Exposition and selfish relativism That you shouldn't care about.

I don't get it at all. I do everything I can to be chipper and upbeat to people I care about. Everyone's intent on being self-centered and down in it. No body's really down in it. That's the thing. They just want to feel sorry for themselves.

I'm told that there's no way that my family can retire by the time they want to. So? I feel bad for you, but you do have exorbitant luxuries you'll sacrifice yourself to maintain. You can go without several things I can think of, but still refuse to acknowledge your ability to change your present and future resides in DOING, not in the 'wishing' or 'worrying'. You've always tried to teach us that you've got to keep DOING things...sometimes the action is the inaction, or absence of action, and the determination of that path. Sometimes it means intently refraining. So don't go golfing 3-4x per week. So sell the boat. You've only come into that stuff in the last 10-12 years anyway. There were 40 without it. you can do without it again. It was a good 10-12 years. Get over it. Can't take it with you, anyway.

Also, don't refer to my sisters' praise of you, my father, as buttering up their meal-ticket through college. Don't insult their sincerity so. You will alienate yourself if you keep doing that. I already despise that continued perception you boast, and am no longer interested in any interaction with you as long as you maintain that mentality. My sisters love you. They're not placating or condescending to you. If you had told them you walked on air, they'd believe it to this day. It's fucking horrible for you to crush their feelings like that. She had to choke back tears, you asshole. You didn't see it because you're too self-indulgent and self-righteous in your pity cause that you thought you were being clever. It was mean, and you were wrong.
Side note - Shut the fuck up with the mean shit, everybody. Deal. Quit cutting others down.
Back to it: I love my sisters. Don't fuck with them. Even if you are my dad. It reminds me of all the times you pulled the same shit with me. And I still hate you for it. I gave you everything I had, but I was just doing it for money in your eyes. YOU NEVER DID THAT UNTIL YOU MADE MONEY. you think you always made it: NO YOU DIDNT. I remember not being able to afford tires for your car. I remember cold blankets. I remember an apartment the size of my one bedroom that the 4 of us lived in. I remember these things. I remember cups being buckets, warm water being heated on the stove. I remember the Chevette with the yellow showing from the cushions through the torn seats, unable to make it up hills. I remember pawpaw trying to give you money. I remember your start. I loved you anyway, BEFORE you had the fucking money. I remember you being fun, having fun, loving us, playing, being very gentle and strong. My sisters loved you before they knew what money was. I loved you for loving them. We were all best friends.
you pulled that shit with me, and I thought, "OK, bad day." for a year. Then it didn't stop. I realized mom was getting worse. You were getting worse. My sisters were turning into you two. Mom physically assaulting me because she hates me because she sees you in me, you bitching at me because I'm just like my fucking mother, then yelling at mom, then beating the dog, and the reason? Money. "Can't afford this, can't do that, gotta have it, fuck it, fuck you." And Avery'd get it because I was a financial burden. I got a job when I was 16. Didn't use any of your money. Paid my insurance, my food, my everything. Well, there was college. From MY mutual fund. From MY childhood. OK. I paid for that. "You need a new car." OK. I'm spending about $200-300 on starters per month as is, I can rock a car for that per month. So you cosign. I see a girl. We hit it off. I am paying for college. I want to make sure I make good grades. I study. I go to the library almost every night, from 7 until 12/1/2AM sometimes. "You're not studying. you're doing god knows what." No, you're wrong. I was fucking studying. We both were. BUT, now I realize it's never going to change. If it's money, and I fix that, now it's something else. Then it'll be something else when that's over. Want to know why I was so quiet? Because you fucking yelled all the time. If I stated an opinion (i.e. "I want to be a lawyer, I think." "Why the hell would you want to do that?!" "Because I like psychology, and perspectives, and the idea of justice." "TWIST the FUCKING knife in my back, son. Jesus FUCKING christ, a lawyer. Shit.") OR, it'd be something about a new chip design that allowed 256 mb of ram or 512 in the same space as it used to be 128 mb max and how I thought that was impressive, the only thing you heard was I wanted a computer all of a sudden, and I had no concept of money, or something like that. If I mentioned the guitar not feeling natural, they heard that I wanted them to buy me a new one - all I was saying was my fingers were clumsy that day. If I went and got a rail, I was fussed at for spending any money at all. I competed in street comps. Spent money for that, too. $5-$10 entry fees were fun to lose, because at least I was there. Never told them, never caught shit for it.
Anyway, whatever my opinion, it'd always turn out to be the wrong one, and either I was just like my mother for saying that, or I was being assinine and selfish. But, my sisters could do no wrong. I was ok with it as long as they weren't the targets. I knew that deep inside somewhere they loved me. Mom'd punch me, or start wailing on my chest. Kicking me. Maybe you just forgot since you had all this shit when you were young, but you'd remember us someday, and it'd be great because I'd forgive you, and everything would be excellent, and we'd all be best friends again.
Then my sisters started accusing me of being just like mom.
And they started accusing me of being just like Dad.
And we started getting into some very nasty fights.
I started channeling my aggression towards them.
I love my sisters.
mom wailing on me, yelling at my sisters, dad yelling at everyone, mom yelling at him, everyone breaking shit, throwing shit around, poor bonnie getting thrown up against the tree anytime dad had no other outlet, then pissing in the floor whenever he'd come around, then getting walloped on the head by a strong fist every time she did...
Guns enter the house. Wrecked home enters wrecked home with automatic weapons. What happens? Are things dealt with logically and rationally? No. Everyone is screamed at, forced into the car, and taken somewhere illogical. As if the guns will hop up and start randomly firing at everyone. They'd never seen guns before, I don't think. what the holy fuck? We finally disassembled them in pieces around the lake, pieces miles apart. barrel here, pin there, hammer here, gave the bullets away.
Now it's my fault for not listening to my mother scream incoherently at us and making a scene.
I didn't make the scene. She was crying her eyes out when she was screaming.
She was kicking my shins, trying to make me do what she demanded.
She was shoving my sisters into the car by their heads as they were crying.
Only she and I knew about the guns.
My sisters didn't know. They were confused as hell.
Screaming, yelling, forcing, kicking.
I couldn't do it.
no more.
I left. Why? Obvious to me. Is it obvious to anyone else?
I'm called every day, being bitched out, how could I do that to them, blah blah. It lasts two weeks. When I ask about how people are doing, I'm told everyone's fine, if I ever really cared.
I'm told that in my absence, they've gotten a brand new TV, a new PS2, a new whatever. So many new things. Things they'd told me for years I was stupid to save up and get. I'd come and visit them early on Saturdays and make them breakfast for a month or so. Well, I was still just trying to get money out of them. Being nice to gain. it had nothing to do with that, but that's what they wanted to believe. My girlfriend moves in. We were doing well, things were going good. I knew I loved being around her, I knew I loved her, and I knew she was very supportive to me through all of this, even at the cost of befriending my family. She alienated herself from them to support me. She even started alienating herself from her own family a bit, not listening to negative advice being given, a very innocent soul, in all honesty. Aware of the world, but it never seemed to touch her, if that makes any sense. Anyway, a truly awesome woman.
Well, my family couldn't stand it. What was bad before became horrid. My family went ape-shit. I was going to hell. I was Satan incarnate. The preacher at their church, a genuinely sweet man, came and tried to speak with us about religion, and the 'right' way to do things. We'd been fucking like rabbits after about a month of the "you're not studying" accusations. We still were studying until 1 or 2, but then we were fucking like crazy until about 4AM. We'd been living together for a few weeks. We're about as right as we can be, I thought. I took everything my family had as standards, motives, goals, meanings, worthy endeavors and said So, fuck it, it's my life. I can do whatever and be whatever I want, since I can't be what you want. You're wrong in most anything you've accused me of. It's time to see what's really true.
So I did what I did. i told the preacher that I was Wiccan. He didn't know what that meant. We're eating CiCi's Pizza (a truely delicious pizza still, to this day for some odd reason), and he's trying to grasp what Wicca is. We come to the middle ground that it's pantheism, but I don't very adequately convey that I don't necessarily believe that every element or property has a god's name associated with it, that I agree and ascribe to it mostly as a philosophy, and not so much as a theology . so he thinks I worship Greek mythology. No. so I hug trees? Closer. He says that there are paths for every individual, and what may seem as a straying now may just be a path closer to the truth. This is coming from a man who's put in the highest recommendation possible for me to attend Sewanee, be a member of the clergy, and who would speak with me about the different aspects of a sermon he'd written, and ask my opinion of...not like he was seeking wisdom, but he genuinely enjoyed talking with me, and I him. he was a very sweet man. And he didn't say 'closer to god' or 'jesus'. He said 'closer to the truth.' That was the last time I saw him. I wish him all the best in this life and the next. He's one terriffic guy. Everyone should meet him. You'll know when you do.
Continuing on: I haven't seen my family in a couple months. my mom won't let my sisters come over, even though she's in town every day. She dad won't talk to me. I call my grandparents: same thing. Mawmaw and pawpaw would talk with me, as would Jackie and Brenda, but only briefly, and 'hows the weather'. I started to realize what alienation was. I didn't see what I had in a loving woman. I saw what I had sacrificed. I saw the absence I had created for myself. I realized my place. I was expendable. All our best friends. All my best friends. They now hated me. And I hated them. we were no longer family. We were enemies. I stop calling. A few weeks go by. I get a call from my mom. I don't answer. We stop talking. I believed all the shit they'd told me.
It's a very occassional once-per-month-or-two two minute conversation that always ends with "Can my sisters come see me?" "No." "Why?" "Because of your lifestyle." "Ok, bye." *click* I couldn't believe their ignorance. I started getting frustrated. One of their friends forever has lived with this chick for years, hasn't married her, and you don't judge HIM, but, somehow, I'm setting a bad example for my sisters?! I didn't choose this because he did it. I chose it because I thought it was the right thing to do. The whole 'next step' thing. You know?
I still have the car. At somepoint in all the heated arguings, I was told that they wouldn't have a bad-credit risk with me and that car, since they didn't trust me to make a payment. This was preceded by me forgetting to go by an atm on my way to visit them to pay them for the whatever I had to pay them for. I went to the atm, got the money, when I got back, there was paperwork and a forced pen. OK, cool. Fuck it. Made a few grand to the side after I gave them $25000. They get their money. They make payroll for this month. They're happy. Next month they'll have to take from my sisters. Fuck it.
We're on about our life, my girlfriend and I. It was great sometimes, horrid other times. And it was all about where I'd see myself. I should have gone to a therapist. I should have talked about it. Not that I want her back - and I don't mean that she was at all anything to get rid of - but she's about to have a kid now with her husband whom she loves more than any of us know the meaning of the word, and is truly happy. Told you, one hell of a woman. :) No, but I would have saved her a lot of shit. She stuck with me two years through some of the most tumultuous emotional baggage you've ever seen. I wasn't my mom or my dad by any stretch of the imagination, but I was conflicted. What if I was just the stupid teenager? What I f I was wrong? What if? What if everything I knew was incorrect? Did I make the right decision? Those questions ate me alive. I started flashbacks to getting the shit beat out of me, being chased in dark woods, awkward moments that I blacked out in (and still don't remember), vivid memories. Terror. Hell. Very disjointed. Very disconnected. I'd play video games and watch movies just to give linearity to my thought processes. Otherwise, I'd literally start crying without knowing why, or start shaking. I would go 4 or 5 days sometimes with no sleep. Reality had no effect. I was immune, completely gone. I was stronger than this. I was a warrior. Warriors don't do that. What the fuck, asshole?! Get it together.
All of our love gone.
Get it TOGETHER.
We were dead.
GET IT TOGETHER, FUCKFACE.
They said it was my fault.
DUDE!
Maybe it was.
TOGETHER!
Maybe I did it.
GET IT TOGETHER ASSHOLE! NOW.
I killed us.
I killed our friendships.
I killed us being best friends.
I did it.
Somehow, I was in Savannah, now. I was excited to be here. It was a place to start over. Cleave from the grip of the piedmont, go to the coast, get the fuck away. Give us an honest chance, me and my fiancee. Got odd jobs. Ran two at once. Kept it moving for a little bit.
got told by my job advisor that i was a stupid teenager who'd broken his family heart, and didn't have a shred of moral fiber in his body, and should just go join whatever cult and kill myself because I was lost to the world. She was just pissed because she was diagnosed with some incurable cancer. I didn't see that until years later, even though she told me that in her apology on company letterhead with the watermark. I shreded the letter. All I heard was everything I'd feared being put into one breath. It must be true.
I do a show I don't remember. Apparently I was good in it. People still comment to me on it. I remember getting punched in the face during it to get me to shut the hell up.
GET IT TOGETHER.
couldn't. What a whiney little pussy I was. what a whiney pussy I am.
Everything comes to a head. I don't know what's going on. We fuck one night, the next night it's over. Not 'get ready because it's done' over but, 'gone tomorrow and changing locks' over. I remember vague discussions. I cry. I wail. I can't stand it. It hurts. This was the new beginning. I knew I fucked it up, but I wanted to prove I was sincere. Nope. OK. I call my dad, my best friend, crying to him that it was over, that I'd fucked it all up. He comes down next day with a truck and we pack shit up and move out. I want to live here, still, to sell everything. he wants me to get my head back on straight, and come back home and live with them. OK. I'm lost. Might as well give it another shot, right?
I throw what I can in my car, and go to drive back home, to make good on the family I'd destroyed.
I get there, and I'm bitched out for spending money. I was a wreck. Stuff like: She was so awful to me, how could I have ever loved her? Why was I so consistently stupid? Because someone tells me they love me, hugs me, does what she did, I'm a sucker for a lie. I'm so fucking gullible. I make them sick that they raised someone so stupid.
She calls.
She tells me she's sorry, and she knows I was trying. She got stressed and snapped, and maybe we could make it work.
My show opens in a week. i didn't make it to rehearsal that night because I was with my family. Im a lead role. THE lead role.
Two positives and a negative that's breaking my heart. I go back. i dont' take anything but what's left in my car. I go tell them this is what i'm doing. They tell me i'm thinking with my dick, not my head. I am crying, because this hurts, Because I do love her, because I don't think of her as a fuck at all, i think of her as a soulmate. I try to choke back tears, I kiss my dad on the cheek, and tell him to have a nice life. What we used to be can be no longer. sorry I let you down.
I never told them they were the ones being stupid. I never said, "No, YOURE the moron." I wasn't abrasive. Such things are just petty, and put you right back on the level they're at.
I get back, I'm there for a week, and it's over again. My show opened. I was removed from the relationship again. Same as before: Out by tomorrow.
I still have the show to perform.
I have no money.
I have nowhere to live.
I'm not going home. Not to that.
I live in my car.
I perform the show, showering in the dressing room. Once that's over, I sneak in to take showers. Someone catches on, and locks the doors. Next it's truck stops. I dont' have a commercial license, which is required to visit a truckstop shower. OK. Sneak by. Gotta get a job. I get a job. I have no residence. I used a guy that I spent a few nights sleeping in his dorm while he worked at the SUB for his address. We became good friends, smoking Djarum cigs he was gracious to lend and talking about System of A down albums, and music in general. He was about in the same place as me. We vibed well. He became incredibly intellectual, and ended up teaching english in Singapore, and still lives in Asia, I believe. Great guy. I owe him a lot.
Then it was roommates, and people he knew. Great couple. We got along perfectly. Spent every dime I'd saved working and put in on a deposit for tus an apartment. That's all they asked of me. The deposit. no monthly rent. No utilities. They were so sweet. I loved playing games and music with him, and talking about these raves she used to go to. It was fantastic. We got along great.
In comes one woman, out goes another for a few months. Us three all enjoying ourselves incredibly. Killians and games / tv at night with him, working or riding around town listening to techno / trance with her during the day. They tried to get me to go clubbing a few times, but I just wanted to write music. Then they'd tell me that it sucked, or that it was good, and it was awesome. he was the best critic of music. He was so blatant. "Good idea, but it sounds like you just shit everywhere. If you're going to shit, at least put it in a nice pile." Then he'd tell me what he meant. He was so fun. Seriously. He'd say that, but he'd do it in such a dry fashion, it was perfect comedic timing. He was cool. He ended up going overseas. he was in the army. I met a woman. She was timid and shy, but so fun and awesome. I loved her within a week, believe it or not. No warming up, just got the feeling one night when we were walking around outside. I saw her smile when I looked at her, and she sent this wave of comradery and comfort over me, and a desire to know her better, and of knowing that I'd do anything and everything I could forever to get her to smile like that again. She comes and visits me when there's no heat. No TV. When there's no reason to be there. We'd lay and cuddle wherever and talk about random things. Sleep. nothing sexual. Except the make-out sessions. Those were sexual. But they never ended up in sex. Just making out. It was fun just to kiss her. he's coming back into town. His TOD is finally over. But when he came back, he was not the guy that left. He was aggressive, accusatory, and directly confronted me that I slept with his wife. They were my brother and sister. Every time she and I were together after that, it was an excuse to be alone with her. I was reminded of my family, and how I was always trying to do this or that by my actions. I left them, too. They had to keep my TV, because it was practically theirs anyway. OK. Fine. Another one bites the dust. I wish them both well.
I go find a place I can afford on what money I make, now. I find one. She still comes over. It's awesome. She tells me things. I listen. She tells me she doesn't know what to do. I tell her that's fine. She tells me she wants to do something. I tell her to do it. She tells me she wants to have something. I tell her it's unnecessary, then buy it for her to surprise her. She tells me I don't understand alienation. I tell her I do. She tells me I don't understand family. i tell her I do. She tells me I don't get it because I don't speak with them. She never asked why. it was just that simple in her mind: you don't speak with them, you don't get it. Hm. Maybe something to that.
I called mom.
Answered begrudgingly.
Talked piddle talk. But it was cool. Maybe if they knew I was back on track, or something, it'd be good. They help me move into my next place. They visit. They enjoy being there. It's nice.
We talk for about a week before they start accusing me again. They want me to go back to college. I'm worn out. Finish up. I don't want to. It's a burden, and unnecessary. Besides, 43% of college graduates won't have a college graduate job by the time I graduate. Why spend the money? Because it's something I'll have accomplished, they say. I go, I graduate, I have to scrape by with only $5 for the entire month to eat off of more than a couple of times. Her family helps me out and feeds me. I'm told I don't handle money well, and her family is just enablers for my lifestyle. Well, they are enablers, but they weren't to me. They were honestly trying to help me out because their daughter loved me so much. shit. I pay bills. There's not a lot left over when your AC bill is $215. they don't hear that. I show them the statements. Whatever, that's just one month, what about all the other months? Well, I actually eat those months. They say I'm drinking, or smoking it all away. Fuck 'em. whatever. It's my money, anyhow. I'll not spend what I don't have however I damn well please. I graduate. I'm engaged again. I get a good job pulling about 50k. One of the top sales-persons in the REGION. I'm set.
I'm bored.
Years later.
Who loved me so much and would do anything for me doesn't know where to start. I'm living in the Northwest, she's still in GA. She was coming out, but she got too scared, missed her chance, and then life started beating her up. Family went stupid, brothers gone crazy, she starts blaming everyone else for her feelings because that's what everyone around her does. It's all about her entertainment and her enjoyment of things only, without consideration or recognition of anyone else's feelings or positions. When told repeatedly 'this hurts', her response was it was her life, and she should be free to do whatever she wants without it hurting anyone. sorry, hon, you don't tell me how I react to things, or anyone else, for that matter. It's not a "I want to do it and you're ok with that." I tell her this. So she quits talking to me. For 5 months. Now 6. She asks me if I've ever fucked up so bad that I don't know where to start? If I know what that's like? No. I've been kicked out of my family, my home, my home with my ex, had no job, lived in my car for a while, almost got killed a couple times definitely, maybe three, ran a rap studio, got the ever living pants stole off of me, friends killed for the dumbest shit, others riding on baby's mama putting him in the hospital, my other family through her doesn't talk to me and can't stand me because I'm straight forward with them, I lost my job again, I had an entire community that I've screwed because I couldn't do what everyone demanded, what was too much wasn't enough, and do I know what feeling lost feels like, and not know where to begin? Wrecks. I call. No answer. Got a good little concussion. No response. I could have died, you fucking idiot. Didn't matter to you at all. Wouldn't talk. Your fucking pride has killed us. You don't know where to start, but you don't just start anywhere. you don't start at all. you sit still and wait for it to hit you on the head, or place itself in front of you. Things don't work that way, hon. I've gone through, in 8 years, more than what most people go through in 30. OK? I've had my life directly threatened, I've had friends shot dead for a necklace, others who don't remember my name because they got so fucked up in a wreck trying to keep oncoming traffic safe where many could have died, have had the family that you accuse me of not being close to at all stab eachother in the back repeatedly, and say it's because they love each other. Have had my extended family stab my grandparents repeatedly. Have had my heart now ripped out by you, and you want to tell me you don't know where to start? You used to smile with me. Now, when we talk, you just shut off and don't speak with me for months. Then you tell me in an email that if you were leaving me, I'd know it. I thought not speaking with someone for months was a sign? Or maybe going away and never coming back was a sign? Or maybe not ever telling me what you're doing is a sign? Or maybe taking off your rings? Or maybe telling me that it was your life, and I don't have a part of it, and shouldn't want to share in any of it because I don't want that, because you don't want that, because that's what you want things to be like was a FUCKING sign? Maybe it was telling me how I was supposed to take things? How I'm supposed to talk to you? What I'm supposed to say? How I'm supposed to feel? What about a letter to your delusional husband about how much you hate me? Those aren't SIGNS?! You tell me you don't want to be controlling, but if I say ONE thing out of line, you don't talk to me for months. What's worse is that what you bitch about that you want me to say, I said earlier in that conversation, but you never heard it. You just complain that I don't or didn't say it.
Now you're held up at gunpoint. Your life is brought into question, same as mine, only mine was as a threat, and yours was as a bartering chip as she cleaned out your store and wallet. Wait...you had a job?! I didn't know. You don't tell me anything, you hide the rest, and then get offended that I don't trust you. Get real. What happens now that you've gone to see your concerts? What happens now that you've stayed there for two years when you were supposed to be here? Ever think that if you were here, you wouldn't have been held up? You might not have seen those concerts, but is that really worth the next two years of jumpiness every time you see someone take their hands out of their pockets quickly? Or move fast behind your head? Was that worth it? It'd better be, because that was your price. You set aside your husband, your relationship for your own personal fulfillment, put yourself in the position, and the situation happened there. She would have come throught that store whether you were there or not. But because you won't get here, you were the one working there to try to make $50. Now you tell me you don't know where to start? Are you fucking serious?
The woman who smiled I havent seen for half a year. The woman who smiled smiles at other things now. The woman who I would do anything to see smile like that again, somehow anything I do just makes her hate me. it's over. There is no coming back without you doing. You've got to see this. You don't want a relationship. you want a friend that glorifies yourself, not someone who tells you 'dude, you're fucking up' or 'I love you' because they mean it. You want them to tell you that they love you because they find you amusing, or they think you're great, and that's it.
No, I don't understand caring for family. No, I don't understand being destitute. no, I don't understand what it's like to have no where to go. No, I don't know what it's like to lose a loved one. No, I don't understand what it's like to have to just move on. No, I don't get the fact that it's all what you make of life, not what life makes of you. I don't get it at all. That's why I'm running a TV station. That's why I had the job I did. That's why I got the job I have now. That's why I spent all my money and time trying to get us together. You just want to rip it apart because you don't know what else to do. That's fine with anything else. This is me. You're not ripping me apart. I've given everything I had to you. You're taking the gifts and the ribbons and you're tearing and stretching and smashing and stomping. I've cried about that long enough. I'm taking them back. I'll just give them to someone else. someone will like them. Maybe they won't. At least I won't have to endure you destroying it.

Mom: Shut up.
Dad: Shut the fuck up.
Sisters: Sorry. Get ready.
Wife: Listen to yourself. You've become a walking contradiction of yourself. Why not listen to someone else?
Self: Go away.
Reader: Purge your memory.