Skip to main content

Just another day feeling like I feel...

I don't think I've ever really fit in anywhere. Earlier in my life, people simply accepted me because I was smart and well-mannered. But now, I feel that I'm not really the type of person that fits in anywhere, other than in my own world which is barren and devoid of anything good.

I sit at home, watching other people develop their friendships and relationships and I wonder what's wrong with me that I don't have these same experiences.  I watch people go to and from work and I wonder what's wrong with me that I can't use my skills or experience to make myself a living.  I watch people talk about how much fun they had with their friends and family, and I wonder what's wrong with me that none of my friends and family even want to be bothered with me.

I know folk who love me will say that what I'm feeling is not true, but I also know they'll lie to me in order to save my feelings, so I can't take what they say as fact.  What I do know is that I'm seen as different from everyone. To the thugs I'm too well spoken to be part of them.  To the academics and scholars I'm not as accomplished or published enough to be considered part of their group.  I'm too bad to be a Christian and too good to be a bad boy.  I'm too gay to be straight, and not gay enough to be welcomed by gay folk either.

I'm sure this is all in my head and I'm not the only person who has experienced this, but I can't help but feel down because of it. Like, what do I need to do to have some kind of happiness in life? Will I spend the rest of my life building this wall to keep people out, or will I give up in my attempt to protect myself in order to break down this wall and hope that those who want to come closer aren't doing it out of evil intention and hatred.  I'll never know until I made a choice and act on it, but making that choice isn't something I believe that I'm ready for at the moment.

I beat myself up every day over stuff like this. What I don't believe and why I don't trust folk are constant themes in my head.  I sit and think about how I could have done things better in the past and why I didn't just make the kind of life for myself that I saw years ago. Well, the simple answer to that is because I didn't know any better back then. And now that I know better, it's too fucked up to change. That is what bothers me. Feeling like I've been given all the chances in the world to do right, and now that I'm grown enough to know that it's too late to go back and make those decisions again.

So, instead of working to fix it, which I don't believe can be fixed, I'm just trying to find some kind of peace in my life. Peace that would allow me to accept my fate as being a failure and that would allow me to just settle for what is given to me and learn to be happy with it.  That's what I see around me, folk who have conditioned themselves to be happy no matter how fucked up things are. No matter how much injustice they are dealt, they still seem to be happy about the nothing they have to work with.  I don't understand it, but I definitely envy it. I wish I could just stay happy through all life's bullshit. That would be awesome. But they don't teach you that in school, nor do they tell you that nothing you learn in college is really going to ever benefit you in the real world outside of those doors. But hey, that's another mistake I made in believing that college would help me in life, but again I have no choice but to deal with it the best way I can and keep moving on to whatever is next in life.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The fight of my life!

Since I've been back home in Portsmouth I've been taking time to just relax and get back to being at peace with my life. I've been able to see old friends, hang out, eat well, and fill my days with lots of laughter, which is good for the soul I know. I've been able to visit familiar places and have been greeted my familiar loving faces as well. It's truly been a blessing that I've been able to take a break and come home to hit the reset button in my life, and even more blessed that I have a husband who supports me in that, even if he (like me) misses being together each and every day. Well, there are two issues that I know I have to face head on, and I have not gotten any more at ease about dealing with them since I've been home than I was when I was living in Richmond. I've been HIV positive since 2005, and most of the past 10 years have gone by without complication or incident. I've been on a medication regimen of one pill a day, and more recentl...

A Weekend Renewal

Shalom House, Montpelier, VA This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a "Transformation Retreat." It was a weekend getaway for persons infected with HIV, and part of a series of other retreats and programs by The Renewal Projects, an organization in Richmond, VA. The experience was amazing, unforgettable, life-changing, and any other word you could think of to describe a simply beautiful weekend. We didn't have a large group, which at first seemed to be a bit of a bummer. But, it turned out to be the thing that made the experience that much better for myself, and I hope for the rest of the people who attended. My room during the retreat There were no televisions or radios. Our rooms were simple. The only lights outside were those lining the sidewalk from the two cabins we stayed in down to the "Shalom House" where we had our group meetings and activities, as well as our meals. The food was great, too! We practiced meditation a...

Does the world want me to be fake?

I know I have my own set of problems and issues.  I've come to the point where I can admit that to myself or others who inquire about them.  But, where I still find myself stuck is when folk expect me to be "positive" or to have some type of "confidence" in my future.  How can I be positive when I feel like shit?  But, I guess that's just how we do things in America, we fake it until we make it.  But, if I'm being fake as hell and really not expressing anything, who does that help?  Not me. I've been a failure my entire life.  I've never done anything right.  Either I've taken too long finishing college, or I haven't had the right amount of patience and tolerance with a job that others felt I should have stuck with.  Time and time again I simply see myself in a bad light and I really don't know how to begin to change it or even if it can be changed. I've been told that I'm too hard on myself.  I can understand what people ...