A Friend in trouble

Yes, I have one. That I know of. This friend is finding himself rather stuck in a pattern with respect to relationships (or lack of), family life, school life. I hardly ever get to talk to him, as we go to different schools and have different buddies now, but every now and then, we get to sit and talk. And it’s all good, even if life is shit for one or both of us.

But tonight was different. Instant messaging is hardly the way to pick up on cues from a person’s body language, but knowing him the way I do, I don’t think I have ever been so worried in my entire life as I was while talking with him. It seemed like things are so dark for him. I totally understand how it is to realize that you’re stuck in a rut, and that things don’t seem to have any prospect for getting better. It feels like you’re slipping downhill, away from what you want to be, and from what you perceive you can be. I’ve been at the point where your last true and good relationship with a human being is in jeopardy over something that seems as though it should be trivial, but isn’t. It can’t be. You wonder, why do I let this consume me? Why do I allow this to destroy everything I want and could have? And no matter how much you rationalize and contemplate and beat yourself up over it, you find yourself in the same pattern again and again, placing that same thing above all, almost unconsciously. It makes you feel stupid, that you can’t seem to fix anything no matter how fucking hard you try.

But you still hope. As much as you want to get away, and fade into oblivion, you can’t, because you have to see if there is something better over the horizon. Will college give me a chance to make a clean break? If I get away from my family, can I remove a source of major stress and be able to understand myself a little better? But will this freedom be too much for me? What if I can’t break this pattern, even away from home, away from the old friends and influences? I’ve never blamed it on them anyway, but does this really, really put it on me? How stupid am I, that I can’t fix this?!

So you cry yourself to sleep so many nights that you lose track. You avoid your parents, giving them the silent treatment. You feel the true weight of your false smiles and little white lies and fake laughs with your buddies that have very little, if no idea at all, what is going on in your life, in your mind. There’s not an aspect of your life that you don’t hate. I hate my grades. I hate the fact that I have one sellable skill. I hate my face, I hate my race, I hate my body, I hate my smile, I hate my lies, I hate my truth.

You can’t tell me anything I haven’t told myself. I’ve thought about it, pondered it from as many different angles as I could. Be a sounding board, let me type out, write out, scream out, cry out my problems. You can’t get inside of my head. There’s only room for one of us in here.