. They find new people they get to mutually care for.

    For me, any distant relative of love has just been further conditioned to be, to me, associated with pain, with hurting, with tears. Care, trust, companionship, friendship, these things aren’t even love, but they all have tracked in the broken glass fragments from my concept of love, and likewise, even a step can, at random, cause me pain.

    It is another insecurity I have to carry around now. I’m not looking for any pity or anything. I’m sick enough of feeling bad for myself; last thing I want is anyone else doing the same. I’m simply bringing another insecurity to the table.

    This way, nobody can say anything to me sometimes see sawing from functioning, well, and to not ok.

    Sometimes I’m going to not be ok. Just let me at least not be ok sometimes, I don’t ask for much anymore. This is not too much to ask. If I ever warn you about getting too close to me, please know I’m just trying to keep that tunnel blocked off as long as I can. It is all I can do to keep moving on in life. Just stay barricaded. Keep moving on.

  • brain trust

    I am going to talk about trust today. Before I get ahead of myself, let me say that it felt good to write something a bit more uplifting than usual last time. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of that in the tank right now, just an assortment of junk. I’m just going to reach into this pack and sort through more. I just wanted to apologize for anyone who got to see a glimmering, hopeful perspective of life last time, and is ‘rewarded’ with the colder reality of blues, grays, and dreariness that is my life.

    Trust. I’ve lost faith in the concept. Maybe it is because I’ve been ever so slightly off my emotional axis today, but when I just think about trust, trusting people, and having my trust blown out of the water like fishing with dynamite, I just feel very weak. The overarching problem is that while I have lost faith in trust(ing people), I still give away my trust like suckers at the dentist. I still have copious amounts of trust vested in close vessels (people) of my personal life. Heck, I flip-flop from internally removing all trust from people who have stripped themselves their right to my trust, to feeling comfortable with the idea of fully giving it away again. That’s the overarching problem, though. There is another, smaller one that really bugs me.

    Maybe it is my elitist nature, but I look at other people, other friends, and see who they are trusting, contrast it to my own life and just get upset. I am me, for Pete and Repeat’s sake!– out of what I have around me, I choose the best, brightest, and most loyal to put my trust in! And when I see other people I have in my trust bubble, and some of the straight up bimbos they have in theirs, often at a greater level than they trust me, I just get–  upset.

    Or that is my reasoning, at least, in all it’s fallacious, narcissistic glory. I can’t help it! After letting myself get burned so often and so easily, I sometimes only really trust myself, and the way I see it is: why wouldn’t you want to trust me over anyone else? It is me! Me, me, me. You’ll have to excuse me, I just can’t help it sometimes. I mean, I am pretty rad, afterall. Oh, and considerate!

    What exactly is trust, though? I am not pondering that cognizantly, but rather the pure emotional sense. What is the feeling of trust?

    The way I see it, it is the complete lack of feeling. Distrust itself is the feeling. It is an anxiety, a worm that rests in your gut; slithering and pilfering around; consuming everything within until it swells and expands the lining of your intestines to the point that any movement causes your stomach to place the rest of your body on red alert. When I am with someone I trust, I feel nothing at all. I feel comfortable saying whatever I might say. I feel comfortable being affiliated with their individual actions. I have a total lack of concern for how they will consider my emotional or physical well-being.

    It is just a feeling, or lack thereof. That’s my simplified, flawed view of it, but it seems to fit.

    Because when you have that protective barrier of trust ripped out, like a skinless body, you feel every single sensation, and it hurts like the dickens.

    Like I said, just baggage I have to sort through. Nothing eloquent this time, nothing poignant, probably a waste of reading; maybe even a waste of me writing it, but I am just trying to put things in light and hopefully get something out of it, internally.

    As much as I continue to hurt, and continue to hide myself from reality, I am not distrusting enough.