Southernmost

these are my thoughts. you're welcome to read them.

[remanence-of-love]

[southern-most]

I feel like learning from bad example is the story of my life. I've spent my whole life watching the grown ups around me behaving appallingly and it gave me a clear sense of who I don't want to be, it feels like being a bowling ball constantly bouncing off the guardrails. what happens when you remove the guardrails? does the bowling ball know where it's supposed to go? now that these people aren't in my life any more I feel at peace but also lost in a way.

[southern-most]

we often bare the scars of other people's wounds.

[southern-most]

i don't know when i started feeling the sense of loneliness I feel but I've felt it for a long time. i think it started when I was working in my last job. i worked in retail. i was selling tools to construction workers. it was fun and I liked it. they were usually friendly. you got the odd person who came in in an abusey mood but that's retail I guess. i had a few friends when I worked there and I think part of why we got along was because we mutually felt like we didn't fit in in this super aggressive environment. id eat my breakfast in the morning sitting in my room feeling like a mouse chewing away at some cheese i stole while hiding in the corner of the room underneath a table. id leave for work at 5:30 in the morning, so I always saw the sunrise. i liked that part. id see the hot air balloons rising above the city and it always gave me this feeling of optimism. like, maybe because they can get up there and rise above the cold, black streets down here then maybe i will one day. at my job, at least for a while I felt like I was treated like an appliance, like a printer. no one really talked to me or looked at me unless they needed me to do something. id listen to everyone around me talking and laughing and getting along and I just felt like I was living on an island by myself, watching everyone around me from a distance. I feel like this often, still now. like, I'm not actively a participant in the world, I'm just kind of watching it go by, like I'm sitting alone in an empty theatre watching the world on the big screen, and the video on the big screen is what my eyes see. I was grateful when the people who became my friends joined my team, it breathed life into me and made me grateful for the time we had together. it made me realise that friendships are supposed to make you feel happy, and give you that feeling of warmth in your chest when you come away from a conversation with them. so many friends and friend groups in my life have been abusive, and I forgot you weren't supposed to feel stressed and angry after every social interaction. ive wondered if this is why I feel so lonely. like, even if you know someone is being abusive and you know they're in the wrong, the thought seeps into your subconscious that if they're behaving how they are that you must be deserving of that treatment. im trying to unlearn this now. im trying to be more social and be part of the world now, rather than just watching it go by, like a prisoner seeing the world through barred windows, distantly watching people sipping coffee and laughing with friends out the front of a cafe, buying bread from the bakery and window shopping, wishing he was allowed be part of it.