These Days
Monday, July 04, 2005

… Have me running for cover.

I actually turned my phone off for most of this weekend just to try to relax.
There’s been a battle with depression for quite sometime now, and I’ve never been good at letting out steam from that sort of thing. Things actually got so bad that Saturday night I called my mom.. Um, I have a feeling that nobody knows this about me, but talking to my mom about personal stuff is a big deal. I have NEVER expressed any sort of “heart to heart” conversation with either of my parents. We’ve talked, and I’ve been there for my mom when she was sad and needed to talk, but I come from a family where communication has never ever been a part of our lives.

Even with friends, there have been very few people I could allow to express myself with. I get my feelings hurt very easily, over things that some people don’t even think are that big of a deal. I don’t hold grudges with people, but if I get hurt once, I will never be able to open up fully after that.

The big thing for me is saying what you mean. When I say something, I really do mean it, I don’t like to fuck with games and I hate it when someone tell’s me something, even though they know its not true. If you can’t say what you mean, then don’t say anything, I’d prefer no communication to someone lying to me. Some of you may know that I’ve always expressed disdain towards the west coast, this has come largely as my view of the west coast being filled with people who say “let’s go see a movie friday” then never actually plan on meeting up. I know that’s a sweeping generalization, but I have to say that sort of thing is as common out here as I thought, luckily the people in San Francisco seem to be an exception to that rule for the most part.

People complain about how closed off I am, it’s true there is only a certain point that I’ll let people get to me. That’s because I’ve been hurt so many times. I’ve travelled around, and known many people very well, but I’ve never been able to get over the feeling that the only person I could trust was truly myself. Even with Rhea, she’s been the closest person I’ve ever opened up with, we lived together for over a year and I did open up to her, but she would make plans with me without any intention of ever keeping them, I just got to the point when I couldn’t tell when she was being honest with her emotions.

She once told me that she hated MCAD art school, and how it was just a factory for artists, she wanted to go to another school. A week later she got accepted to MCAD, when she told me I didn’t know how to react, after what she had told me I thought getting accepted to this school was a bad thing. When I talked to her a few days ago she told me that this reaction was still something she never forgave me for, I wasn’t excited enough and she hated me for that. Meanwhile for me, I wasn’t able to sort out what she said with what the real meaning was. When she would tell me things, I felt like I was part of this game, trying to understand what the real meaning behind simple statements was.

When I was younger, in high school, my mom used to pick me up after school. She was never on time, for several years I would often spend an hour or sometimes two waiting at the school. I talked to my mom about it many times, she would just be out shopping and forget about the fact that her kid was stuck at school, getting beat up by bullies or hungry or whatever. I would be worried about her, or angry, and when I would talk to her about it everyday I would just get “I forgot” as the answer, and that was supposed to clear it up.
It’s fucked up to let that affect me so much, but it’s prevented me from being able to truly tell my mom what was going on my mind ever since then.

Bringing Rhea to my parents last year was the closest I have come to sharing my life with my parents. It was a big deal to me, but the whole time we were with my parents Rhea wasn’t friendly, it crushed me to step out like that and then have someone rip my heart out like that. Thinking about it now, I probably felt like Rhea did when she told me about MCAD. I didn’t know how to react, because Rhea had never been a bitchy person before that incident with my folks. I can’t remember, but I think I felt that our trip to Georgia was one of those things where Rhea said “sure I’d like to meet your family”, but really didn’t mean it. During that trip I went with her to a college called SCAD. I went on the tour with her, and told her I would move there with her if she wanted to go. I was so angry that couldn’t be polite just a little for my folks.
I know that she was going through some hormonal imbalance due to a change in her birth control, and I let the trip and the hurt slip away. But the rest of our relationship became a constant victim of a god damn chemical imbalance. It was a series of events leading me to withdraw my real emotions more and more.

I’m not a basket case or anything now, but it feels like it’s been so long since I’ve opened up with anyone that I’ve forgotten what I’m like.

This has given birth to a new desire to play music live again. The fever to play again has entirely consumed me, melodies going through my head, lyrics coming out faster than I can write them down, before new ones appear. No matter how bad things have gotten I have always been able to express myself through music. I can put everything out there in front of strangers easily and I have never regretted doing it afterwards. I can express myself with pictures, or words, or skill (juggling etc) and that has kept me happy, but it’s like none of these things are enough for me right now. I need to let some steam out, for my own sake, and probably for the sake of everyone around me.

Writing this isn’t helping, I’m-a grab a guitar quick before I become a zombie.