i've been sort of writing a resume for the last week (it should be an hour-long errand but i geniunely have zero motivation for anything, which is another story). in the process, i've noticed that i barely have any volunteer hours. i hardly did anything extracurricular in high school, which has got me thinking that i hardly did anything at all. i've started to wonder why.
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i feel weird whenever i look at photos from then. i don't want to say it makes me feel regret but that wouldn't be far off. i feel bad that i don't feel a ton of nostalgia for those days, at least not yet (how could i, it's only been a year). i don't feel like i deserve to think they weren't the best years of my life or close to them because i feel like i would be told they could be so much worse, but who is gonna tell me? i keep saying shit like that to cover my ass if someone tells me otherwise, but that is not going to happen. reminding myself things could be worse has barely grounded me, it's distracting me from acknowledging that they were bad at all.
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ironically enough, right in the middle of writing this, i got thrown into a conversation with an old friend (you know who), one who was really important to me in those years. talking with them put this all into perspective. the fucking truth is, i did not like my high school years. it's not that everyone doesn't think that about them, and it's not that there wasn't plenty of gold during them that will last me most of a century, it's just that i never felt like i deserved to say i didn't like them because they definitely weren't the worst thing ever, of course they weren't. i never feel like i deserve to say that about anything. but for the first time, possibly ever, i do think i can admit they kind of sucked. i fucking did not like them. i both floated around and was too involved. it got too real on top of me never feeling like it was real at all. i know general feelings of anomie is standard issue for anyone, especially at fucking ages 12-17, but it's still not easy as it is. on top of that, what i was feeling - what i am feeling - probably isn't just the ennui of growing up. i probably have real issues, even if they're not the worst things ever. it sucked. i hated a lot of it. i wasted a lot of it, too. everyone does, i guess, but hindsight would be 20/20 if i didn't also know it then, too. i could have done a lot more with myself and i knew i could. i was the kid that could have: i could have done better in school and so forth (even though i really didn't do that bad, i just wanted more. i was never satisfied, but i never felt like i was moving forward). i knew every day but i didn't know why. i still don't. i hated that i didn't know, but i also hated that i could have known what it was always. i could have, but i didn't. as a teenager, Oneohtrix Point Never called himself 'the King of Almost', i could easily said the same thing about myself. everything happened but nothing did for months. everything was and then wasn't, before and after and at the same time, same as it ever was.
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i spent a lot of time worrying about other people and their wellbeing. my friend was abusive to me and i couldn't accept it until they told me themselves that's what happened. i had a really fucked up circle in general that made everything kind of a circus of crises. i love them to this day, but it was a lot to take on.
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i flew low around people. i always do. i hated attention, and still do, but i can deal with it if i'm given it. sometimes it works for me, i can be obnoxious if i want to be. stage fright leaves me when i'm up there. regardless, i kept my nose clean. i sloppily did what i was told, sometimes very well, but often by the skin of my teeth. i didn't like myself, i still don't really. nobody has their shit together, especially as children, and i was told that by everyone, but i both had superhuman expectations of myself and also little proof that everyone was right, so i beat myself up when this inevitably caved in on itself. i was jealous of people who i thought had their shit together, i eventually grew to actually resent them. i always, without fail, shot farther than i could shoot and i hated that more than anything else. it eventually caused problems, for me and people around me.
i liked books with cult followings, Soviet filmmakers imprisoned for their un-Marxist avant-garde-ness, weird and revolting art that melted the faces of the New York yuppies of the 70s, records put together in basements for no money made by college students or misanthropes. i liked Samizdat writings, radical politics, alien architectures, punk rock, solid-fuel rockets, the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, experimental anything, new ways of living, alternative futures. that's what i hid in, that was kind of a home. no matter the bullshit, the music was always great.
adiós para siempre, viejo amigo.
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day two of writing this. too emo to finish this but i think the point is clear enough. i feel like you hate me for some reason. i don't think that's true. idk why. anyway, i am not a good person. not strong enough. im fine. lockdowns forever. the century indoors before there's no one to leave the house. im so stupid. things are shit. ive let everyone down. i want to live!
