I'm twenty-seven years old and I'm just now starting to do the things with myself that I wanted to do when I was younger. This happens to many people, at much more advanced stages in life (ex: my dad starting guitar lessons at the age of 65), and I'm ok with that. I just wish I'd had the confidence to start sooner. So many things held me back; I've always had this silly sense of "I have to do what's expected of me," and that's been a huge hindrance. Influential/authoritarian figures in my life have always told me I'm talented, smart, and that I could do anything I wanted with my life. And then proceeded to discourage me by disapproving of my choices and insisting I follow the regular set of rules. What Mimi Smartypants calls the Videogame Approach to Life. It's plainly obvious I did the School Level all wrong, so I lost Societal Approval points for that one. Dating the same guy for ten years (more lost points for breaking up and re-uniting after various unfulfilling flings), shacking up and neither marrying nor reproducing also results in lost SA points. I quit my Very Adult desk job - -1000 points right there. You get the picture.
And so what? I always knew I'd never wanted a desk job, and I was amazed at myself for ever taking one. I always knew I didn't really care about marriage, that a connection with another person was more important, and I scored on that one. I knew I didn't want babies. I knew I wanted to sew, among other things. It looks like I'm scoring high, as far as Making Myself Happy goes. I'm just trying to stop caring about what everyone else thinks, to stop playing their dumb Life Game. To Stop Capitalizing Everything Because I Somehow Think You Will Understand My Point Clearly If I Do So.
Of course I'm scared and lonely in this venture. I haven't written much of anything at all about my feelings on the subject because it's been noted by persons who are supposedly my friends (and how friendly of them to comment on my life when I am not present, leaving me to find out later from a third party!) that I ought not express myself on the subjects of my financial situation, my fears or my worries, since I made this bed and must now lie in it. Which is to say nothing of the commentary implying my stupidity, lack of work ethic, insanity and undesirability as a friend and person. Swell. In fact, I have recieved support and votes of confidence from precisely three of my peers, one of whom was Steve, and he's worried abot my productivity levels. Here's the worst part: so am I.
All the naysayers are having a manifest destiny effect on me. I keep hearing "you will fail," so I get discouraged. Hoo-fucking-ray. I am totally not going to save the princess in this round of Videogame Life.
Ok, so, do I need people who don't believe in me? No, of course not. Do I want friends, a network of supportive peers, who at very least, will not treat me like steaming dog turds? Yes, of course. So let's do some basic math, then, shall we? [Network of decent friends] - [Jerks who discourage and insult me] = [very fucking lonely me].
I refuse to believe I am making such a huge mistake in my life that I don't deserve the support of more than three people. I refuse to believe I deserve to be insinuated against, slandered and rejected for not playing some sad little game. I cannot possibly be wrong all the time. If that's true, why haven't any of you shit-talkers come and killed me yourselves? If I'm really a waste of (potential, looks, time, oxygen), then isin't it your responsibility to pick up the trash, or at least change me? I either have the right to make all of these horrible mistakes which are obviously ruining your lives, and you should just toss me over a cliff, or I do what I want with my life, and you have the right to shut the fuck up. Them's the rules.
Everyone got that? Haters = eat it. Friends = love. I make sock monkeys.
listening:
reading:
ingesting:
(see entries before 20.11.05)
previously on Smothered Hope:
unreal - 20.05.08
in which our narrator kinda just babbles on a bit - 15.05.08
drank several margaritas last night. they were great. - 04.05.08
spacey - 29.04.08
i will most definitely regret posting this in public - 28.04.08