Hope And Other Bullshit

People keep coming up to me and telling me how impressed they are by how strong I am. About how great it is that I moved and how impressive it is that Ive been able to keep everything together despite all of the recent bullshit. How lucky I am to be strong because that makes everything magically ok.

They're all assholes. Was that inappropriate? It's not any less appropriate than telling me I'm strong like it makes all the problems in the world go away. It doesn't. All it does is tell me about a character trait that's totally irrelevant to the conversation.

Of course I've kept it together. I don't have the luxury of curling up in a ball for a week because I have a broken heart. If I don't go to work, I don't have a job. If I don't have a job, my bills don't get paid. Being tough isn't a trait you develop one day because you think it sounds like fun. You do it because you don't really have a choice otherwise, so you might as well suck it up, Nancy.

Strong or not there's only so much hurt you can handle all at once before things start to fall apart. Even the strongest people in the world have a breaking point. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar. Everyone falls apart. Everyone has scars. Some just hide it better than others is all.

I caught a glimpse, a very tiny glimpse, of something that might actually start to turn this shit show around for me. 

I don't like it. 

If I chase it and it doesn't work, I'm going to wind up so much farther down and out than I was to start with that I'm not sure I'll be able to handle it. If I don't' chase it, I'm stuck in a perpetual state of feeling like this. Which honestly, isn't that good.

I've never been a big believer in hope. At best I always thought it was bullshit. Something people held on to for lack of any other option. Something to keep you sane in a world that doesn't make sense. Right up there with believing in God, I always considered hope to be something people did to make themselves feel better when they couldn't afford a new pair of shoes.

At it's worst, hope seems like a cruel joke. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone so far down that they seem like they'll never be able to get up again, and they always say the same thing. "I have hope". Inevitably what seems like a change in luck comes along and blows up in their face. Their perpetual hope winds up leaving them a bigger mess than they were to start with. 

Never been a big fan. Tried it a few times anyway. Didn't work out well for me. Actually, I don't ever think it's worked out well for me. That being said, I think I need a little of it right now. A little pointless, stupid hope. Something to maybe make the universe feel alright again. 

A breath of fresh air maybe. 

But all I can see are the ways it won't work. The million ways that I get my ass handed to me one more time because why the hell not? Kick her while she's down. 

Because I'm a fucking idiot, I'm grasping at that little shred of hope like maybe this time it'll be different than the plethora of other times I've thought that and had my spirit stomped on. I have to. I've run out of alternatives. 

I guess I hope if I keep chasing it like an idiot, I'll eventually come out ahead. Kind of like those people who are convinced they'll win the lottery someday.

They probably won't. But there's always that chance. 

I think I'm broken

I hate writing sometimes.

I really do.

A lot of other mediums allow for some kind of social interaction. Writing really isn't one of them. Not that I'm knocking people who can socialize while doing their thing, it just so happens that writing isn't really one of those things.

At the end of the day, I wind up sitting alone in a room with my laptop, trying to pick one idea out of the millions of thoughts that run through my head. There's never a clear idea, it's mostly abstract shapes, half formed ideas, and the occasional snippet of a sentence.

What people seem to miss is that even though my writing tends to be funny, it's still incredibly painful. Every time I write, I'm ripping the stitches on something. Every joke comes from a little bit of pain, disappointment, sadness, rejection, heartbreak or missed opportunity. The logical choice would be to simply not write.

For someone like me that isn't an option. I might not update my blog every day, but I do write everyday. Otherwise, the same thoughts just swirl in my head and chip away at me until I can hardly function. There are days that no matter how hard I try I can't get the thoughts out on paper. The problem is just by trying all of those thoughts wind up front and center, but there's absolutely no abreaction because my words just won't work.

Those days are the worst. How do you explain to the people around you that you're 2000 miles from home and kind of a mess because the one outlet you have from the stress of the move, relationship issues and new job rips the stitches on things you didn't know you felt anymore? How do you tell someone that you can't eat, you can't sleep and you just kind of need someone who gets it?

There are days when I would kill just to have someone sit next to me on the couch while I tried to string words together into thoughts that make some sort of sense. This is one of those days. It's all I can do not to curl up in a ball on my floor and cry.

The problem with writing is how easy it is to get stuck in your own head. It's even harder when you don't have anyone to shake you out of it every once in awhile and remind you that you're not broken.