Doesn't Apply Himself

The following is an early penned entry from 1999. I'll be cutting out some words to make it sound less juvenile so it's possible to wade through. It's not particularly good or poignant, but shows a bit of my attitude and outlook at the time. For posterity, I suppose.

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There are very few people who have chosen me to be their friend. Very seldom do people venture to me. Most see me as one of those 'has real potential but doesn't apply himself' types. But they are wrong.

I do apply myself, just not to things people wish me to. I used to have a best friend. He was the kind of person who, for example, if you messed up at a speech, instead of saying, "I'm sure no one noticed!" like a normal human, he would laugh. At you. Loudly. Mockingly. I asked him what people said about me.

His response was that most people thought of me as some depressed poetry writing nut. But a nice one.

I will admit that there was a time when I was depressive. But there is a difference between being depressed and being severely unhappy.

I asked my friend if I was depressing. "Yes, you're negative, morbid, and cynical...but that's why we love you." Of course, I can't claim I dissuaded anyone's opinion of me. When people wanted to know things, they usually asked certain questions. "What's your favorite colour?" Black. "What are your hobbies?" Writing stories. "What kind? Sad?" Usually.

I am not saying that people shouldn't have friends or anything, but my lack of any support from them gave me the room and freedom to change.

As a perfectionist I was not ever happy with myself. I asserted my negative energy into reading. Everything. I became a dominating source of information pertaining to anything imaginable.

This gained me more humiliation than actual respect and I tore myself apart from the inside out. It was during my initial confusion that I made most of my friends that I have now. As an act of defiance, I lashed out against one of my instructors.

It was not so much the man as what he stood for and symbolized in my mind. He was the part of me that I hated the most, and I don't care how egotistic it makes me sound -- I knew before the clash that he didn't stand a chance. I outspoke and outmanipulated him, and he has not underestimated me since. Once while we were "debating" in the halls I gave him a piece of my mind. He took it, turned it over in his hands, and gave it back. While he was looking, though, I stole a piece of his. I hope he's not counting on getting it back.

But it was from these new friends and old determination that I chose to become what I am now. It's true that I still don't enjoy dancing, singing, parties...but I am content and that's what really matters. I'm happy being both outgoing and conservative. Sometimes, you've just got to be yourself and not care who anyone else is.

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Man, I was such an angsty little bitch. But dissuade was a good word choice. I need to pick that one up again; I never hear it anymore. And more semicolons for pseudo-intellectualism. Huzzah.

The Real Beginning

The following is the original preface to the journal I was going to hand-write (it only contained several entries before I gave up for about a year and ultimately returned via the internet). It's clearly very juvenile, but at the same time the central intent has remained quite unchanged. Some punctuation changed so I don't twitch reading it.

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"This is my life - my friends, my family, my self...I'm not doing this because I'm lonely or bored or don't have countless other things I could be doing, it's just that I don't want to forget. Life might be short, but that doesn't mean you'll remember it all. I've seen it in so many people - what they've lost; I've seen how much they want it back even though they don't know what it is to start with. We all lose something sooner or later. I've already lost more than I'd like to. It's just a matter of getting it back..."

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To think that my memory is like a black hole where memories go and can never escape compared to the craptastic memories of most of my friends. I don't really remember incredibly important things, but any mundane detail you could imagine I can tell you. I can remember exact words, times, slight movements, outfits...a sigh, a misplaced hair, a smile...and at the same time, I can forget if I've even eaten today. Maybe I'm filling up too much space with remembering the texture of a girl's lips on my cheek and not enough with knowing whether I have enough clean clothing to finish the week.

Even if I am, though, I wouldn't change it. It's something of a torture to be able to perfectly relive something over and over, but in order to learn the absolute most that I possibly could, I couldn't have received a better curse.

Can and Want

Whenever I move, which is somewhat often, I always end up going through all my old papers and finding things I had completely forgotten about. I've probably posted some of them already in the past, but if I've forgotten, everyone else sure as hell has too. The next few entries will be from archaic stuff I've dug out of folders.

This first piece is a letter to me from somewhere between 1998 and 1999, probably more toward the summer of 1999. It's written to me by my best female friend of the time, who lived about half a mile from me and whom I'd visit and spend time with on basically a daily basis. No, we did not have romantic involvement. Just very close friends.

I've changed the names and added a couple paragraphs for ease of reading.

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Red,

First, this is a "thanks for all the cool stuff from Canada!" letter, but there is a lot more that I have to thank you for. This is a long overdue letter.

Yesterday I was flipping through my "Moo Erased." Apparently when I got it back for the last time, I guess I didn't think anyone had written in it since the last time I had read it. I was reading all the entries again, when *gasp* I come to some that I had not read.

I came to the last entry which was from you and it brought me to tears. It was something that I have really been reading. I would like to thank you for everything that you have done for me. You have truly helped me in so many ways. Although we have our differences I've always been able to talk to you about anything. First you'll bitchslap me, which I usually deserve :) but then you'll really help me.

I know there are the times when all you could think of was "dumb blondie!" but you were still always there to pick me up and to help me out. I thank you for everything from the bottom of my heart. I want you to know that I am here for you always.

Thank you,

L.

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It's sad to say that she's another one of the "always" cases that I've run into in my travels. We rarely communicate, and when we do it's weather-talk, not at all reminiscent of the bond that two younger comrades shared. I'd like to think positively and consider it simply that we both understand that if the time comes, we will be there for each other. Nothing in between is entirely too important, and it's probably selfish to desire anything more than necessity.

In any case, I've managed to hang onto this for nearly a decade and will probably never get rid of it. It's something that reminds of of the kind of person I can be when I put my efforts into it. More than that, it's a reminder of the kind of person I want to be.