Something to Think About

So I guess there’s my fault.

I know you’re hurting, I know you have a problem. I don’t know everything, and it’s not my place to know everything. But I know that ultimately I can’t help you. I can try, I can ask you how you’re doing or what’s wrong or be publicly concerned, but in the end you’re the one making the changes, you’re the one hurting yourself, you’re the one who can stop hurting yourself. I can’t take the pain away, I can’t take over your life and regulate everything you do. Hell, I can’t even regulate myself.

The thing is: I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what I can tell you, I don’t know how to make it okay. Because nothing is ever okay, not with me, not with you, not with anyone.

But I want you to know that I am concerned. I don’t just ask you if you’ve eaten today for no reason. And if you lie to me, that’s not my problem either.

I have been raised to look to no one. To trust no one. I don’t really go to people with my problems. Although occasionally, people see them. I go to people for those stupid, relate-able things, like that one T.V. show or that one band. It’s stupid, it’s stupid, I know. But that is how I cope. I lie to myself every day. It makes it easier, makes me seem normal, makes me seem happy. All the time. I will never tell you my problems. I will be angry, I will be frustrated. I am always angry and frustrated. But the thing is, I don’t like my problems because there are always worse things.

So figuratively, my life is great. In this imaginary, happy, enthusiastic life I’ve created for myself, it’s all jolly and wonderful. And half the time I make it my reality. And if you see me cry or you see me irritated or something of that sort, I’m not going to tell you what’s actually wrong. That’s not for you to know. And sometimes I feel that it’s not for me to share. But I’ll be sad, and I’ll lean my head on your shoulder and say that I don’t want to talk about it, because that’s what people do, right? In an essence, I really don’t care much about anything. In reality, there are too many things on my plate to count. You don’t share your problems. In my family, no one wants to know your problems. We try to get by without having it crack us every day. My mom has been doing it for years now, and so have I. And I’m getting really good at it, I really am. I’ve been such a good kid lately, it kind of makes me sick. Because the consequences in the end are much worse. But I depend on myself to fix it. Because no one else can fix my life for me.

So I don’t exactly know where I’m going with this, but I think that if you want to be a better person on the outside, you can be, but that doesn’t change what’s going on under the mask. It’s like a one-man show, and you’re the only one behind the scenes, running everything.

This is my way of softening the blow, for you, for me, for everyone. I vent, no one listens, and it’s not on my conscience (because in some honesty, the fact that anyone reads these things is something that makes me very self conscious), and I can get along with life.

But I just want you to know that I’m here, I still am. And I don’t know what this is going to do, if it’s going to make you feel better or make me feel better because (in complete honesty) I am a very selfish person. But I’m not going to make you any promises I can’t keep.

All I know how to do is love, whatever that may mean, because I don’t really know. But it makes me a better person and it makes the people around me generally better people. And it’s all I know how to do.

So here’s my proposal.

I will love you until it gets better, and I will love you just as much afterwards and beyond.

It’s exactly what I do for myself, and it is exactly what I’ll do for you. Because people hardly ever love, not just “care” or be “concerned” but love, LOVE. And I think that if loving makes the world a better place, than maybe I can love enough to make up for all the love that people don’t have anymore.

And maybe it just means one less night of crying myself to sleep.