enter unimportant, slightly tragic side-character
on self-imposed isolation and throwing your own pity-party
every room i walk into, i become a kind of ghost. a lingering presence felt but looked straight through. stick your hand out and you’ll feel a cool rush of air, but you can’t pin down from where. and that window is open, but you swear you shut it earlier. oh well, it’s probably nothing, anyway.
i have this gift of not really belonging anywhere, it seems. part of me believes it’s a some unconcious form of self-preservation. if you exist only on the fringes of other peoples’ lives you can’t ever be left out. you can’t be exiled from an island you’ve never stepped foot on. if you stay out of arm’s reach, you can’t ever be pushed out. the thing is, when you stumble, there’s no hand reaching out to catch you, either.
the other part of me thinks it’s yet another form self-sabotage. i know damn well what i’m doing. after all, i love nothing more than a tragedy, and what’s more tragic than a girl who never cared to forge her place in the world until everyone else found their own and left no room? the stage is set. the roles assigned. the lights are on. it’s showtime, and i don’t know what the fuck i’m supposed to be doing.
there are two versions of me: the one who says too much and the one who says too little. both of these are wrong.
the one who says too much is too loud. too obnoxious. she makes the wrong kind of joke at the wrong kind of time. she listens too loudly. she barges into the conversation in the middle of someone’s sentence and laughs a little bit too loud and at something that wasn’t that funny. she says something she wasn’t supposed to say and suddenly nobody is having a good time anymore. it’s like she she memorized the wrong script and walked in prepared to perform a different kind of play than the one being performed. someone has to cut the mic and escort her off-stage. the show goes on. she thought she was the main character, but in reality, she only had a few lines that the show could do without.
the other one is dead silent, but not in a way that’s cool or mysterious or aloof. she simply didn’t read the script even once and she never learned to improvise, either. the audience can tell, and everyone on the sidelines watches in pure horror while thinking my god, just keep the scene rolling somehow, please! but she can’t. she’s just so boring. there’s nothing of substance up there. she’s the deer in the headlights - except the spotlight was never shining on her, so why is she frozen in the first place?
i’m self-aware enough to know when i don’t belong somewhere, but not enough to figure out how to fit in. i try to be fluid and slide into the role i need to play, but sometimes i get it wrong. and even when i get it right, it’s someone who the narrative could truly just do without. who is she? over in the corner? what is she doing here and who does she think she is?
i feel like, to an extent, it’s always been this way, but swung to an extreme a decade ago. when i left my hometown to go to college less than two hours away, i lost almost every friend i had. it wasn’t intentional. and the blame doesn’t rest on anyone’s side. it just happened, beause it happens to everyone. the problem is that i didn’t know how to recover from that then, and a decade later i still don’t.
college was a particularly difficult time for me, and i had a couple of friendships for the first few months out of pure convenience, but those, too, fizzled. and after that, i swore i wouldn’t make friends again because i told myself and the world i didn’t need them. and i didn’t. for three straight years, i lived in near-solitude, only interacting with my professors in class, my at-the-time-boyfriend, and people online. and i don’t care what anyone says, that does something to your psyche.
i moved back home when i graduated and have been here since and i still don’t really have any true friendships. and that’s on me. i know that. i didn’t seek anyone out. and now i’m near thirty and fear it’s too late. through instagram posts and facebook status updates, i watch as other peoples’ long-term friendships flourish and endure. i watch people love their friends in ways i’ve never been loved, and it shatters my heart. that’s not to say i am alone. i have my family, i have coworkers i talk with, and i have my lovely fiancé. and they’re all wonderful, but i still feel a hole where i should have companionship.
and i don’t know how to fill it. it’s been so long, i don’t know how to check-in. i don’t know how to call up. i don’t know how to hang out. i don’t know how to be loyal. i’ll play both sides of a conflict until i don’t even know what i believe anymore, and who needs a friend like that?
i tell myself that maybe some people were meant to be more alone than others. some of us must be the background characters, and i’m not yet ok with that, but maybe someday i can be. and if it sounds like i’m throwing myself a pity party? it’s because i am. i mean, if i don’t, who will? at least that means more cake for me.
I don’t always write diary-coded bitchfests, but this was something I needed to get out of my system so I can write the things I want to write. I’m working on making a zine of some of my poems that I hope should be ready within the next week or two. But first, I have to stop wallowing in my self-imposed misery. But hey, a girl needs hobbies!
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