failing/flailing/whatever
is there even a right way to live anymore? i don't feel like a bad person. people i know tell me i'm not. people constantly tell me how much i mean to them. what my support does for them. but i feel like, no matter what, if i talk to someone too long, they will come to hate what they see. i know i'm not perfect, that i have flaws, but i thought it was bad to try and be perfect, so i stopped trying to fix (all of) them. i left a few that i thought were harmless. i thought, well, nobody will see them. they're small.
yet, i've lost friends over these. i've had brutal falling outs over simple things i couldn't see. i've seen it happen to others. i've gotten so terrified of a misstep that, when someone says "ouch, that hurt!" i think this is it, we're done. i've fucked it up again, like i always do. i don't know, i've lived with that feeling for a long time, and i thought i'd managed to keep it at bay until now. i fixed these problems, kept my head clear, tried to stop doing the things that hurt people. yet it persists, because i have lost people over a slip-up.
now i have a good reason to suspect that my friends are simply... letting me step on them. make them uncomfortable. when i message one, she doesn't reply unless it directly pertains to her. she says she reads my messages, but she doesn't. she doesn't even look at them. i send so many that i think i've trained her to ignore them. i have to message other people to get her to listen if it's important. i don't know how long it's been like this. i don't know if i can fix it. i don't know if i can fix anything, all of these little things over and over that i can't stop thinking about. all of the little ways a person can hurt another without laying a finger.
i can't stop thinking about it. am i actually too pushy? am i not pushy enough? i thought both were true. i think they still are. i think i'm loud and i don't listen. i think i need to be quiet, but at the same time, when i'm quiet it hurts people. i have never felt comfortable being noncommunicative in any setting despite a desperate need to be because people don't like quiet. people want someone who listens and replies. yet there are days where i am too tired to engage in conversation that requires that kind of listening (or i'm busy, which feels often the case these days). i think it's time that i just break everything about me and redo it from scratch, break every bone to become someone new, someone likeable, with no messy flaws in the center.
overdramaticism and imagery aside, i think sometimes i'm losing my mind because things happen and i have to keep on talking, being the same as i ever was, to take it in stride. i don't think i'm someone who can; i need time to think, to chew on it, to internalize it, to find new ways to get better. when a larger unseen flaw rears its head, it takes more time. i need to let it sting, that something was in my blind spot for so long without me noticing. but if i go away, to be quiet, i feel the space grow between those close to me and myself. sometimes i try to announce it ahead of time, to say "hey, it's not you, it's me!" but then i feel as though i'm making a situation about myself. no, i don't want to make it about myself, i want to assuage your fears that i am leaving you. i need space. i need to be isolated where i cannot hurt people (EMOTIONALLY; i am not physically violent by any means, i cry over hurting peoples' feelings instead). i am a fucked up and partially feral wolfdog, but i am your fucked up and partially feral wolfdog. i will come back, and i will be docile again. but the space to run is needed for that to happen.
still, i think i've broken people and they haven't said anything. it's the quietness that hurts from others (see? i'm a hypocrite, actively contributing to a problem i fear; a flaw i can never correct, because it is free with being human). tell me i've fucked up. scream and cry. i need to know. i will go quiet for a while, to think, but then i will be better. i want to be better. i don't want to hurt people with my words, even incidentally, i want people to be comfortable and happy.
but that's the problem, isn't it? i grew up wrong, malformed. in my youth i exchange people for books, friends for characters, and safety for excitement. i didn't grow up learning new, strange things with friends, i grew up alone with a well-lit room and a book that could only be categorized as a tome. i mean, i suppose i learned a few things, but it was mainly "how to deal with being shunned by your peers." i used to try and run and play with my brother and his friends, but they would make sure i knew my place at every opportunity. i tried to play with the kids on the dirt mound in the upper neighbourhood, and they let me, for a time. but once the guy who gave me an in moved away, i wasn't interesting anymore. i can attribute it mainly to being misconceived as a girl for most of (if not all of) my childhood; there was a distinct need in the boys i played with to make sure i wasn't "one of them," despite the fact that i had been "one of them" since i was born. i still resent how i grew up, remaining effeminate enough to maintain this unwanted deception into adulthood. even now, the concept of femininity makes my stomach churn, just a little. my throat sours when i think of all of the ways this label ascribed to me has corroded my heart. i don't think i grew much after that, because that bitterness started young and only kept festering. i didn't talk to anyone for a long, long time.
i can be better. all humans are capable of change. it just feels like i have to compensate for starting off on two wrong feet, and have been floundering upwards ever since. i don't know how anyone does it, how anyone goes through life having to figure out things as they go, as they hurt people (EMOTIONALLY). are we all just failing upwards? or are we all just miserable beasts, baying like hounds and hoping someone else understands?