Reflections by nonchalant

It is raining when I leave my parent's house. I run into my cousin Manny on the way out the door, he tells me they are going for bloody mary's at some bar Sunday morning to watch football. I'm sick to death of football. The rain on my car is a baptism, or something like that. Well, not really. My state is just fucked. Being around my family always brings my feelings of inner conflict and inadequacy into sharp relief. I don't know how many times my mom needs to tell me she loves me until I actually believe it, maybe I never will. That's just not right. Of course my family loves me, they just don't understand me. I don't understand myself.

I listen to the radio on the ride home and I miss my stolen iPod. I call Effect and JayDog, both are indisposed. JCB calls, he's going to do something in Naperville tonight. I turn on the radio and listen to some rap music for a little while, then I turn it off. I would play this death metal mix Effect made me, but that would just be too brutal.

I'm in turmoil all the time these days, my moods fluctuate wildly. One minute I am filled with hope for the future, another minute I think of the past and I am plunged into a deep despair. I run some affirmations: Brave courageous noble beautiful brilliant Red, I believe in you. It is like I am talking to a friend who has just lost a loved one or something, trying to cheer him up.

It is Saturday night, I don't feel like going out tonight but I also don't particularly want to stay home. I tell myself all the time that maybe I am concentrating too hard on sarging, and that I am neglecting my other responsibilities - but when I finally have some free time to get things done, I just sit there totally unmotivated to do anything. It's like I can't handle being alone with myself and having to face my life. If I look at my life for too long, I start feeling intimidated. There is such a huge discrepency between the person I am now and the person I eventually want to be. I don't even have a clear idea really of the kind of person I eventually want to become, but he is definitely much better off than how I am right now. There are like a million little things to be done, and they all seem so vague and immense.

I think about Sophia again until I push these melancholy and nostalgic thoughts out of my head. I wonder briefly what she is doing and I wish her the best. I hope she is with someone who treats her better than I did. I wonder what is to become of me, now that she is gone and I'm faced with this uncertain future. There is the game that I am so obsessed about, sometimes it seems like a lot of effort just to meet some superficial women who ultimately are not worth it. Not that it hasn't been a lot of fun, learning to be more confident, having fun with new friends and such. I have always been searching for something that will save me, or bring me back to that sense of serene happiness that I've only glimpsed for a short time. Maybe that thing does not exist in other people, maybe it is to be found in mastering these chaotic voices inside of me, and this idea that time is always slipping away irrevocably. I am not exactly a young man anymore, but I've felt these things since as far back as I can remember.

My building is tall and white, with tinted windows, and an American flag outside that is being blown about in the rain. The doorman holds the door open for me and I say hello to him and the two ladies in the elevator when I arrive at my building. I've lived here for four years. I haven't grown very much in those four years, other than the fact that I've had some more life experience and I've obtained a Masters degree. I've seen people get married and have kids in that time, settle down, buy a house together and start a family, and I'm still out there trying to figure out a way to get the phone number of the cute girl at the end of the bar.

JCB tells me not to worry, that I'm on a path and more and more good things will come my way if I stay on this path. I tell him how I'm tired of being just an ordinary guy, and how I want so much more for myself. Sometimes I have a hard time keeping it together, this process of change seems so traumatic. Last week I messed up really badly at work, just some stupid typo error that got blown out of proportion and seen by the wrong people, I won't go into details - I thought very briefly about asking my therapist maybe I should take some meds to regulate my wildly fluctuating moods. But now I think that's just not necessary, I just have to stay focused on the future, develop an observing ego, and not be so hard on myself.

I saw this cool movie on Tuesday with Effect and Diva - The Science of Sleep. It was about guy who had trouble distinguishing dreams from reality. We went to Rodan that night and I talked to this cute emo girl who was eating there with her friends. We all hung out at McGearty's this week, but I didn't feel like approaching that night because I was worrying so much about money. Last night I went out with JCB, Effect and JayDog in Wicker Park. This one dude Dapper and some random guy from the lair I think were hanging out at Nick's with us, as well. The melding of the two groups - Effect and JayDog + JCB and lair guys, did not seem to go very well. Everyone was being less than sociable amongst each other. To be honest, my relationship with the lair guys just seems really superficial. We're just warm bodies to be seen with to each other. I really hate that. I guess other people have a higher tolerance for for this sort of thing, but I much prefer having a deeper rapport with a few people that I sarge with regularly vs. constantly being exposed to new people I have no connection with. Or maybe this is my problem and I'm just being unsociable. I had a thought today about such things: maybe the reason treat you stand offishly is not because they are writing you off as a nerd or an inconsequential person. Maybe the reason people treat you stand offishly is because they feel intimidated around you because you have certain things going for you that they don't have. I probably would care more about this if I didn't have so many other things on my mind.

I made some ridiculous approaches, I was basically practicing my disqualification. I told these girls I was gay but didn't bother to un-disqualify myself. You had to be there, it was actually pretty funny. God I had such a hangover this morning, and I only drank like five or six beers. I did one set at Nick's (stupid fat chick just for practice), Rodans (these girls who kept telling me to go to the Manhole), these Indian chicks waiting at the valet for their cat, and these two really drunk chicks on the street. I wasn't very serious, it was probably good that I was out at all considering this shitty state that I was in. Money is always on my mind these days, I really hate that. I have to get out of this shitty financial situation, and I have to make sure I never get this way again. And now I have these nameless anxieties about my performance at work. I don't know what else to do but keep doing what I should, keep trying to get my life together, believe in myself. Even if things seem bleak right now and there doesn't seem to be a way out. Ask yourself, when everything seems to be going wrong, will you give up? or will you keep trying? It's as simple as that, and what you decide, decides your future.

225 approaches