y’know what, fuck it, it’s ventin’ time
I have been so incredibly lonely for so many years. I’ve been lost in myself for ages and I’ve only just begun to figure a way out of this fuckin’ morass I find myself stuck in.
Why am I saying this shit here? Because, frankly, I don’t really have anyone I feel comfortable offloading this on, therapy is expensive, and this website is the closest thing I can find to yelling into a void. It’s safe. Comfortable. Near-anonymous. Only people who’ll ever find this either have no idea who I am or are trustworthy and the type that might understand. Maybe. I dunno.
Do I seem a bit overly gung-ho with the inecessant mentioning of my gayness in the tags? I kind of want to recoil from it after I’ve written it out sometimes. In all honesty, I’ve never been in any kind of relationship with a man and all these things are pretty much theoretical. I’ve never acted on a thing. But the feelings are there and I’d have to be completely blind to myself not to notice anything.
I’m not used to considering it as a positive. Really, I’m not even used to considering it. I came of age during the Bush administration and I’ve been in and out of strict fundamentalist Christian households throughout my formative years, so I don’t exactly have the best mental framework for what constitutes Gay. This has all been a serious learning project and if it wasn’t for gay meme communities online, I’d probably still be some frustrated asexual lurking around with a nagging emptiness in the pit of my stomach (note: no offense to anyone who identifies as ace. i get it, but it leaves something to be desired for me.)
I feel like things have passed me by at an alarming rate through the years. And I feel that my family has been a large reason for my total withdrawal from social life. At first it was my father’s judgmental, controlling nature and my process of dealing with the fact that I needed to excise him from my life like a tumour. It’s very difficult living life knowing that half of your family is entirely gone and nowhere near you for comfort or support. And unfortunately, my mother’s not entirely one for either. I love her dearly and I know she loves me, which is more than a lot of people get and it’s something I’m deeply grateful for. But she’s been through so much trauma through her life that she can barely function anymore. She’s bedridden. There’s a physical aspect to that, she throws out her back at least once a month and she’s always plagued with nerve pain. But there’s something deeper there. She has no trust for anyone else. She stays indoors because it’s the only place she can feel safe from everything around her. She hasn’t left the house except for doctor’s appointments since she quit her job.
And this leads us to The Big Worry: financial shit. I’m supporting us both on a single, extremely meagre retail income. This is not a good situation. Rent goes up $100/month every year and I have less and less to subsist on. Everything runs out immediately. My money is never my own to have. Practically everything goes to supporting her and trying to make sure her basic needs are met until she’s well enough to stand on her own. But I don’t know if that day is coming. And I don’t think she knows either. She’s in her 50s and she’s helpless. I love her deeply, but there grows to be a bit of a resentment from this.
And here we get to the meat of the matter: I feel that my life is not my own to live. For years, I’ve felt that life is something that other people do to you. I’ve never managed to do much of anything for myself. In the past, I could explain that as a side-effect of the serious depression I’ve been trudging through since adolescence. But now that I’ve managed to treat that and get it into some sort of equilibrium - there’s something else in the way. And god despise me for saying this, thinking it, writing it out like this, making the thoughts tangible and consequential, but it’s my mother. I leave the house, she worries herself to the point of sickness no matter what I’m doing. I can feel that. It’s like a sickly heat radiating out of her. Makes me feel like my stomach is trying to pull itself out of my body. Just makes me regret leaving in the first place. Unhealthy - for the both of us. And I get it, she’s my mother, she needs to worry somewhat, but this... this is getting out of hand. She’s become too dependent on me and I honestly want to move out sooner than later. But can I? Can I live my own life with the thought that, in doing so, I might be pushing my mother out onto the streets?
And for the love of god, why am I always shouldering the moral dilemmas of this fucking household? I do it with love and I attempt to do it with whatever grace I can scrape out, but god damn, it wears on me. I feel elated when I leave home and crushed when I come back. Every time I’m here - even sitting in this room right now, typing out all these words no one should read - my mind is screaming at me, THIS IS NOT THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE. THINGS CAN BE BETTER. WHY ARE THINGS NOT GETTING BETTER
They aren’t, by the way. Every other part of my life is improving, like a flower coming out of the frost and blossoming, it’s wonderful. But my home life is a stagnant pool, fetid, sick. I want to help her. I do not know how to help her. I feel like I’ve run out of options and I also feel like I haven’t really tried any. I have, but Christ, it’s like they never happened.
All of my friends say I need to get out. I tell myself constantly things need to change. I’ve been dissatisfied with my home life for... five years straight now. I try to get better and my mother slips further into the hole. Is it because of me? Reasonably, the answer should be no, but do things work according to reason in my life? Not usually. I dunno, I’ve lost track of where I was going with this.
This is the shit I’ve been thinking about for what feels like all of the last decade. Ever caught me staring off into space for a long time and thought, “What’s on his mind?” It’s this shit. Every time. And I’m no closer to an answer on any of this than I ever have been. But I feel like I’ve found an exit in my future. And it gives me this wondrous shining hope. I can make a life for myself in Fort Collins. I can do something on my own. And the fact that this feeling has made me truly hopeful for the first time since I was a child, god, I feel guilty. Because I know that this hope comes with a cost - and it’s a cost I would do anything to get out of paying.
And this is what happens when you're so terrified of other people turning on you that you can't even tell your family the thoughts that plague your head. Don't bottle shit up, kids, it does not lead to happy things.
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