Confusion

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m on my fifth draft of this post. Just what exactly am I doing… So once more, you all can see the lack of a beginning that seems to start off my posts. I’ve been sitting here since 1:00, surveying the darkness around me and wondering just what it was I wanted to say. I suppose I sealed this blog’s end with my last post, the one prior to Chapter Zero. I talked about Cowardice, and in specific, my own cowardice. I said things I probably shouldn’t have, I mentioned parts of me that are better kept hidden. I don’t know why this is here anymore. Why am I writing? Am I writing for myself anymore? Was I ever writing for myself?

Just what am I doing. I’m not sure if I’m even telling the truth. As I read back on what I’ve said and wrote, what I’ve told people, I feel like a fool. I don’t just change my mind, I lie. Without even realizing, I deceive, trick, and cheat people. I’m not even sure if 10% of what comes out of my mouth is plain, simple, honest. I feel as though 90% of what I say is complete bullshit, a lie, or provocation. I don’t know if what I’m feeling now is what I should be feeling or what I’m actually feeling. Everything seems out of place. I sealed everything when I wrote ‘Cowardice’, speaking in a tainted view. What foolishness.

At a certain point, this blog turned from observation of the world about me, personal opinions and more far-reaching topics, to something more introspective, and eventually it devolved into foolish whining. As if writing about it would do anything. As if writing about anything will have a benefit. Not in a closed off, hidden blog. Not one that very few people can see. Just what was I thinking. I suppose I’m writing today to dispel some of the darkness that’s creeping up on me.

I start college next month. Classes start in 20 days, I’m gone in another ten days. Where did the time go? Where did my summer go? I wasted it away, and I was happy at the time, sometimes bored, but content. Looking back on it now, I feel this sense of regret. I know I wouldn’t have done anything anyway, even if I was warned, but that’s just part of learning, part of growing up. I think what I regret more is sitting on my bed a few weeks ago, calling every single person in my contacts list… and knowing not one of them would pick up. I made calls for as long as I could, I got through the entire contact list, but everyone either didn’t pick up or was busy doing something else with someone else. I asked for people to call back, one after another, an entire contact list full of people… and no one returned my calls. I send out emails and I get no replies.

Was I that meaningless? Did I never really matter? What was the point of my attitude if no one wanted to deal with me, to even call back. Of course, that was never the point. I always tried not to be the nice guy, but the guy who was reliable, who was around for you if you asked for him. Very few people asked. And of course, I never reached out for help. I always felt like if there was a problem, I could fix it myself. I would simply continue the way I had done things, never asking for help, trying to offer it, and isolating myself. When I tried again a few weeks later, it was harder. Even calling a single person suddenly turned into a monumental task for me. I was scared. Scared to be alone. Scared that being who I was had pushed away everyone I thought I could call friends. I couldn’t go through and call everyone on the next pass, afraid of being overbearing, afraid of being a bore, afraid that my attitude, my remarks, my caustic aura would eat right through whatever loose strands of friendship held us together.

Holding conversation was impossible. Summer orientation at college taught me that. I didn’t last longer than a few minutes with anyone, I kept overly silent or pretended to be that brash, loud boy that I was in high school. That sort of facade is and was tiring. I was reminded of just how incapable a person I am, how unsociable. When I got home, it was impossible for me to try and call anyone. I had sent out e-vites in the weeks before for a graduation party that my parents were throwing for me, whether I liked it or not. That was bad enough, as a mass message was not something I usually did, and now I was certain my detached attitude was going to frustrate people. When my parents decided to change the date, I had little choice but to accept, and once more I had to send out a mass message, informing everyone of a date change. That, in and of itself, was a horror. There was a protocol to this, one I had no idea about. I was  most certainly messing things up, rending  all the relationships I had tried to build over the years in two. So when time rolled around and I reached for my cellphone, I found that my fingers trembled every time I got close to the call button, my heart sinking deeper and deeper with each new answering machine. They don’t want to talk with me. They’re having fun without me. I’m not a necessary, or even wanted existence. I’m just in the way.

Now that date is coming around. My graduation party. My send-off party. What if no one shows up? What if my friends bail… I called around twenty to forty of them, can I really handle it if only two of them show up? Can I handle the jeers from my parent’s friends, the pitying looks, the insufferable silence? I’m hoping beyond hope that those people who haven’t replied show up. I don’t mind. I won’t mind. If I invited you and you show up without saying anything before, I won’t be mad. I won’t be disappointed. I swear I’ll be happy, so please, not just for my sake, for my parents too, please let enough people show up. Let things go by without a hitch. I don’t want to screw everything up again. I don’t want to lose my friends. I don’t want to look around and realize I’m alone.

Every time I pick up my phone, I am reminded. It’s become impossible to call. It’s become too hard to try. I don’t have that strength. I don’t have that power. And I know, this is a problem I could fix by myself. If I lie to myself even more, if I put myself out even more, if I pretend to be outspoken, questioning, a charismatic spokesman, I can keep going, I can survive. But will the scared, sentimental introvert ever get a chance to exist? Will I have to give up who I am in private in order to exist in the world? In society? Is that the price? Burying who I am, pretending to be someone else, living someone else’s dream, someone else’s life. I can’t even dream. I can’t even cry.

And so I welcome back the smiling fool, who smiles even as he’s cut to pieces. Hello World. It’s me again, I don’t know what I’m saying, but I hope you understand.

Who am I?

Who am I going to pretend to be this time?