Wow… what a year. This year has been quite the rollercoaster. While in part I mean 2018, I’m also referring to the last 365 days. The fall has been one of retrospection for me, and it’s difficult to separate my mental state this last year from what was going on in my life last year. It’s strange to think about how things have shaken out, but I do feel like I’ve finally figured out how to separate myself from that person.
2018 started with a bombshell, something I won’t discuss here, but the tl;dr of it is that it’s lead me to shift a lot of my focus from external review to a more introspective one. Instead of looking outward, and analyzing the world around me, I’ve become more focused on analyzing myself. It’s lead to a lot of anxiety, stress and changes. It’s also lead to a lot of dark places. It’s difficult to stare down your own issues, bias, and hypocrisy. For better or for worse, that’s what I did.
Where did this lead me? I always thought that I had a good handle of who I was as a person, and a good amount of control over myself. Turns out that is completely opposite of what’s true. Really I’ve realized that there are parts of myself and my life that I have very little control over. I guess by taking account of these things, I’m able to overcome them, but one of the worst feelings in the world is wanting to change, wanting to make good decisions, wanting to do better, and failing. I guess it’s one thing for me to do something without knowing, and another thing to know that I’m doing something self destructive, and moving forward with it anyway.
I’ve always been the kind of person who holds onto things. For someone as calculating as I can be, I’ve always been oddly sentimental. It’s funny, because I’ve always thought people who had a keepsake box were kind of ridiculous, and yet, I’ve been keeping one for literally years. I don’t open it often to reminisce about the items inside, but it’s a comfort to know that they’re there. With a lot of the changes over the last 18 months, I find myself oddly sentimental about the quote from that Robert Frost poem (via The Outsiders) that “Nothing gold can stay”.
I guess I find myself hanging on to things longer than I should. It’s something that I’ve always done. This can be shown in multiple facets of my personality. I guess the best way to describe my thinking is that “If a little is good, a lot is better.” This can be seen in multiple ways (Especially my eating habits), but probably the best way to describe this is in the way that I used to deal with parties.
When I was in high school, I didn’t get invited to a lot of parties. I can probably guess all day long as to why, bu that’s neither here nor there at this point. Basically, the only ones I’d get invited to were ones where there were open invitations to the group I was in. For example, there was a final party after a play closed for the theater department. I’d get there, and It’d be great. I’d be socializing, there would be food. I’m sure I was plenty awkward and didn’t know what to do, but I remember it as a super positive fun experience. I have more vivid memories from those then other large parts of high school. To this day I can remember who’s house a large portion of them were at. Every time, I’d want to stay to the end. To the point where I’d probably be the last, or one of the last people there. In part because I didn’t understand that there was a lead time before leaving, and in part because I wanted to soak in every last moment of it, because I didn’t know when I was going to get there again. I’d overstay my welcome, and eventually get out of there. In college, it was the same way. I’d latch on to something, and basically never leave.
Fast forward to the last year, and it’s hard to look back at it and not cringe. In some ways I can blame them for how far in I went, but at the end of the day, I don’t do anything half-way. So when I go in on something, I go all of the way in. I want to soak up every bit of it, and if it’s intense enough, I’ll fixate… hard. That’s where I was. I was fixated. They were absorbed into every facet of my life. The truth is, I was 18 steps ahead of where I was. I couldn’t wake up without thinking about them, I couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t go shopping without them on my mind. I knew that it was bad, I knew I was setting myself up, and I did it anyways. The disgusting part was that I knew exactly what I was doing to myself, and I let it happen.
It probably didn’t help that they were enabling me and stringing me along. I still couldn’t blame them, in fact it’s still difficult for me to be angry about the whole situation. I’ve probably put them up on a pedestal, as some kind of wonderful human that I can’t possibly come even close to. Ignoring their issues, their flaws and their thoughts beneath the surface. So I fixated. Before I should, and long, long after I should. Those are the strong memories I have from last fall and winter. I allowed it to color every aspect of my life, every day. And now, as I walk through the same seasons, the same time of year again, I feel the separation from that fixation color everything.
The older I get, the more I feel the repetition in the years. The years go by, and it’s like watching a new season of an eighties sitcom. The characters are the same (plus or minus one or two), the topics may be different but the start and end are the same. There’s even holiday specials. As the fall goes through, I find myself going through most of the same actions, and going through the same things, the only difference being that they’re not there with me. It feels like there’s something missing by my side, but the truth is, they were never by my side to begin with. It was really only the strong fixation coloring myself, my interactions, and my world to make me feel like I wasn’t alone going through these things. Now this year, when I know that I’m actually alone in this world, it feels empty, and all I can do is miss you. In reality, you were never really there for me to miss, and all I’m left with is the feeling that I’m even more alone now than I was before all of this started.
It’s a common trope to say that “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” If I’m being honest with myself, I loved you. I still probably do. All of this has caused me so much pain and anxiety, and yet I’d still rush to your side in a moment if you told me I could. It’s still so bad that I wrote that last sentence three times, editing any possible implication that any of this is your fault. I still can’t find any fault in you, I can only blame myself for all of this.
A wise friend once told me that in order for me to get past my anxiety, I need to find the sources of my anxiety, and remove them from my life. Before all of this, I didn’t really have any anxiety. I could face down the most stressful situations, break them down and conquer them. And then… this… I second guessed myself, as I allowed the idea of you hover over every aspect of my life. The truth is, you are the source of my anxiety. As much as it pains me to do so, I need to remove you from my life. Because that is the only way that I’m going to get past all of this. I need to leave you alone, to move on. I need to be able to blame you for this. Only once I can see your part in all of this, and stop making excuses for you, will I know that I’ve removed you from that pedestal, and begun to treat you like a human. Otherwise the ghost of you is going to color me forever.
I wish I could say that I’ve loved and lost, but in reality, I never had you. I want to be able to say that if I could go back in time and do it all over again, I wouldn’t. I want to be able to say that if I could go back in time and scream at myself to let things be, and let myself always wonder what might have been. In reality though, if I could go back in time I’d probably just relish the moments that we had, fight through the pain you caused, and fall into the same pit one more time.
The only thing worse than having your heart broken, is being left alone to break it yourself.