It’s hard sometimes to own my feelings and not fear the repercussions of them. Or maybe it’s very hard for me. I have this expectation of saying I feel some way, or that I want something some way, and being immediately told to fuck off and close the door on my way out.

I talked to my mother a little bit about how I’m feeling, which I’ve narrowed down to defeated. There’s some irony in talking to my Mom about relationships, because her response is summarized as “I’m sorry, it’s really hard”. When you look at what she’s gone through and going through, you empathize with mutual frustration. I don’t bother talking to my father about relationships. Long ago his responses were nailed down to basically be “my heart can’t handle that shit” when he’s sober, and “fucking women” when he’s not. Tori recently chimed in a response to my earlier post, which I haven’t had a chance to respond to yet.

I’ve done a little private writing too, via email, to special folks, the exercise of all of this has been good. I did get tomorrow’s homework done, and started on Wednesday’s, which was all gnawing at me.

I’ve since speculated that my emotions may be better used if I focused them into situations where people want a friend and there is no expectation of a model around which emotions are traded back and forth. Where there’s no concern for equality because it really is a gift to help someone through a moment in time, upon the completion of which they move along. This thought is far too reactive of me, but there’s some value in it. It’s also probably the reason I should have kids, but that’s futuretalk and rampant speculation.

As time has moved on, while my empathy for folks in general has stayed the same, I’ve become a lot more choosy about people. There are many posts here over the last couple of years about being more at ease with judging people based on how they life, while trying to avoid the dirty pit of prejudice. A while back I made a joke in passing to an ex-girlfriend and she responded with a comment that maybe the problem was the people I was friends with. I became serious and told her that, in fact, the people in my life now are some of the best people I’ve known. The more great and wonderful people I meet, the less interested I am in sitting around and the better I feel about the world.

I felt defeated most of the day. I felt like the world was once again reminding me that who I am doesn’t belong to it. Time, a shower, some coffee, some writing; somewhere in there I moved along. No answers were in there except that I know what I want, and I know that I’ll live if I don’t get it. That is, I suppose, all I can ask of life.