optimism aneurysm

I think most people who know me would say I have a generally sunny personality. Sure, I can be a bit sarcastic sometimes when the moment calls for it, but in general, I'm an optimist. Historically. I think maybe I should have bit my tongue the past few years when I said how lucky I felt that I had a good life, and people in my life had been so good to me. Did I some how cosmically bring a shift of luck, a dark cloud over my life? I don't know.

In the past year I've been faced with some really hard situations, and have been going through a lot of transition. I've lost quite a few things I valued, from friends and relationships, to family and home. It was more than I thought I could deal with at times. The only thing, ironically, that seemed to remain constant was my job, which I love to groan about. There were days, many of them, where I just wanted to stop existing for a while, stay in bed and disappear, not have to feel anything, or deal with anything anymore. But of course I had to go to work, even if I couldn't work well, and just stared out the window at the cars passing on the viaduct in front of the bay. It kept me with something to get up for every day. My coworkers were there for me, and I will be forever grateful for them.

Through all of this I realized that one of the things that made much of what I was dealing with so hard is that I value kindness and consideration so much, I am so sensitive and thoughtful to a fault (it sounds self-congratulatory, but it's really an exhausting way to live), that I let the crappy way I was treated break me. I spent a ridiculous amount of energy explaining things away, wanting to believe that everyone has the best of intentions and maybe sometimes the way people behave is my fault, a result of my actions, until it hurt so bad, there was no way around the fact that I was receiving a giant, painful, slap in the face. I have spent too much time in my life saying that people "mean well" to try and explain painful things away.

There are too many selfish assholes in our society. I want to believe people are good and kind and well-intentioned, but I'm not sure if I can apply it as a rule as I always have. There are too many self-centered, immature people who will coo at you, tell you how wonderful and important you are, how proud they are of you, how you are the center of their world when it is easy for them, hugging and crying with you one day and then treat you as if you were just another one of the people they pass on the street later when your interests have diverged. Because I am an extremely deliberate and sensitive person, I am constantly aware of what I say, being wary of misleading people into assumption, commitment, or eventual disappointment. I want people to be happy, I am afraid of risking disappointing people for fear I will lose them, says my therapist. So in this way I set myself up, I guess. I have always aspired to honesty and openness, and it may again sound like a holier-than-thou attitude, but even though oftentimes it can be hard to be upfront and honest, I cannot come to terms with the dishonesty and overt lack of consideration that I've seen recently.

I love this quote by Woody Allen in Manhattan when Diane Keaton is calling off their fling and tells him she finds it disturbing that he won't express any feelings about the situation: I don't get angry, okay? I mean, I have a tendency to internalize. I can't express anger. That's one of the problems I have. I, I grow a tumor instead. I'm a lot like that, but I'd like to work on it. I'd like to tell people when I'm pissed off, and not run home to be alone to stress out about how it might have been different if I'd have handled it better.

You fucking ass, how could you? Someday I'll say that to someone, it will blow them out of the water. And I won't laugh, or smile, after, the way I always do to make things blow over. I'll let it be on their shoulders.

Some of it is likely a societal thing. I think too many people in my generation have been coddled by their parents, given too much and placed their own comfort and desires above all in their comfortable, middle-class american sphere. But it's not just young people who are a little slow to act as mature as their college degrees try to make them look. I'm beginning to think some of it is nature to many people. I want to believe people are better, but I'm beginning to doubt, and it hurts. How does someone profess undying affection for someone at one point, claim they know that they are the only person who could ever fit them, and then turn their back when that same person cries for support a few months later and it's not convenient for them? How could someone hold something in trust that they know is very important to their own family, but sell it to the quickest bidder nonetheless? And do it over and over? How can one lover leave another to clean up every last bit of a dying life together, and refuse to help when asked? How can adults act like this? It's embarrassing to someone who always aspired to the idealistic notion that people "mean well."

The soundtrack to my life has changed recently. I kind of want my Amelie back; I don't think it's ever been Radiohead before.