Crushed Expectations

I'm so disappointed in myself (that old familiar feeling). I keep talking a good game about how I'm going to change things, and then I go and blow off a party (i.e. social gathering with males in attendance). My friend totally knew I was lying when I called to say I wasn't coming because of a stomach ache. I know some of the people that will be there, but not well and I don't feel like feeling awkward. Granted it would only be for a few hours, I just can't muster the energy to go. And I want to kick myself.

Why am I so tired? That was supposed to dissipate after all the stress of trying to buy this apartment went away.

Why can't I change my aversion to parties? Is that just something I need to accept and figure a way around?

I'm sick of this war between believing in fate and believing I make my own. This clash between knowing I'm fine alone and wanting to share my life with someone and being unable, or possibly afraid, of letting it happen. Of actual change.

Am I actually afraid of the change I've been blabbing on about? Ogod.

I'm sick of me.

Can I trade brains with someone for a while?

The Buck Stops Here...Possibly There

I was watching a show on History the other night about, what else? Armageddon. Apparently there have been numerous people from various cultures throughout time (e.g., ancient China, European middle ages and modern Hopi Native Americans) that believe(d) the world will end on December 21, 2012. I just found the website and am surprised that I've never heard it before. (Aha! I just realized why there's a new movie called 2012 coming out!) It's fascinating to me because last summer a woman handed me a leaflet that said the world was going to end on May 21, 2011. That is to say the Rapture will occur and the world and all its heathens will be consumed in a firey hell.

So...which is it?

Mind you, I am not mocking anyone who believes these things. I'm just saying I don't. (Though the 2012 stuff is pretty freaky, despite the website selling t-shirts. Anyway 11:11 am Greenwich Mean Time is 6:11 am NY time so I'll still be asleep. Assuming I'm still in NY then...)

I had to laugh at myself because while watching the show I believed everything I heard. I actually said out loud at one point, "please let me know love before the world ends." Then when it was over I thought that's absurd. How could anyone know the exact date the earth is going to implode? Because I do believe it will, just not in our lifetime. And not by any higher power's hand. Humanity will either destroy the planet that feeds and we'll starve or we will destroy one another for having different beliefs. Either way, no one is responsible but us.

They say all these different prophecies have come true, about wars, natural disasters, disease...yeah well how hard is to pick a date and say there will be a flood that wipes out some random city built near the waters' edge? Or that someone with evil tendencies will rise to power only to gain more through terrorizing others? or that too many people living in poor, dirty conditions will lead to suffering and death? It happens all the time. People are dramatists. Alarmists. History repeats itself and we need to constantly reassure ourselves the end is near to cover for the fact that we've seen it before, just in a different way. (For every person that predicted something that actually happened, there are like a thousand who predicted armageddon. And yet we're all still here. YK2 anyone?) We have to shout a lot to make sure other people are still listening. We need to create something big to ensure we give meaning to our lives. People don't ever grow up and stop needing attention. It's our nature. This is what I believe.

I don't need to predict a world wide natural disaster or the coming of the antichrist (which PS is NOT Obama) to scare myself into feeling alive.

I just need to stop all the bullshit in my head and learn to love someone.

Before the world ends.

My Cold, Happy Heart

"And then that look that you gave me
Sent me rushing through guilt's door
I'd already started to feel callous
Like I really should care more"
-Ani Difranco

Callous
2 a: feeling no emotion b: feeling or showing no sympathy for others: hard-hearted.

If they were to update this entry in Merriam-Webster my picture would be placed beside it. Well...I guess only if there was the addendum "one is not close to or does not know well" after 'no sympathy for others'. And yet, as soon as that Sarah Mclachlan animal cruelty commercial comes on I just about sob openly. Why do I feel so twisted?

In the past couple months, 1 friend became a domestic partner, 3 other friends got engaged, my youngest cousin got married and I just found out my other younger cousin is getting married this summer. I can genuinely say that I am excited for all my friends and can't wait to be part of the festivities. My cousins on the other hand...I just don't know them that well. My youngest cousin I don't know at all. What brought about this whole callous business is the fact that I found out her husband was recently killed in Iraq. They got married in October. This is heartbreakingly sad, but I feel nothing. I guess I feel bad for her, she's never had much luck in life. Period. But what can I do about the situation? I can't comfort her, I don't know her. I don't even have her phone number. My mother tells me her heart aches for her niece, but me? I'm beginning to think my heart has shrunk. It's the same reaction I had to finding out about the separation I mentioned in the last post. I mean, that situation is slightly different because he doesn't want comfort or anyone's pity. But still. It's the start of a broken family and all I can do is look at it from the outside and think 'well that's sad', but not actually feel any sadness.

My younger cousin that's getting married- we communicate a few times a year but we're not really in each other's lives. She used to really look up to me when we were growing up, but again, I don't really know her as an adult. She asked me to be in her wedding to the guy she was engaged to before this one, but hasn't mentioned anything to me about being engaged now or the wedding this summer. My mother told me and has been on my case about it ever since. Not in the 'when are you getting married' way, she just wants me to start making travel arrangements because the wedding is down south. I'm like, she hasn't even called me! I don't even want to look at how much air fare will be because it's a holiday. Why does this bother me so much? I should just be happy for her and call her to congratulate her but instead I'm just kind of annoyed which puts me only one notch above the border of not even caring.

I feel like there's not enough room in my heart to care, but why? What else am I filling it up with right now? And then at the same time I feel like I have so much love to give. I should care but I can't. I could care but I don't. The clash is causing me to feel detached...to just about everything. That's not to say I'm not happy, because I still am- about all the things I've written about since the new year. I think that's what worries me. I'm still happy in my detachment. That sounds disasterously close to shutting down, just in a different way than I have before. A more innocuous way that won't ring any warning bells to let me know I'm sinking and will eventually have to crawl toward the light again. Can you shut down if you're happy?

Perhaps it's just that my present particular human condition is to question my happiness (though it seems extremely pointless and ultimately self-defeating). Maybe I'm happier because I've lessened how much of others lives I let into my own. Maybe by unconsciously (though now realized) shutting it out I've become happier. Maybe I'm just tired of sadness. For the first time in a long time there isn't this latent sadness hanging around me, so now I have to question it. Figures, right? How could I be happy when so many horrible things are happening every day? AND I'm still single? I must be callous. I'm thinking I should just take this at face value for the moment and enjoy my happiness, no matter what the cause, instead of beating it to death with the stick of obsessive self-analysis.

Is there a good place to lose a stick of obsessive self-analysis? Where can I misplace it so I'll never see it again?