run from me
when i was a kid, and especially a teenager, growns-ups used to tell me "you can be anything you want to be." that was all well and good, but i just didn't have any idea of what i wanted to be. but at least i believed it was true. i don't believe it any more.
when i was 30, married, with children, no college, i realized that a lot of the choices i might have had at 21 were no longer there. i joke with my daughter that i always wanted to be an astronaut, "...an ASS-stro-not -- i made it a third of the way there." every day of my life i have made the choices that brought me to this point. choices have consequences, results, outcomes. the choice to do nothing, waste my time, is still a choice, and the consequences of inactions are every bit as real as the consequences of actions. there is a certain inevitability about it. please spare me the lecture about how it's never too late, and how it all depends on effort, blah blah blah.. i get that. but there is too a fact that we are expected to deny: circumstance plays a part. so does ability, aptitude, gift, whatever name you want to give it. so here i am, looking at the few choices left to me, and none of them excite me in the least.
but how about the one thing i have control over: me? shouldn't i be able to be who i want to be? i believed that for a while too. i can pretend, i can practice techniques, but sooner or later the "real me" always ends up annoying, alienating, boring, offending, intimidating, oppressing, repulsing or disgusting every single person i meet. i see people, and wish i could be like them. people with a winning smile that just makes you like them instantly, or a cool calmness, or an easy-going manner that everyone likes to be around. no amount of pretending will ever give me charisma or charm.
everyone is sick and tired of me. sick of my whining, sick of my bitching and swearing, sick of me being a pest. i'm sick of me too. it's like i have this stain inside me, and no matter how hard i try to clean up, the stain always starts to show again. you wish i was different. i wish i was different too. i tried, but it's no use. to hell with it. i am what i am.
when i was 30, married, with children, no college, i realized that a lot of the choices i might have had at 21 were no longer there. i joke with my daughter that i always wanted to be an astronaut, "...an ASS-stro-not -- i made it a third of the way there." every day of my life i have made the choices that brought me to this point. choices have consequences, results, outcomes. the choice to do nothing, waste my time, is still a choice, and the consequences of inactions are every bit as real as the consequences of actions. there is a certain inevitability about it. please spare me the lecture about how it's never too late, and how it all depends on effort, blah blah blah.. i get that. but there is too a fact that we are expected to deny: circumstance plays a part. so does ability, aptitude, gift, whatever name you want to give it. so here i am, looking at the few choices left to me, and none of them excite me in the least.
but how about the one thing i have control over: me? shouldn't i be able to be who i want to be? i believed that for a while too. i can pretend, i can practice techniques, but sooner or later the "real me" always ends up annoying, alienating, boring, offending, intimidating, oppressing, repulsing or disgusting every single person i meet. i see people, and wish i could be like them. people with a winning smile that just makes you like them instantly, or a cool calmness, or an easy-going manner that everyone likes to be around. no amount of pretending will ever give me charisma or charm.
everyone is sick and tired of me. sick of my whining, sick of my bitching and swearing, sick of me being a pest. i'm sick of me too. it's like i have this stain inside me, and no matter how hard i try to clean up, the stain always starts to show again. you wish i was different. i wish i was different too. i tried, but it's no use. to hell with it. i am what i am.
posted by fool2cr at 12/23/2006 09:31:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home