This is an awful depression I'm stuck in. It's been like this since Saturday. It kept me up last night, and now I'm up tonight trying to get it out in writing so I can sleep tonight, but the writing's keeping me up anyways, so what the hell.
Although I'm very proud of my cousins, especially Michelle because
she's getting married and moving to Arizona, I can't help but be shaken by the fact that my little cousins are becoming so unfamiliar, and I can't help but feel uncertain about how to connect with them in an entirely new sense - because despite being seven years older than them, I'm starting to feel like they're more mature than I am.
Not only do they go out with friends, they make intimate connections with other people, and if those connections fail, they try it all over again. I remember having fun with Michelle and James in the limo before prom. That was when I was their age, and in a relationship too. And here I am, whether it's my fault or not, physically and socially stunted, carrying soreness over things that happened almost a decade ago trying to improve myself via university, which I can't seem to stay in because my body keeps failing on me, when so many people around me build social nets completely apart from the college experience. So I'm at this party with my cousins, whose romantic partners pretty much live with them, and I feel like my partner is my 3DS. I already felt like a rock at family get-togethers before I felt like a failed rock. And even if I get my English degree, I suspect I'm just going to end up right back here and it will make no difference. I'm ashamed of myself.
I REALLY want it to work for the four of them. I like both Michelle's BF - he seems to know what he's doing - and James' GF too. I'm so proud of Michelle for taking this initiative. And I figure since the divorce rate is 50% and both my older cousins had husbands who tried to bail, maybe both my little cousins will have happy and stable relationships. That’s the way statistics work, right?
This probably means there’ll be a wedding ceremony before the year is over. And that’ll be awesome. I love weddings. And for my first baby cousin...literally, I spent tons of time with her as a baby. I’m credited with teaching her to crawl. A wedding would be surreal.
But nonetheless, my feelings about the party affected me in a way I didn't expect. This issue is keeping me awake, even making me feel my chronic pain more keenly. Suddenly I'm super-aware of the meaninglessness of playing a game without someone to share it with, when for years I've been withdrawing more and more. I can go swimming with my cousins once on Sunday, go on some walks, randomly go down to CalPoly, but none of it seems like enough, it all feels sluggish and lazy, like I still feel like I'm squandering my time and energy. And yet the more dejected I feel, the less able I am to even maintain these basic activities. I set my alarm for 9:00 a couple of hours ago. At this point I'm not gonna be able to get up that early, because I had to figure out a way to vent so I can sleep, when I've been trying to write it down all day. Oh well.
