I can't even fucking believe myself anymore. It's like my mind wants to fuck everything up just so I can feel more comfortable in the role of the underdog, and truly it makes me sick to my fucking stomach to even contemplate just how much I've become my own worst enemy.
And I know exactly why. You've heard the bullshit about the kid whose mommy didn't love him enough and who didn't raise him right and who abused him and waaaaaaa shut the fuck up, kid, you don't know how good you've got it.
Well, fuck that. Most guys can't say their mom trumped up a complete lie about "he threatened to kill me", sprung that shit on him when he wasn't prepared to respond right in a fucking psychiatrist's office, and COMMITTED HIM TO A FUCKING MENTAL INSTITUTION JUST TO GET RID OF HIM. So yeah, I've got some fucking trust issues. What's it to you?
I watched Good Will Hunting again earlier today. Over the past 12 years I've lost count of the number of times I've been compared to the title character and the number of people who have made the comparison. You'd think I could whip out my driver's license and it'd say Matt Fucking Damon right on the goddamn front of it. Like I'm his fucking clone or something. But you know what? Might as well be the truth. A brilliant mind constantly standing in its own way for fear of what might happen if its owner let it go and really achieve its best. I went almost a decade telling myself that I'd embrace a little mediocrity if it meant being around people who just accepted me.
Well, you know what? That wasn't good enough in the movie and it sure as fuck ain't good enough in my life. And every fucking day that I wake up in this apartment, in this city, in this place that's as far away from the life I could've had if I'd only had the fucking balls and if my fucking bitch mother hadn't abused the living shit out of me and insisted that every fucking thing was my fault...you know, go ahead and get Robin Williams in here. I'll cry in his arms and we'll both win Oscars. You'll love it. Won't be able to put the fucking popcorn down for the entire scene.
See, my greatest gift is my greatest curse. I suck at chess because chess is too linear. It's not creative enough. They say it's all about looking several moves ahead and that's bullshit. It's picking one from column A and one from column B and matching together "strategies" named after Russian guys. There ain't an ounce of strategy in it. When you've got the kind of mind and the kind of intellect that can not only see the board several dozen moves ahead but can also produce a multi-layered plan of attack so multifaceted that you could get busted down to Plan Z and still be in total control with a multitude of backups and fallback plans, well, chess hardly fucking describes it.
And it's that gift that gets me in trouble. Because nobody else fucking gets it. I'm out on an island here. No matter how much thought I put into it, I always know that any of my interactions with other people will result in me getting frustrated and shutting yet another someone out of my life, either actively or passively, because let's face it, it was my passive lack of acceptance of a good fuckin' thing that is pretty much at the root of every time I've gotten my heart broken. And that's a lot of times.
Said Will, in one scene: "You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up." Yeah. Pretty much that. And it intimidates people and makes them feel stupid and then here I am, too fucking good for them. Except I'm not. And I never will be. Because they have something I will never have. A sense of normalcy, a sense of belonging, a sense of belief in themselves that they're good enough to be loved and cared for and believed in by someone else. I will never have that. The fact that the very first female who was supposed to love me would rather dump my ass in a fucking psychiatric ward than just let me grow and develop as a person into the reasonably well-liked and well-respected person I've become outside of my immediate social life saw to that.
So excuse me if I occasionally veer between kindness and hatred, between being that sweet, clever, funny, lovable guy you all know and the monster I'm occasionally forced to become. And excuse me if I'm not quite as family-oriented as most people. And excuse me if I can't fucking deal with life sometimes. I've been through a lot, you see. And every once in a fucking while I have to take the spotlight off myself for a minute and say "you know what? I'm crying on the inside, and maybe, just maybe, sometimes I want to cry on the outside without someone looking at me funny."
So yeah. Carry on. I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow. And if I'm not? I'm just a stupid kid who isn't allowed to have his own thoughts and feelings and beliefs about the world, remember? My mommy told me so. Fuck you, Mom.
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Fox, no one can define "normal". Ask your doctor about it sometime, if he/she says that your weight or something is "normal". Watch people around you, or even read some of the responses on Prudie - how many of these people would you consider "normal"?
ReplyDeleteNow that I think of it, do you think ANY of us who contribute to The Fly are normal? We're all there because we CHOOSE not to conform to what Germy the Editor has decided is "normal". We're all a bunch of - I don't know - independent thinkers? Smartasses? People with foot-in-mouth disease?
It's time to make "not fitting in" a virtue. Screw people who make judgments about us because we're different in some way. It's TRUE that you make some people uncomfortable - so do I, and I have all my life. For my sins, I have that nasty tendency to say things out loud that everyone doesn't want to admit they're thinking.
Don't wait as long as I did to accept that most people are idiots. There ARE people around that are just like you, that process as fast as you do. There aren't too many, mind you, but they're around. I know I've built my family of them. You'll do that too.
As for your mother...well, you know me. I haven't actually spoken to mine in five years, haven't seen her in eight, and just in the past few months have started communicating by e-mail. I'm happier and healthier for it, too.
Stop renting your mother space in your head. Don't talk to her for awhile. Don't interact with her at all. In fact, given what you're accomplishing now, look at it as if you win. She really DIDN'T manage to take away what makes you yourself. And that's a good thing.