Tuesday

A life ruled by fear. Friends...wanting them yet pushing most everyone away by actions that from the inside are realized as just not normal. Loner status more comfortable in that no effort is required. Just telling one's self to shut up suffices. No lingering feelings of stupidity to mull over. No wishing you'd have spoken differently, wih more grace. Just easier. Why so harsh at times? Why always having to prove yourself thinking others think the worst of you. Believing that most people just won't like you. Crowds are frightening only if there is expectation of social interaction of some sort. Why for as long as I can remember have assumed people won't like me and am truly surprised when people do. I mean really taken aback. I have good friends and have been a good friend. A tiny voice always looks for an angle, a reason. Maybe they feel sorry. Are they just as messed up as I? Now days I look around and that is the fact. Nice people who are more messed up that I am. I'm harsh and sharp edged. I'm not happy. Nabal is just a thorn in the stake of my fears. It's clear. A clear pattern in me. I push people away to test. Done it all my life. I've been left so many times I know it's a deep down hurt. Knowing I'm not good enough to count as lovable. I know for sure that my mom left me in a good place when I was small, with people who loved me and were good to me, but I wasn't with my mom. Sometimes it was frightening because she would take her time there to punish. So when I knew she was. Oming into town it was delight wracked with fear. My little brain would try and try to remember if  I had gotten into trouble that would have a mad mom  greet me and yelling and spanking would follow. I guess fear started early for me. Then she still couldn't 'keep' me... I had a babysitter I lived with. I did learn a lot from the woman. She was kind, but an indifferent type of kind. There was a good friend who was there too. She was older and in a worse place in life so she got attention. I understood that. She was from a large family that couldn't afford her. On the other hand I was there for convenience. Every Wednesday was mommy and me time. I remember a lot of late work evenings and I would cry. I didn't find out until a few years ago that she had in fact been dating a gentleman and Wednesdays were their night for dinner. I was right. It was her convenience that counted. Finally I begged to come home, wouldn't cause trouble, get myself up on time. I could feed and dress myself. And I did. Still in my own house there it was, kind indifference. No arguing or a swift slap across the face was the answer. Finally in my senior year I struck back and retaliated. Told her never more. All my friends along the way were 'vetted' by pushing them away. Seeing how far and they would stay. I hated myself for doing it. I had a need to. I and one true friend I fought the impulse to do that. Circumstances stranger that fiction triggered my surity of abandonment. Then fate let me know months later that hadn't been the case at all. Mom helped, helped me to believe the whole thing, to not believe the word of someone I knew thought the world of me. She was a kinda vain lady. She just didn't like the place where they came from. Sight unseen... Realized way too late. Some days I feel like the guy on 'Lil Abner' that walked under a perpetual cloud. Well, I realize I'm doing it again. I push away because I'm now worse than I ever was when I was younger. I've changed past recognition and any old friend no one who knew me then would remotely like me now. Just trying to work all this out. I see a need, a need to reconnect with people who know me, liked me because of me. What if they reject me? They are all so doing their thing, so together.  I know not really. They are all so smart and sometimes I forget words mid sentence. I have more than I ever let on in common with my child who has learning disabilities. Yet I'm pretty smart. They'd see, I would be dull, boring, out of the loop. I'd not be worth their time. Don't know what I'm going to do. When I leave here I'm all alone. Not a bad thing I've been solitary all my life, not by choice, but because no one thought it was important for me to have friends. I grew up alone with toys, nature, our dog, and music. Spent all my time around adults where I was seen and not heard. Got older and my mom's crowd was quite gentile. Their kids were in all the best clubs. We couldn't afford them yet she expected me to be able to be 'in' with them. I fell short because I was out if the loop. Not their crowd. Younger and on the fringe and uncomfortable. Dads family was large, but he came to town once ahead or less. Again on the fringes and not in on the jokes and family stuff. I was a visitor as far as the kids went. They were a close family so if I was family, why wasn't I close? They take me in. That felt good. Along came a woman who says she's my half sister. Without nothing but her word the matriarch cousin took her in. She had more in common. I hunk she's a nut job that happened along. I hear a nnd follow her lies. No one else does. They like her and try to figure who she looks like. I look like my aunts... She's finally told one to many and has been distanced. She's a pushy ex druggie. Wow another one even when I don't go looking. Funny they say she's nuts yet I see it, she's their type. I'm more quiet. I don't fit in. So I'm assuming all the above crap leads me to where I am today. And why I seem crippled in any escape. So fearful to make it on my own again. Can I? Been told so long I can't. Can't ask anyone, can't. I'm grown. That's another thing. I've always been tall and somehow it seems that I have always been to big a girl be coddled. My grand did, my bestie did, and that was it. I was tall, thin. Yet I had to learn young to be strong, resilient, and never show emotion until I knew I was safe and my face buried in a feather pillow. I have always been a night owl. It was my thinking time, my crying time. No one there to take advantage of weak moments. I was a kid that by the time I was 10 wouldn't give an adult the satisfaction of seeing me cry. That all held until I was 19. Finally found a trusted soul and pushed it away. I, as is clear, never got over that either. For once some saw me and accepted me and I pushed them away. Well, it probably wouldn't have ended well anyway. My life isn't ment for that.