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I've been there, some of you may have as well. Some of you will nod your head, lips held tightly togetherr as you refuse to think about those times, others will have trouble keeping their eyes from wandering to stare out of the window as the tears of recollection bubble to the surface. Yet more of you will read this with no such feelings whatsoever, either because you've not yet been so badly burned, or because you're young enough yet to still hold onto the belief that you are immune to such hurt.
If you really have never felt like that, you would think, given the extremity of such emotions, that it would take something terrible to bring people to that point. Unfortunately, as any who have will likely tell you, the reality is very different. In brief, I recall it came to me simply due to teenage naivete. I once believed I was invincible. A delusion fed by the validation of my turgid virility in the form of Mary. It was like one day I woke up to discover that I had wings, and as winged folk do, I took to the air. I flew on clouds of joy, buffetted lightly by the winds of infatuation. But just as Icarus did, I flew too high, my wings burned and there was only one direction in which I could fall.
The downward spiral as I fell down to earth was almost enough to kill me. But it didn't kill me. Fortunately. Instead, I simply got a lot of time to myself, on my bed, alone. Crying. Thinking. Learning.
It's an event in my life (not the relationship, and inevitable breakup thereof, but rather the time I spent afterwards) that is very important to me. The progression made from a month or two continually contemplating suicide, to hating the dishonesty which had led to the situation in the first place and on through to what recovery I made and the myriad mistakes I plunged headlong into which forced a rebound from one relationship last a little over two years.
It's almost comical. From optimistic, happy person, to bittered, enraged, misanthropic cynic in two years is quite an achievement for anyone. That I became such completely through my own blind stupidity makes it all the more astounding. I recall through the haze of pent up anger and frustration the times I went through as I made my recovery. A beautiful lesbian (at the time, she was admittedly bisexual last time I heard anything of her) who's name unfortunately escapes me, and the attention she turned to me, while amusing from the point of view of re-validating my sexuality at a time when I thought my drive was lost completely, was probably a little too fantastic and indulgent when I probably should have been pacing myself. But hey, it's every guy's fantasy to 'convert' one of them isn't it? Perhaps to convert two might be better for some, I don't know.
Regardless, despite my pains, the feeling of invincibility returned, which in turn threw me headlong and unwittingly into the first relationship to raise its hand. Unfortunately, I'd been there before. I'd been with her, although admittedly refrained from actually sleeping with her (and note the morality such an act requires in contrast to what will follow) because she was a little young at the time, her being just turned seventeen, while I was on the verge of 20. Not a huge gap, I know, but I'd known here since she was a little younger, so it made it a bit wierd.
Anyway, two things quickly became clear. Firstly, in my struggle to regain my feet following the great depression, I had quite clearly lost any respect for women. Certainly, I wasn't ready to be in a relationship, I thought to myself while getting a hand-job in a Staines cemetary one night at 3am from some girl I never got a name from.
Of course, my girlfriend never knew about that. It would have ended our relationship for sure, and I was too stuck into keeping it going for my own sanity, unable to face rejection again.
I'm sure she suspected, but she never had proof of the other numerous indescretions I had with a friend when she wasn't around. nother mistake on my part, but not for the moral reasons you might expect. I ended up, foolishly, with a friend falling for me, and demanding as much attention from me as I devoted to my girlfriend proper. Obviously, this was a problem, and unfortunately, I can't count her among my friends now, even though she is now married to one of my mates. Keeping up? After ending my affair, I slowly plucked up the courage to end my relationship. After two years of kidding myself, I was finally ready to take responsibility for my stupidity. Without admitting to anything, of course.
I've straying vastly from the point I was going to mention, which is how a single event in my life sent me down the path into bitter cynicism. I've been a fool in the past. Absolutely I have, and I readily admit to that. Getting so hung up over losing someone, and then never allowing myself to recover properly and leaping in bounds down the path of folly, throwing my morality out of the window because I found myself in a situation I shouldn't have put myself in. Cowardice in not being able to face up to adult responsibility.
But I'm not so much of a fool anymore. Instead I just tend to hate most things. Simply because, over time, I've allowed my point of view to move from first person experience through to a third person viewpoint standing outside the world and looking in. Detachment, some might say. I call it a reality check. These days I'm much better, because over the last two and a half years, I've come to remember something I forgot amidst all the self-imposed suffering, the confusion and the folly ridden decision making.
I've come to remember that I'm not a victim. I'm not some pitiable fool to be viewed with sympathy and veiled contempt. Simple fact is, I'm every bit as great a person as anybody else. Probably more so than the vast majority. I say that with every ounce of arrogance I've accumulated over the years, and I don't give a damn. You see, all the time I was going through my witlessly self-propelled stupidity, I was exploring the darker side of me. And while I'm happy to report that I no longer feel the need to bed-hop mid-relationship, and don't find myself wailing voicelessly into the unrelenting and uncaring walls of my bedroom, I've noted all the while, as I looked at the world from the outside looking in, as a back-seat passenger in the game of life, that pretty much most of what is important to you is irrelevant and stupid.
I've been wronged, and I've wronged in return. Not those who wronged me, but instead what looks now like a petulant lash out at anything with vulnerability, all the while sealing a wall of impenetrability around any weaknesses of my own.
You can garner whatever meaning you like from this extensive rant of mine. You can sympathise with my plight, damn me for my past infidelities, nod your head at my condemnation of the 6 billion fools that wrecklessly inhabit this vast earth, or simply find offense in every word I've written. One thing I know is that I don't know what you are thinking. Another thing I know is that I don't really care.
I've been there, some of you may have as well. Some of you will nod your head, lips held tightly togetherr as you refuse to think about those times, others will have trouble keeping their eyes from wandering to stare out of the window as the tears of recollection bubble to the surface. Yet more of you will read this with no such feelings whatsoever, either because you've not yet been so badly burned, or because you're young enough yet to still hold onto the belief that you are immune to such hurt.
If you really have never felt like that, you would think, given the extremity of such emotions, that it would take something terrible to bring people to that point. Unfortunately, as any who have will likely tell you, the reality is very different. In brief, I recall it came to me simply due to teenage naivete. I once believed I was invincible. A delusion fed by the validation of my turgid virility in the form of Mary. It was like one day I woke up to discover that I had wings, and as winged folk do, I took to the air. I flew on clouds of joy, buffetted lightly by the winds of infatuation. But just as Icarus did, I flew too high, my wings burned and there was only one direction in which I could fall.
The downward spiral as I fell down to earth was almost enough to kill me. But it didn't kill me. Fortunately. Instead, I simply got a lot of time to myself, on my bed, alone. Crying. Thinking. Learning.
It's an event in my life (not the relationship, and inevitable breakup thereof, but rather the time I spent afterwards) that is very important to me. The progression made from a month or two continually contemplating suicide, to hating the dishonesty which had led to the situation in the first place and on through to what recovery I made and the myriad mistakes I plunged headlong into which forced a rebound from one relationship last a little over two years.
It's almost comical. From optimistic, happy person, to bittered, enraged, misanthropic cynic in two years is quite an achievement for anyone. That I became such completely through my own blind stupidity makes it all the more astounding. I recall through the haze of pent up anger and frustration the times I went through as I made my recovery. A beautiful lesbian (at the time, she was admittedly bisexual last time I heard anything of her) who's name unfortunately escapes me, and the attention she turned to me, while amusing from the point of view of re-validating my sexuality at a time when I thought my drive was lost completely, was probably a little too fantastic and indulgent when I probably should have been pacing myself. But hey, it's every guy's fantasy to 'convert' one of them isn't it? Perhaps to convert two might be better for some, I don't know.
Regardless, despite my pains, the feeling of invincibility returned, which in turn threw me headlong and unwittingly into the first relationship to raise its hand. Unfortunately, I'd been there before. I'd been with her, although admittedly refrained from actually sleeping with her (and note the morality such an act requires in contrast to what will follow) because she was a little young at the time, her being just turned seventeen, while I was on the verge of 20. Not a huge gap, I know, but I'd known here since she was a little younger, so it made it a bit wierd.
Anyway, two things quickly became clear. Firstly, in my struggle to regain my feet following the great depression, I had quite clearly lost any respect for women. Certainly, I wasn't ready to be in a relationship, I thought to myself while getting a hand-job in a Staines cemetary one night at 3am from some girl I never got a name from.
Of course, my girlfriend never knew about that. It would have ended our relationship for sure, and I was too stuck into keeping it going for my own sanity, unable to face rejection again.
I'm sure she suspected, but she never had proof of the other numerous indescretions I had with a friend when she wasn't around. nother mistake on my part, but not for the moral reasons you might expect. I ended up, foolishly, with a friend falling for me, and demanding as much attention from me as I devoted to my girlfriend proper. Obviously, this was a problem, and unfortunately, I can't count her among my friends now, even though she is now married to one of my mates. Keeping up? After ending my affair, I slowly plucked up the courage to end my relationship. After two years of kidding myself, I was finally ready to take responsibility for my stupidity. Without admitting to anything, of course.
I've straying vastly from the point I was going to mention, which is how a single event in my life sent me down the path into bitter cynicism. I've been a fool in the past. Absolutely I have, and I readily admit to that. Getting so hung up over losing someone, and then never allowing myself to recover properly and leaping in bounds down the path of folly, throwing my morality out of the window because I found myself in a situation I shouldn't have put myself in. Cowardice in not being able to face up to adult responsibility.
But I'm not so much of a fool anymore. Instead I just tend to hate most things. Simply because, over time, I've allowed my point of view to move from first person experience through to a third person viewpoint standing outside the world and looking in. Detachment, some might say. I call it a reality check. These days I'm much better, because over the last two and a half years, I've come to remember something I forgot amidst all the self-imposed suffering, the confusion and the folly ridden decision making.
I've come to remember that I'm not a victim. I'm not some pitiable fool to be viewed with sympathy and veiled contempt. Simple fact is, I'm every bit as great a person as anybody else. Probably more so than the vast majority. I say that with every ounce of arrogance I've accumulated over the years, and I don't give a damn. You see, all the time I was going through my witlessly self-propelled stupidity, I was exploring the darker side of me. And while I'm happy to report that I no longer feel the need to bed-hop mid-relationship, and don't find myself wailing voicelessly into the unrelenting and uncaring walls of my bedroom, I've noted all the while, as I looked at the world from the outside looking in, as a back-seat passenger in the game of life, that pretty much most of what is important to you is irrelevant and stupid.
I've been wronged, and I've wronged in return. Not those who wronged me, but instead what looks now like a petulant lash out at anything with vulnerability, all the while sealing a wall of impenetrability around any weaknesses of my own.
You can garner whatever meaning you like from this extensive rant of mine. You can sympathise with my plight, damn me for my past infidelities, nod your head at my condemnation of the 6 billion fools that wrecklessly inhabit this vast earth, or simply find offense in every word I've written. One thing I know is that I don't know what you are thinking. Another thing I know is that I don't really care.
I just wanted to let you know. Not quite sure why though...
Quite a moving post.
I thought you were going to go down a "Then call Claims Direct!" route when I read this paragraph. Not in the least bit helpful, I realise.
> One thing I know is that I don't know what
> you are thinking. Another thing I know is that I don't really care.
Excellent, i felt the power of that.
> You know when you read a deep post and you badly want to say something
> interesting but your thoughts resemble a spagetti junction at rush
> hour and words fail you - well that's just happened to me. So I'll
> stick to the safety of a one word reply: insightful.
My thoughts exactly.
...
And ... no words
Exploring the darker side of your pysche through wilful neglect and a harbouring of ill feeling to all and sundry? Hmmm...I've been there. In fact, this year has been fairly moribund for me. Whilst realising that I'm just another atom in the vast space of life, a few experiences have irrevocably change my perspective of life. Perhaps I'll pen my thoughts at some point. Then again, after such a harrowing time, perhaps I won't.
> Whilst realising
> that I'm just another atom in the vast space of life
Nobody could feel THAT small.
Ah, the shimmering moonlight, the twinkling stars, the crisp redolent zephyrs, and a fresh corpse... how romantic.