Sunday, March 23, 2008

It just keeps on going

*Sorry for this post...It was late and I was bummed when I wrote it. I don't really feel like this all the time. A good friend wrote me a nice letter when I first posted it, and because of that I decided that I'm going to leave this post up. This is part of me and sometimes I feel like this.*

Maybe some of you that are older and wiser than me can give me some insight on life.

I read a few of my blog posts from way back when (2005) tonight and stood back from my life and thought about what it looks like so far.

If you were to plot my life from beginning to end, all twenty-one (nearly 22) years of it, you would see it like a radio signal with a constant frequency where after a certain point, the waves get progressively smaller in magnitude.

The good times come and go, the bad times take their place for a while, and the cycle continues on and on. But the more the good and the bad continue, the less effective each becomes. The good seems to get progressively less joyful. The bad seems to get progressively less nasty. I can appreciate most good things but I know they are nothing new, and that bad things will come again. I know how to deal with most bad things because I know that eventually there will be happiness and good things again.

So life loses its ferocious roar and becomes a steady hum.

I remember even back in first grade, how excited I used to get about playing action figures and ninja turtles and swords and whatever else with my friends in our apartment complex. We could play from morning until night. Hide and seek at night with the older kids in the complex was mind-blowingly incredible. Ditch and Nintendo and soccer and making forts and clubs... all of that was pure joy.
I also remember, as first grade was a particularly painful year for me at school, how much it hurt to get teased and made fun of by the second graders that shared our class. I remember wetting my pants (one of the most horrible things one can do for his social life in first grade) and not understanding what was cool or how to fit in at all. My mom worried about me a lot that year because I would come home and cry or throw tantrums because of whatever had happened at school that day. Its sort of a harsh thing to say, but that was a very terrible year, and had I understood the concept of suicide at that point, I might have tried it some days. Is that just a me thing?

Life went on and things went up and down more. The rest of grade school got better and worse. *note added after this post was written for the sake of accuracy: That's not true. It just got better. I made tons of friends later in grade school and the rest of my life. Things were still hard in school sometimes, but not that miserable again until somewhere in high school* Middle school brought all of these terrible and consuming new feelings that started to complicate my world, but I could ignore them most of the day. There was wall ball and lunch time and Animorphs and computer games over the internet and track after school. We started getting cable television free because the signal somehow came down from the new upstairs neighbors. Mom tried to have the management shut it off three times but nothing ever came of that so she gave up.

In High School there was sexuality and music and sports and movies and some understanding of politics and there was religion and meaningful relationships. Not girlfriends for me of course, but friends, male and female, who I cared about.

College brought more and more of all that...I got quite a fill on all of those things as a follow up to the taste I had in high school.

And then the waves got smaller and lately they just keep getting smaller. There are wonderful things like having a boyfriend and going camping and seeing beautiful things. Running races and dancing and delicious food. Driving with the music blaring.

But I also realize how much more important money and appearance and background and status are than i ever wished they would be. How thats what you're counted for in life even though its so difficult to control any of them. And how happy times for a lot of people become dependent on all of these stupid things. And how there are so many ugly horrible things that people do that you wish they would all just go away sometimes.

But it all starts counteracting and things are weighed against each other and stuff just comes out equal and well...its just life.

And it keeps going until it flatlines and your heart stops and you die.

So, all of you people older than me... Are things going to amaze me again? Can I ever look at something without seeing the flipside? Is there a breaking point to all this at some point or do i just deal with life until I know how to suffer through more and more horrible things until nothing phases me anymore and I can just die?

I don't know where I'm going here really. I'm not sure if I analyze things right ever. I'll think and thing again and you just get a glimpse of what I was thinking in this moment. I promised myself I would actually post what I wrote though, whether it made sense or not. So here it is.

2 comments:

MoHoHawaii said...

Wow, a world-weary, jaded 21 year old. LOL. :-)

Are things going to amaze me again?

Er... yes.

Is there a breaking point to all this at some point or do i just deal with life until I know how to suffer through more and more horrible things until nothing phases me anymore and I can just die?

:-) As you've noted, life is a mix of the good and bad. I don't think there's any magic nugget of wisdom that changes this, even as you get older.

However, as a certified Old Person, I can tell you that life has many wonderful things in store for you. You do have a future, and how you feel now will not be how you feel in a few years. Have patience for the process and work hard at building a good future for yourself.

Best of luck to you.

(Check out my half-serious young person's guide to life.)

Greg D said...

Have you tried building a fort lately?