Out of all the things I do, I've never quite grasped why I do any of it beyond the fact that I live my life as though it is purely reactionary to the world around me. Largely, I believe, because I don't even see the point in waking up for another day of mundane depression and mass disappointment in humanity as a whole.
There are definitely some things that give me hope. Friends who have a bit of success through art. Seeing people help the homeless, despite there being no gain in it. Definitely not babies - they creep me out, but seeing a child grasp a new concept. For that matter, seeing a child play a song on an instrument that adults who've spent their lives fiddling with the same instrument with great proficiency. Also, the fact that Fender sold more guitars in 2020 than any other year in their existence - can we all just get excited about what music will be coming out in five years from now just due to that?
But for every good thing, it feels there are dozens of bad. Texas banning abortions is a death sentence for so many. Donald Trump still having a massive following. I was even informed that there is a TikTok threat about school shootings happening tomorrow (12/17/2021). I can't even begin to grasp the concept of why kids so young would get shot up.
I also don't do nearly enough for myself, though. I don't spend time with friends frequently at all. I didn't take long drives just to enjoy the drive, the way I used to in years past, even when I had a car worth doing it in, and now I drive a soccer daddy SUV (albeit a very nice one which I love in its own way) which doesn't inspire a spirited drive at all. I do try to make time to noodle around with my guitar at least a few times a week, but I am also acutely aware that I'm not ever going to make anything of it. I just thoroughly enjoy what I make out of it, no matter how mediocre it is.
Of course, this time of the year, as it always has, is exceptionally hard for me. It started out being so hard because of the deep feeling that I had to hide myself to be around my family, put on an act of superficiality so that I could keep up with the small talk about the weather and how "life" is going, as if life is going at all, and pretending that things are good if they are boring and lifeless. The side eyed criticisms of how I've still not stabilized financially because trying to conform to some monotonous humdrum of a job just leads me to feeling like seeing the earth from six feet below the surface is a far better option. The knowledge that it was just one or two choices in my life that has prevented me from being another overdose statistic, and knowing how many of my family has succumbed to that very same fate.
It is always going to be hard being in a place where one doesn't feel they fit in, but it is even harder when that place is the family you were born into. Telling certain family members that I don't believe in a God would lead to them never speaking to me again, and the reality of it is that while that doesn't make me who I am, it is, at the same time, a big part of my life. I can remember being told before Christmas one year that I was going to be given a bible - my cousin and brother were as well - and that I needed to act excited about it because of how much it would upset the gift giver otherwise. So I did. To be fair, I do still have that bible somewhere. It was the bible that I read that solidified my atheism.
And it isn't that I don't love my family - I do. Despite all the difference that I have with all of them, and despite my inability to relate to them. My mom will forever be my biggest hero. Raising my brother and I alone for those years when she was so young and had to work so fucking hard just to make ends meet could have destroyed so many people, and I know she'd do anything to never go back to living like that, but the memories of her doing that are some that have led to me sustaining the life I have. And even after how hard her life was, she would still give every last bit of what she had to anyone who needed it - which, maybe that's not such a great things in a world that is built around chewing those people and spitting them out, but being able to still be that way after how hard life has been is incredible.
My brother, who it felt like while we were teenagers may as well have not even lived in the same house with how different our lives were, is one of my favorite people in the world now despite us talking far too infrequently. I can remember when he had his first child, so young he was, and I remember just thinking about how there was no way he was ever going to be able to step up. But he did. In really fantastic ways. And continues to do so.
Even my dad, whom I have butted heads with more than anyone else in the world, is someone I appreciate a great deal for how he manages to find things to make his life worth it to him, even if it doesn't always lead to the best of situations with those around him.
But even all these things holding true, I don't feel like that's where I belong. The world feels so small, even after having lived all over the country, having more jobs than I'd ever want to fucking count, and what feels like millions of failed relationships by this point. And I'm listening to a Brazilian song right now, which is its own kind of comical.
So now I'm mentally preparing myself to go back to my hometown. I'm attempting to get excited about getting some of my favorite food while I'm there. I'm hoping there will be plenty of time to play games with my brother. I'm sure the kids will love their time with my family, as well.
I suppose that I just assumed that I'd have found the place I fit in by now. The place where I could finally feel like I could just be myself, but maybe I simply don't have enough of a self to fit in anywhere. Perhaps my whole life has been built around only being a part of a person.
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