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For the Betterment of Melkind
It's difficult to know exactly who it is that you want to be.
For one thing, knowing exactly who you want to be is taxing. Once you've come to realize not only that you aren't who you want to be, but that you know what traits you crave, you really have no choice but to spend the rest of your days attempting to achieve that end goal. I struggle for change every day in my life, as if I'm trapped in a permanent abyss of monotony when it comes to being me. There's a lot of pain in change, and for every inch I earn, I feel often as if I'm simply driving a knife inch by inch into my own insides.
Of course, it is a metaphorical knife, but there is one thing in particular that whets it to reality.
Indecision.
If I know who I want to be, and I know who I am, what is the extraneous factor? It must be indecisiveness, surely. How does one go about making such changes? And the more one succeeds, how does the vision change? I cannot tell you, because I was mired in my road before I took the first step by one simple decision.
How do I treat them?
Surely my friends I treat with respect and love. Or do I? No friendship is unmarred by it's own brand of speed bumps, it's own potholes and pitfalls. Some more than others. Some friends are easily forgiven, and them I love all the more for our incidents. But what about those whose trespasses against me are not so easily forgotten? What about the people who hurt me, and those that I love? They cannot be set upon the same plateau of grandeur as the best of my friends. But surely, I love them just as much and wish to place them there.
When you love the way I do--though it is twisted, hypocritical, and overbearing--it is a standstill. How do you explain to someone that you love them with all of your heart, that you want to be good to them, have them in your life for the rest of eternity, when just imagining them in your head makes you queasy? How do you love someone as your own family, when they've hurt you more than even your blood relations could? One minute I want to comfort them, praise them, tell them that they are wonderful, and will always have me no matter what. The next minute I never want to see their face again for as long as I live, and only from a distance in the afterlife. And this is only when I'm not with them.
When I'm with these people I smile, laugh, joke. I pretend that I've never felt any animosity at all towards them, lying to myself, and lulling them into a false sense of security. I don't have the courage, as pathetic as it is, to tell someone that I'm upset with them. I know what that does. Years of fighting in my home life have taught me that the only thing that comes of telling someone you're upset is argument. From the arguments rise fights, and from the fights frustration, and from frustration a death of everything that once was. Others would argue that there is always the chance for understanding, and repentance.
I am too stubborn and irrational, too frightened, to say that I'm sorry.
When I apologize for something, I very rarely feel good that I have. I, irrationally, feel as if I have lost, and thus am doomed to be outcast for the rest of my life from those people that I fight with. As if they have won and will hold it over my head for the rest of eternity. So when I apologize, it is generally just the coward in me not wanting to start another fight, regardless of what I actually believe. In fact, an apology from me comes most often when I have resolved that the other person will simply never see my side, not when I myself have had a change of heart.
This is one of the many things that I must change about myself.
But when I cannot voice this opinion, when I cannot bring myself to fight, when I just can't tell people that they are being quite possibly the largest assholes I have ever known, how can I learn to apologize for real? How can I learn, when it comes down to it, to have a successful war between friends? How can I learn to fight? I cannot. So instead I boil and stew inside, feel betrayed and hurt and ignored, but never once receive an apology. Because I have been cordial, they think that I'm over it and that there's no need for an apology.
Only once, to my recollection, have I ever received an apology to something that I pretended was okay. Perhaps this was because, obviously distressed, it was easily known that I was lying right through my ******** teeth. Perhaps not. In any case, that apology was very likely the only thing that got me through that period of time with only a few scars to remind me.
Of course, I was an idiot, and reopened the wounds, but that's life.
Live and learn.
Now I wish to close all my emotional wounds, heal and say, 'To hell with baggage claim! You can have it!' So that I can become that person that I need to be. But which is the correct philosophy? They say the bigger person forgives and forgets. Alright. But what happens when I forgive, forget, and then am cut wide open once again by the same person, because that's what they do? So one might say it is better to forgive, but not forget. In this case, how does a relationship find footing when there is no trust between participants because one is waiting for the other to hurt them? It can't. The only other option is to decide that the pattern and chance of being hurt is too great, and cut them from your life, in so doing lose a huge chunk of your faith in yourself and everyone else.
When you give others pieces of your heart, there is no way to win. You hurt them, you hurt you, and you hurt the anonymous third party of friends and family who may not even acknowledge why it is that they're hurting. I know that I can't win, it's not that kind of game. It's a game of strategy, not black and white, win or lose. But what strategy, what road is the best path?
I can't decide.
Can I be the bigger person? Can I forgive, and at the same time learn to ask for that sincere apology that at least numbs my pain until it can heal in it's own due time? I think this is the best way.
I only wish I knew how to ask someone who thinks they've done nothing wrong for a heartfelt apology.
I wish I knew how to not be so sensitive. I am insulted, hurt, infuriated, by things that no other person in the world would bat an eyelash at. I mean it, ridiculous things. My heart and brain shatter into little pieces at the touch of a butterfly's wings. Honestly, I mean it. I've tried pretending that these things don't affect me, but that only seems to make it worse. While I'm ignoring it I feel fine, but when the little things pile up, all I can do is weep in frustration. How incredibly cruel am I to be this way? To me, to everyone else, I'm a wreck. It's not fair to anyone. But how can I learn to not be hurt by things that are hurtful to me?
How can I learn not to want others to recognize my pain enough to give me a warm hug and tell me that they're sorry?
How can I learn to be the me that I know I have the potential to be? The me that I want to be?
I don't know. I really don't.
But every day I try, I come a little bit closer to digging my feet out of the road, and heading for that greener pasture. I hope that my will alone can usher me there, but I know that I must make changes. Someday, I want to be someone who can forgive small offenses in a heartbeat, someone who can love even through hard times, someone who can speak her mind in good times and in bad, without doing so in a hurtful way.
Someday, I want to be a perfect vision of me.
I just hope that I am able to pay the price that gets me there.
-- Stella
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