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exhilarationIs it "turd" or is it "terd?" My spell check doesn't seem to recognize either one.
Whatever.
I've been sitting here staring at the wall and thinking really intently. It's that kind of night, yes it is.
So there's this girl I work with (restaurant) and I like her.
I don't mean I have a crush on her or anything. She's just a nice person. I have nothing against her, in fact, I rather like her.
She's one of those very, very, almost-sickeningly-sweet types, and I used to despise her because she seemed so fake. But it's not fake. And yeah, she might be annoying sometimes, but I gotta give her credit where credit's due: at least she's genuine. And most people aren't
She can be kind of clueless at times. I try to clue her in on things when I can. She usually doesn't listen to me. I try to pull the "older, wiser, let me explain life to you" thing with her once in a while, but it never seems to stick. She talks about her life all the time, and the boys she likes, and not getting along with her mom, whatever, the girl's a teenager. She's just being a regular teenage girl.
Of all the other idiots I have to work with, I'd take her any day.
So, I'm disabled. I don't say it often, and, to tell the truth, it feels weird to even type it. It's been nine years (once, I wrote an omg!emo poem in which I harped on the fact that I'd been like this for two years. It went two years, two years, taunt the voices in my head, since you, the fool, have been half-dead) and I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with describing myself this way, I'm not okay with thinking about myself this way, and I'm not okay with how other people see me. What ever it is that they see. I assume it's my most noticeable characteristic, after all. I don't know, I can't get in other people's heads. But I can guess. And I'm not okay with it.
I'm not comfortable in my own body. It still feels foreign to me, even now. Sometimes, when I first wake up, and I know I can't just jump out of bed, that that first instinct isn't even there, I haven't forgotten even for a splitsecond, I feel like I've finally become whatever it is I said I'd never be.
That regardless of anything else, I'd never be that.
Whatever THAT is.
People are uncomfortable around me. I know they are. Yes, after I just said of course I can't get in anyone else's head, I know people are uncomfortable around me. And I'm uncomfortable around myself. And it makes for some very awkward social interactions. I try, I really, really try, to do whatever I can to diffuse this. I goof off, I act silly, I try to entertain, I try to be like, look, just act regular, I'll act regular, and we can pretend there's nothing unusual about me, okay?
I've got my "standard answers" for when people ask. I try to let them know that really, I don't want to talk about it, but let them know it in a nice, friendly way - it's okay that they asked, and it's okay that I'm going to avoid the question.
'What's wrong with you?' earns the response 'I can't walk.'
'What's wrong with your legs?' gets 'They don't work.'
'What happened?' is 'I got hurt.'
These are my set responses for strangers. Not friends, you know, if someone is my friend, or wants to be my friend, or I want them to be my friend, they can ask whatever the hell they want. But you'd be surprised how many strangers are bold enough to try to satisfy their curiosity after a good long stare. And in the greater scheme of things, I don't look all that unusual. Just a girl on crutches. That's all. I'm not freakish in appearance, I promise. Except maybe my hair, especially after a color mishap, or something, like pond-scum green instead of chestnut brown or something. But I try to avoid that kind of thing.
But it is rude, and I do hate rude people, and yeah, I can get really, really pissy sometimes. Seriously, the only reason I'm ever nice is because I want people to like me. I'm not naturally nice. Naturally, I'm an asshole. I try to curb my inner asshole, though, because I don't want people to think I'm an ass until they get to know me, and by then they should think I'm so incredibly awesome that they don't care that I'm such an ass to begin with.
I was talking about work, right? So I'm at work. I'm in the lobby of the restaurant. Kimmy and I are the only hosts on. It isn't very busy. I am greeting and she is seating (I do not like to seat people. I have a very long explanation as to why this is, and it's NOT because I can't do it. I can. I just hate it. I learned to seat people when I was trained, just like everyone else in the restaurant who does my job. But I'm not going to go into that here.) and so we are both standing in the lobby waiting for people to come in. She takes them to their table. I just stand there so that people don't wander in with no one to say hello to them and decide to just help themselves to whatever table they want. It is a very, very boring job. I mentioned I don't like my job, right?
So some people come in. A guy and (I guess) his family. The guy is around my age. 'Around' being a pretty broad range. Not old enough to be my parent and not young enough to be my offspring. He is using a rolly-walker. Like old people use. I'm like, "Hi, how many people" and Kimmy, she says to him, "Uh oh, what happened to you?"
After she comes back from taking them to their table, I decide that I am going to impart some of my "older-and-wiser" advice. That and, she, who prides herself on being the MOST friendly and the MOST polite, was just totally rude, and I was jumping at the chance to call her on it. (Asshole...)
And I'm like, "Kimmy love, you can't ask people shit like that. It's really rude. DIdn't you read your handbook? It specifically says you should never comment on anything personal about a guest."
And it does say that. I know this because I read the handbook. Multiple times. Because standing up there is really freakin boring, and there is a copy under the host stand.
So, yes, I have just elected myself as resident spokesperson for the disabled.
But what the hell do I know, anyway? I said I can't get in other people's heads. That includes everyone. I don't have a special psychic connection with other disabled people. Even if I think I can relate to someone, really, that doesn't mean shit.
When I was in AC with Matt and co, he went in a corner store with his girlfriend to buy her some bottled water and I stood outside on the corner, because, I don't know, for whatever reason I didn't feel like going in the store. I was just being my regular crowd-hating self I guess. And I was just all lalalala on the sidewalk, and then this man in a wheelchair was leaving the store.
So, the door opened outward and it was a spring-type door. Not an automatic door - they open for you. And not a regular door, you know, the kind that swings, or the kind that stays open when you push on it. This is the kind of door that pushes back at you. So how do you go through a door like this if it opens outward if you're in a wheelchair? Well, basically, the door is going to close on you. Repeatedly. But you will eventually get in or out of wherever you are going. It kind of sucks. I know this because I've done it, and I, personally, do not particularly enjoy it.
But I certainly can't speak for everyone who's mobility-impaired because without really thinking about it too hard, I reached out and caught the door when it opened and held it there so he could just leave the store in one shot and wouldn't you know he yelled at me? He yelled at me really bad, he was really nasty to me, and I swear he didn't even see me. He went on about how if I wanted to do my good deed of the day I should go volunteer at a soup kitchen and to let the hell go of the damn door, which I, after I got over a bit of shock, eventually did. Did he even see my crutches? Did he even see that I'm disabled too? Would it have made any difference? If I wasn't disabled would I have caught the door or would I not have because I wouldn't have wanted to seem patronizing? See, I figured I had a free pass from that one, I figured I had 'been there, done that' written all over me, but I guess not. But I still think he didn't even look at me. And I hate that.
I hate feeling invisible and I hate being stared at - what the hell do I want then? God only knows.
I'm real big on making generalizations - it's how the human brain works, we like to categorize things, it's how we're wired. I like to just accept these things and move on from there - no use denying what my brain is going to do regardless of whether I think it's right or not. For example, I'll make a few right now: people who work in restaurants are immature and irresponsible and consider obtaining marijuana a high priority in their lives. young mothers chug half-caf non-fat lattes and run into other people with their giant strollers. People in this town are born here and die here and their worlds are the size of their own back yard. Tourists are loud, trashy, and inconsiderate. High schoolers are self absorbed and ignorant. Skateboarders do drugs, leave cigarette butts on the ground, and are disrespectful of private property.
And here's another one: disabled people are mean, bitter, and hate their lives.
And back to Kimmy and it specifically saying in the employee handbook that you do not comment on physical characteristics of guests, including hair, clothing, apparent age, and disabilities. Yes it's really in there. I was very serious. "Seriously, you don't ask people stuff like that. It's rude. Would you say something like that to me? You think I want to hear shit like that?"
"Well you're different," was her defense. In other words, no, she wouldn't talk to me like that, no uh oh, what happened to YOU in like baby talk, but somehow, that's different. And all the while I'm feeling this intense discomfort with this 'hi I am your resident disability spokesperson' role.
"Nuh uh," I counter, very intelligently. "What do you mean? How am I different?"
She didn't want to answer me, which of course just made me press her even more for what the hell she meant, and finally I got it out of her:
"You're mean."
Well, there we have it. I'm mean. I'm mean, and disabled, and so I am one of those mean, bitter disabled people who hates my life.
Except I was mean before I was disabled, so it doesn't count, I'm not one of THEM. Wasn't I?
Wasn't I mean anyway? Haven't I always had the same mean streak? Haven't I always made the same digs at people, haven't I always laughed when the chronic chair-tippers fall over backwards, haven't I always snapped at people who piss me off, haven't I called people idiots to their face and not felt bad about it?
So it doesn't count because I was mean anyway.
Wasn't I, though?
I can't quite remember. Actually, I kind of think I remember people saying I was quiet and nice. I'd be hard pressed to find someone to say that about me now.
Damnit.
So Kimmy never asked me what's 'wrong' with me. She never did. We work together all the time. Every shift I work, I almost always work with her. She never asked about my disability. Which at first was cool, because when I first started there (and she and I started at the same time, we trained together and everything) everyone was obviously curious, whatever, of course they were curious and all I wanted was to get past that initial awkwardness and move along to being co-workers. I guess I just figured that with her being oh-so-nice and perfect and all, she was being nice and not asking me a personal question.
Obviously it was actually because she thinks I'm mean. She thinks I'm one of THOSE. Whether or not I can remember how mean i was before, she has no idea. She only knows me now. For all she knows, I've always been this way. Which sometimes I which I could just broadcast a memo about, you know, attention strangers and casual acquaintances, I was not born this way, I used to be just like you, as if somehow that would change everything. 'Everything,' of course, meaning 'anything at all,' and I say that with complete sarcasm.
And, see, who else has never asked me about my disability?
Oh, Bevan. Which, to be honest, went from kinda cool to totally bizarre the night we decided to randomly have some gettin' it on. Because really, I mean, my body doesn't work the way a normal person's does, that's pretty obvious. You'd think that would be an important thing to understand if you're gonna do the deed. But he never brought it up, and, neither did I, and I was the sober-er of the two of us and I never said a damn thing about it either. Yeah, real comfortable with myself, I am, can't you tell?
It'd be nice to think it's something he doesn't even see, but, that's bullshit and I know it. I kind of decided, in my head, that it's just this general vibe of awkwardness I give off or something.
BUT MAYBE IT'S CAUSE I'M MEAN.
I am a little drunk right now. I did the bar-after-work thing, there was a little celebration, it was someone's birthday, everyone was doing shots and the birthday girl was all, "oh, Lara, do a shot for me, come on, I wanna see you just a little drunk!" like she really thought I don't get drunk or something. That I don't drink like that. That I'm somehow not a part of, you know, that crowd that drinks like it's going out of style. That if I did a shot right then, 'for her,' she would be the first ever to experience me when I'm drunk. Not that that's particularly a treat to begin with, but whatever. One shot won't get me drunk. Two shots, though?
Every time I go out with people I always hold out hope that I'm going to have this fabulous time or something, that I'm going to meet someone awesome, that something awesome is going to happen, that I'm finally going to become one of the 'cool kids' or something.
Never happens. Or, worse yet, it does, or I think it does, and then it turns out everyone was so drunk they don't remember that they decided I was one of the 'cool kids' and I have to start all over again the next time.
I make this big deal these days about how I'm a grown up now. I'm an adult. Hey, I'm older than Kimmy, and older enough that I feel the need to impart "older-and-wiser" advice to her. You wanna know how grown up I am? I am so grown up that even now, even tonight, even though I know that these people are not really my friends to begin with, we just work together, even though I've been drunk plenty of times in my life and one more time isn't anything special or especially impressive and why the hell am I trying to impress people I don't care about by being drunk anyway I couldn't really tell ya - I still can't take someone implying that I can't keep up with their alcohol consumption.
So actually it was three shots. Of - get this - that nasty shit that tastes like cinnamon. I don't even like that stuff. Blegh. And birthday girl got her wish - here I am drunk. And see what happens when I'm drunk? I just get all... all... I don't even know how to describe my mindset right now. I dwell. That's what it is. I dwell.
Hmmm. I could drunk dial my ex right now... bet she would think that was fab.
But I won't, because that would be pathetic. I wonder if she thinks I'm mean, though.
Well, she probably does. Well, she thinks I'm incredibly selfish and I can't really argue with that.
That's kinda like mean, isn't it?
Whatever.
I've been sitting here staring at the wall and thinking really intently. It's that kind of night, yes it is.
So there's this girl I work with (restaurant) and I like her.
I don't mean I have a crush on her or anything. She's just a nice person. I have nothing against her, in fact, I rather like her.
She's one of those very, very, almost-sickeningly-sweet types, and I used to despise her because she seemed so fake. But it's not fake. And yeah, she might be annoying sometimes, but I gotta give her credit where credit's due: at least she's genuine. And most people aren't
She can be kind of clueless at times. I try to clue her in on things when I can. She usually doesn't listen to me. I try to pull the "older, wiser, let me explain life to you" thing with her once in a while, but it never seems to stick. She talks about her life all the time, and the boys she likes, and not getting along with her mom, whatever, the girl's a teenager. She's just being a regular teenage girl.
Of all the other idiots I have to work with, I'd take her any day.
So, I'm disabled. I don't say it often, and, to tell the truth, it feels weird to even type it. It's been nine years (once, I wrote an omg!emo poem in which I harped on the fact that I'd been like this for two years. It went two years, two years, taunt the voices in my head, since you, the fool, have been half-dead) and I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with describing myself this way, I'm not okay with thinking about myself this way, and I'm not okay with how other people see me. What ever it is that they see. I assume it's my most noticeable characteristic, after all. I don't know, I can't get in other people's heads. But I can guess. And I'm not okay with it.
I'm not comfortable in my own body. It still feels foreign to me, even now. Sometimes, when I first wake up, and I know I can't just jump out of bed, that that first instinct isn't even there, I haven't forgotten even for a splitsecond, I feel like I've finally become whatever it is I said I'd never be.
That regardless of anything else, I'd never be that.
Whatever THAT is.
People are uncomfortable around me. I know they are. Yes, after I just said of course I can't get in anyone else's head, I know people are uncomfortable around me. And I'm uncomfortable around myself. And it makes for some very awkward social interactions. I try, I really, really try, to do whatever I can to diffuse this. I goof off, I act silly, I try to entertain, I try to be like, look, just act regular, I'll act regular, and we can pretend there's nothing unusual about me, okay?
I've got my "standard answers" for when people ask. I try to let them know that really, I don't want to talk about it, but let them know it in a nice, friendly way - it's okay that they asked, and it's okay that I'm going to avoid the question.
'What's wrong with you?' earns the response 'I can't walk.'
'What's wrong with your legs?' gets 'They don't work.'
'What happened?' is 'I got hurt.'
These are my set responses for strangers. Not friends, you know, if someone is my friend, or wants to be my friend, or I want them to be my friend, they can ask whatever the hell they want. But you'd be surprised how many strangers are bold enough to try to satisfy their curiosity after a good long stare. And in the greater scheme of things, I don't look all that unusual. Just a girl on crutches. That's all. I'm not freakish in appearance, I promise. Except maybe my hair, especially after a color mishap, or something, like pond-scum green instead of chestnut brown or something. But I try to avoid that kind of thing.
But it is rude, and I do hate rude people, and yeah, I can get really, really pissy sometimes. Seriously, the only reason I'm ever nice is because I want people to like me. I'm not naturally nice. Naturally, I'm an asshole. I try to curb my inner asshole, though, because I don't want people to think I'm an ass until they get to know me, and by then they should think I'm so incredibly awesome that they don't care that I'm such an ass to begin with.
I was talking about work, right? So I'm at work. I'm in the lobby of the restaurant. Kimmy and I are the only hosts on. It isn't very busy. I am greeting and she is seating (I do not like to seat people. I have a very long explanation as to why this is, and it's NOT because I can't do it. I can. I just hate it. I learned to seat people when I was trained, just like everyone else in the restaurant who does my job. But I'm not going to go into that here.) and so we are both standing in the lobby waiting for people to come in. She takes them to their table. I just stand there so that people don't wander in with no one to say hello to them and decide to just help themselves to whatever table they want. It is a very, very boring job. I mentioned I don't like my job, right?
So some people come in. A guy and (I guess) his family. The guy is around my age. 'Around' being a pretty broad range. Not old enough to be my parent and not young enough to be my offspring. He is using a rolly-walker. Like old people use. I'm like, "Hi, how many people" and Kimmy, she says to him, "Uh oh, what happened to you?"
After she comes back from taking them to their table, I decide that I am going to impart some of my "older-and-wiser" advice. That and, she, who prides herself on being the MOST friendly and the MOST polite, was just totally rude, and I was jumping at the chance to call her on it. (Asshole...)
And I'm like, "Kimmy love, you can't ask people shit like that. It's really rude. DIdn't you read your handbook? It specifically says you should never comment on anything personal about a guest."
And it does say that. I know this because I read the handbook. Multiple times. Because standing up there is really freakin boring, and there is a copy under the host stand.
So, yes, I have just elected myself as resident spokesperson for the disabled.
But what the hell do I know, anyway? I said I can't get in other people's heads. That includes everyone. I don't have a special psychic connection with other disabled people. Even if I think I can relate to someone, really, that doesn't mean shit.
When I was in AC with Matt and co, he went in a corner store with his girlfriend to buy her some bottled water and I stood outside on the corner, because, I don't know, for whatever reason I didn't feel like going in the store. I was just being my regular crowd-hating self I guess. And I was just all lalalala on the sidewalk, and then this man in a wheelchair was leaving the store.
So, the door opened outward and it was a spring-type door. Not an automatic door - they open for you. And not a regular door, you know, the kind that swings, or the kind that stays open when you push on it. This is the kind of door that pushes back at you. So how do you go through a door like this if it opens outward if you're in a wheelchair? Well, basically, the door is going to close on you. Repeatedly. But you will eventually get in or out of wherever you are going. It kind of sucks. I know this because I've done it, and I, personally, do not particularly enjoy it.
But I certainly can't speak for everyone who's mobility-impaired because without really thinking about it too hard, I reached out and caught the door when it opened and held it there so he could just leave the store in one shot and wouldn't you know he yelled at me? He yelled at me really bad, he was really nasty to me, and I swear he didn't even see me. He went on about how if I wanted to do my good deed of the day I should go volunteer at a soup kitchen and to let the hell go of the damn door, which I, after I got over a bit of shock, eventually did. Did he even see my crutches? Did he even see that I'm disabled too? Would it have made any difference? If I wasn't disabled would I have caught the door or would I not have because I wouldn't have wanted to seem patronizing? See, I figured I had a free pass from that one, I figured I had 'been there, done that' written all over me, but I guess not. But I still think he didn't even look at me. And I hate that.
I hate feeling invisible and I hate being stared at - what the hell do I want then? God only knows.
I'm real big on making generalizations - it's how the human brain works, we like to categorize things, it's how we're wired. I like to just accept these things and move on from there - no use denying what my brain is going to do regardless of whether I think it's right or not. For example, I'll make a few right now: people who work in restaurants are immature and irresponsible and consider obtaining marijuana a high priority in their lives. young mothers chug half-caf non-fat lattes and run into other people with their giant strollers. People in this town are born here and die here and their worlds are the size of their own back yard. Tourists are loud, trashy, and inconsiderate. High schoolers are self absorbed and ignorant. Skateboarders do drugs, leave cigarette butts on the ground, and are disrespectful of private property.
And here's another one: disabled people are mean, bitter, and hate their lives.
And back to Kimmy and it specifically saying in the employee handbook that you do not comment on physical characteristics of guests, including hair, clothing, apparent age, and disabilities. Yes it's really in there. I was very serious. "Seriously, you don't ask people stuff like that. It's rude. Would you say something like that to me? You think I want to hear shit like that?"
"Well you're different," was her defense. In other words, no, she wouldn't talk to me like that, no uh oh, what happened to YOU in like baby talk, but somehow, that's different. And all the while I'm feeling this intense discomfort with this 'hi I am your resident disability spokesperson' role.
"Nuh uh," I counter, very intelligently. "What do you mean? How am I different?"
She didn't want to answer me, which of course just made me press her even more for what the hell she meant, and finally I got it out of her:
"You're mean."
Well, there we have it. I'm mean. I'm mean, and disabled, and so I am one of those mean, bitter disabled people who hates my life.
Except I was mean before I was disabled, so it doesn't count, I'm not one of THEM. Wasn't I?
Wasn't I mean anyway? Haven't I always had the same mean streak? Haven't I always made the same digs at people, haven't I always laughed when the chronic chair-tippers fall over backwards, haven't I always snapped at people who piss me off, haven't I called people idiots to their face and not felt bad about it?
So it doesn't count because I was mean anyway.
Wasn't I, though?
I can't quite remember. Actually, I kind of think I remember people saying I was quiet and nice. I'd be hard pressed to find someone to say that about me now.
Damnit.
So Kimmy never asked me what's 'wrong' with me. She never did. We work together all the time. Every shift I work, I almost always work with her. She never asked about my disability. Which at first was cool, because when I first started there (and she and I started at the same time, we trained together and everything) everyone was obviously curious, whatever, of course they were curious and all I wanted was to get past that initial awkwardness and move along to being co-workers. I guess I just figured that with her being oh-so-nice and perfect and all, she was being nice and not asking me a personal question.
Obviously it was actually because she thinks I'm mean. She thinks I'm one of THOSE. Whether or not I can remember how mean i was before, she has no idea. She only knows me now. For all she knows, I've always been this way. Which sometimes I which I could just broadcast a memo about, you know, attention strangers and casual acquaintances, I was not born this way, I used to be just like you, as if somehow that would change everything. 'Everything,' of course, meaning 'anything at all,' and I say that with complete sarcasm.
And, see, who else has never asked me about my disability?
Oh, Bevan. Which, to be honest, went from kinda cool to totally bizarre the night we decided to randomly have some gettin' it on. Because really, I mean, my body doesn't work the way a normal person's does, that's pretty obvious. You'd think that would be an important thing to understand if you're gonna do the deed. But he never brought it up, and, neither did I, and I was the sober-er of the two of us and I never said a damn thing about it either. Yeah, real comfortable with myself, I am, can't you tell?
It'd be nice to think it's something he doesn't even see, but, that's bullshit and I know it. I kind of decided, in my head, that it's just this general vibe of awkwardness I give off or something.
BUT MAYBE IT'S CAUSE I'M MEAN.
I am a little drunk right now. I did the bar-after-work thing, there was a little celebration, it was someone's birthday, everyone was doing shots and the birthday girl was all, "oh, Lara, do a shot for me, come on, I wanna see you just a little drunk!" like she really thought I don't get drunk or something. That I don't drink like that. That I'm somehow not a part of, you know, that crowd that drinks like it's going out of style. That if I did a shot right then, 'for her,' she would be the first ever to experience me when I'm drunk. Not that that's particularly a treat to begin with, but whatever. One shot won't get me drunk. Two shots, though?
Every time I go out with people I always hold out hope that I'm going to have this fabulous time or something, that I'm going to meet someone awesome, that something awesome is going to happen, that I'm finally going to become one of the 'cool kids' or something.
Never happens. Or, worse yet, it does, or I think it does, and then it turns out everyone was so drunk they don't remember that they decided I was one of the 'cool kids' and I have to start all over again the next time.
I make this big deal these days about how I'm a grown up now. I'm an adult. Hey, I'm older than Kimmy, and older enough that I feel the need to impart "older-and-wiser" advice to her. You wanna know how grown up I am? I am so grown up that even now, even tonight, even though I know that these people are not really my friends to begin with, we just work together, even though I've been drunk plenty of times in my life and one more time isn't anything special or especially impressive and why the hell am I trying to impress people I don't care about by being drunk anyway I couldn't really tell ya - I still can't take someone implying that I can't keep up with their alcohol consumption.
So actually it was three shots. Of - get this - that nasty shit that tastes like cinnamon. I don't even like that stuff. Blegh. And birthday girl got her wish - here I am drunk. And see what happens when I'm drunk? I just get all... all... I don't even know how to describe my mindset right now. I dwell. That's what it is. I dwell.
Hmmm. I could drunk dial my ex right now... bet she would think that was fab.
But I won't, because that would be pathetic. I wonder if she thinks I'm mean, though.
Well, she probably does. Well, she thinks I'm incredibly selfish and I can't really argue with that.
That's kinda like mean, isn't it?
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 04:20 am (UTC)I'm glad you wrote this post. I feel like I know you a little better now. As for the guy in the wheelchair, I don't know. But it used to be only decency and manners that you help out someone who needs it. Whether that's holding a door or giving your set to a pregnant woman. You did good, no matter what his reaction was. It wasn't you, it was his own demons that made him go off on you.
I'm of the opinion that some of us just have to fight to fit in. God know I'd never want to be a teenager, or in my twenties ever again. Eventually, hopefully, as we get older, we have more of a grasp on who we are and what we want. Maybe? :) And the actions of other people mean less, impact us less. Doesn't mean you can't be hurt by people's insensitivity, because you can. Yeah, I'm rambling :) But there's better days ahead. You just have to get past the crap. Believe me, I've been there.
[HUGS]
no subject
Date: 2008-05-04 07:00 pm (UTC)I'm glad I wrote this post too. Sometimes writing things down and then going back and reading them makes them make a whole lot more sense to me, because my brain can't go jumping from "what if" to "what if" if it's all on the screen, you know?
I think when I was a kid I had two separate ideas about what it would be like to be "grown up." I had a picture of myself in my head, in which I would look tall, and pretty, and classy, and stylish, and thin, because I assumed that if I was a cute kid I'd be an incredibly attractive adult. I do not look A THING like that picture I had of myself. I look fine, I just don't look like how I had imagined.
I also thought that all my issues with other people would disappear - that any interpersonal problems or social problems I had stemmed from other people being immature or me being smarter than them or them being stupid or them acting in some kind of junior-high crowd mentality or something. I thought I would have a job that I would go to every day and friends that I would spend time with in my free time and that it would all just be automatic - the job and the friends and all that would just fall into place once I got older.
Apparently you have to work at that kind of stuff :P Who knew?
I guess the older you get the easier it becomes to see patterns in your life, and identify things as "this is me, this is part of who I am." But I've spent the greater portion of my life being confused as hell about that. Some people freak out about getting older - I watch people bemoan their thirtieth birthdays, or even their twenty-seventh (cause famous people never seem to survive that age) but if getting older means getting a better handle on things, I'm all for it.