Ok. This is long, probably self-absorbed, and stupid. I'm going to look at it later, hate it, and delete it. Ahem.
The last five years of my life have been high-stress. I was living the "series of unfortunate events" before it was a gleam in Lemony Snicket's eye. Alright, after a check on Amazon, he might have gotten the idea a little earlier. Close enough.
Now, the typical cultural expectation of the sole surviving male of a family is that he pulls everything together, solves the problems, carries his share of the load, and heroically works through the adversity toward triumph. That didn't exactly work for me. At fourteen, there isn't a whole lot you can do about the issues that can pile up when someone dies, especially the financial kind. I also lacked the self discipline to carry on with home-educating myself. Hell, I barely did anything except work fairly hard at finishing the move that had been in progress.
Anger? Disbelief? Feeling cheated, ripped off, seeing opportunities fade? Hell yeah. Bitterness is a nasty thing, but it apparently gradually dies away. Either that or as time passes, you forget and stop caring so much.
Men aren't meant to be powerless. For lack of a better word, it's emotionally castrating. I was stuck in a ratty old farmhouse in the country- I couldn't exactly go work McDonalds and help supplement the non-existing income. I couldn't save the day, or help in any meaningful way. The day to day things that do make a difference, I barely did. We scraped by on gifts and occasional selling of posessions. I don't know what to define myself as, I was never the best at sitting still for working through math and science, although I can sit through just about anything as long as it isn't absolutely incredibly tedious and I'm not the one doing it. Depression? Pity fits? Been there, grew through it. But I've still never done more than the bare minimum. Some people told me that was alright, I was a teen, that was expected. My mother told me I wasn't pulling the weight of a toddler, and how she had to singlehandedly take care of five-something kids from a much younger age when her mother was overwhelmed after a catastrophic housefire and loss of the head of the family. It's not like she sat around doing nothing, just keeping things organized and working toward a solution occupied a lot of her time. We wasted a year or three trying to sell the house in TN before an Amish up and bought the farm in NY, and now we're living in a house that had cheap cosmetic fixes to help sell it, which don't hold up to daily living. That isn't how I wanted to do it, but it seems that everything sensible I wanted done, wasn't, and most things I agreed on, weren't that great.
Here I live in my room when I'm not doing yard work or chores. The same as all the other times. Was it escapism when things were really hard that eventually became a habit? I think so. My whole life had become a series of trips up and down the east coast moving vanloads of furniture and professional weaving and shop equipment up to NY- at least when we came back summer before last we had a pair of cattle trucks to haul in, courtesy of my uncle (Who still charged.
). Much more comfortable to play games and find reading material, advanced technical skills, and whatnot from my chair than to face things that frankly I wasn't able to do much about. My respect for organized religion went down the toilet, when I saw old gay friends of my mom doing more to help us (actually doing things) than any church (we'll pray for you, and why don't you collect social security?).
I was a super-emotional child. Now, not so much at all. I'm what you would call apathetic which is why seeing people get worked up by one thing or another always surprises me. I can work when I have it focused right and when I'm working with other people, it's as if nothing at all is wrong with me. I just can't work alone on most things. My problem is I can't shake procrastination. I can't shake the fact that I really don't give a *expletive deleted*it about organizing the carport, or clearing out the garage, even if things I need to do depend on it (although if I need to do something bad enough it'll get taken care of). It's like there are parts of me that are broken or huddled up or just dead. That bothers the hell out of me, because for years I've been confused and angry at myself for being apparently defective. For the first year or so I did ok, but with no end in sight and absolutely numbing circumstances, I guess things wore me down.
So after all that time up there, going through freezing winters when we ran out of fuel for the woodstove, digging a trench out behind one of the falling down barns when the well pump failed, visiting the gas station in town every week to fill up water, I though coming here would solve everything. Living in a suburb of town, running water, reliable electricity, DSL, etc.
It didn't. It's marginally better. The upstairs bathroom has some sort of crack in the toilet now - which leaked into the second bathroom causing massive water damage. I'm pretty sure carpenter ants are in the downstairs subfloor, and the foundation is settling unevenly causing some floors to buckle subtley and archways to crack. The HVAC rusted to hell during the rainy season last spring when the basement flooded. No heat or A/C. Mother
f***er. WTF can I do to fix a furnace- go rob a drug dealer in Knoxville to pay for it? Gah. What we had left over from selling the farm property is draining away. My mom's been working most of the time on starting her weaving business. She's a genuine professional and will probably do well, so I help with that. That isn't much of a big deal. I have a webhosting company I started, and if I keep at it, it'll be my first good accomplishment, period. Supporting myself, what a novel concept. I want that, I work toward it, I'm getting there. But still.
The point behind the various 'catastrophes' and 'bad things' isn't to whine about them or get sympathy. No one honestly wants to hear that crap, or thinks much of someone who talks about it. Annoying things happen to everybody, we all learn to deal with it.
I don't expect any part of my life to appear especially unique or worthy of interest. It's my being faced by things that should result in bringing out the best in me, and not being able to muster myself to even do what's expected. It's not like I've listed down a third of everything, either. The thing I'm trying to use them to illustrate is, situations like that have become normal day-to-day life for me, and my disbelief at how poorly I've performed in those situations. I'm not sure if that ultimately has a healthy effect.
I'm still unmotivated. I don't see how I can face all of these things and not be the most motivated, disciplined, capable-of-working-until-things-are-dandy person on the freakin' planet. I'm considered lazy. I haven't educated myself beyond a tenth grade level because I couldn't be arsed to study or do the work, and when there's no one to make sure you do it, you don't. I only had reading and an Amiga500 for entertainment as a kid so my vocabulary is big enough to fool everyone. When I'm applied, learning is easy. History was cake, all you have to do is read it. I have an above average memory- this causes fights when I remember something and someone else dis-remembers, there's some creativity left in me, and enough reasoning capability that I'm probably going to go through college if I can get that far at all.
I get bored with routine stuff. I always want to do things my way, and if not, why not? I can be a real pain in the ass, I can notice too much, I get lost pursuing my own thoughts, repetition bores and kills me unless it's enjoyable, I've always got my nose in a book, I don't always pay terribly close attention to directions, I'll go beyond the level of what's necessary or practicality when it comes to planning innovation, I'm a perfectionist which is why I'll try something, see how poorly I do, and never want to try again (experience is beating that, though), I'll take on too much and get overwhelmed (which is the easiest way to stop me in my tracks), I'm cynical, sarcastic, and rebellious, extremely self-critical, have many specialized interests that I'll probably never get the chance to realize or pursue, and I worry way too much. There is so much I could be doing but it's like there's an electrical circuit required and most of the time, it just doesn't click.
By now there's too many "what-ifs" and half-completed possibilities for me to boogie on over to the local Marines recruiter- although if I could go back in time and tell myself to do it at 17, I would. Hell, I'd be out in a few years. But dammit, I want to know WTF is wrong with me when it comes to apathy, procrastination, and an overall bad attitude. My attitude toward people 'treating' themselves chemically for various 'disorders' hasn't been good, since it seems stupid. Now I'm not so sure.
Feh. I'm good at hiding all this stuff. What's on the inside doesn't count, because no-one else can see it.
I just want to function normally.
