A Note to Those Who Consider Themselves My Friends

[tasogaretaichou]

I really feel as though I say this a lot, to a lot of different people. But maybe I just don't say it in the right places or times. I really love my friends. All of them. Even the ones who have stabbed me in the back. I'm grateful for every friend that I've been lucky enough to make and even for those who have hurt me. But sometimes I wonder how many of them really give much of a damn about me.

They say things they assume I won't hear. That I'm flighty, or insensitive. Or that I'm impossible to contact, that I'm irresponsible. That I live in my own little world, or that I take too many risks. And then, when I do hear them, they cover them up with a mantle of worry, claiming that it's just because they care. Because they're concerned. But I wonder....

..... if you're really worrying, really caring. If you really ARE concerned.... then why is it so hard to simply ask? To simply approach and say "I'm worried for you."? Apparently, it's very difficult. Too difficult to place that ahead of the potential for discomfort. Is it because they worry about how I'll react? Maybe. They say they dont want to upset me, or that it's because I "have an explosive temper". Why would I be upset with honesty? With the knowledge that someone cared enough for me to say what was hard, to risk the possibility of hurting me to tell me what they truly feel? I respect that, I respect it so very much. I'm not going to say that I'm perfect, or that I might not get irritated at what they say, but hurting me? No. It hurts me far more to know that those I hold dear don't have enough respect for me to take the harder path and be truthful.

Do I have an explosive temper? Sometimes. I won't deny that. But it really depends on what you do. I have a flash-temper. It explodes and then fizzles and goes away. And there aren't nearly as many things that set it off as people think. I don't care if people have different opinions than me, or if they don't agree with what I say or think. All I care is that they respect the fact that I feel differently and don't try to convince me otherwise. But I guess it's too much trouble for people to actually pay attention to that.

I really try not to be flaky. Or flighty. I can't help the fact that I have ADD and thus a really short attention span. Neither can I help that it's simply in my nature to flit from one thing to another. I'm a free spirit, in a lot of ways. And for a long time, I had my wings bound. I was in pain, I was held down by my own inability to move forward. And maybe people just got used to that. Used to the needy Neko who was too afraid to let go of what she had to risk the chance to find something better.

Or maybe it's that they just can't understand that right now, when I'm trying so hard to find a good job, one that I can use to go back to school, to get my debt paid off, to get things in my lift straight, I HAVE to focus only on myself. I can't go and spend time with my friends, I can't take the time to talk and socialize and hang out the way I used to. But no one understands that. They don't see that things aren't like that because I WANT them to be. Honestly, I hate that it's like that. I want to be able to go out, and see my friends, and spend time with the people that I care about. I love Hirako very much, really I do. And I'm so very glad I get to spend my life with him right now, but I don't want to spend every day with him. Not because he isn't special, but because there are so many OTHER people in my life who are special to me and I don't want to become one of those people who only ever spends time with their significant other.

There's a reason why I'm hard to get in touch with, and it's not really that complicated of one. I don't pay my phone bill, so I try very hard not to make many calls at all during the day. I'm trying to do that even more right now because my family is tight for money and my dad still helped me out of a jam. I owe them at least that much. But no one even bothers to ask that. They try and get in touch with me and then when I'm simply not available, for whatever reason, they get angry. They act as though it's somehow my responsibility to be at the beck and call of whoever wants me. And I hate that. I feel like I'm being used, like I'm some sort of commodity and it's my duty to be available for everyone's whims. It's hurtful, to be honest. Just like it's frustrating to have the same person call 5 times in a row, as if that will somehow make me magically appear and be able to talk. If it's so important, why not just leave a message? Contrary to popular belief, I DO actually check my voicemail nearly every day. But honestly? If you ping me 6 times, I'm probably not going to call you back. Especially if you didn't leave a voicemail, seeing as it must not have been something very important. And then people get angry with me? Because I'm not available when they want me to be? 9 times out of 10, I'm much easier to get ahold of online, so you can always try that way. Otherwise it probably means I'm at work. Or that I might have gone to bed.

Do I live in my own little world? Probably so, to an extent. But that's because I have so few memories of my own past. And the memories that I DO have slip away a bit more every day. There are days where I wake up and for a moment I can't remember who I am or what I'm doing. When I don't know where I am or who the face I'm waking up next to is, just that it looks familiar and I feel safe with it there. But no one really cares about that. They just care that I'm not acting as they'd like me to, or that they don't understand. Well here's something to understand. Neko is slipping away. The thoughts and memories and personality that make her up are chipping away bit by bit with every breath that she takes. And why? Because Neko isn't an entity who was meant to live a long time. And so instead of dwelling on what I don't have, the memories and sense of self and dreams for a long-term future.... I choose instead to dwell on what I DO have. My fantasy world, the people I love, the here and now. When you can feel the wick on the candle growing smaller and smaller every day, you tend to do everything you can to distract yourself from that.

It's hard for me to get close to people, it always has been. I never really wondered why, I always figured it was just because I grew up without having a lot of friends but maybe it was fate. Maybe it was because some higher power always knew that I'd lose my childhood, lose my youth. Lose myself. And thought that it would be kinder that I didn't have so many close ties, so many things to break and sever as all the things making up "me" melt into a puddle of colours and fade away. It's even harder when I know that so many of the people who are my "friends" talk and say things behind my back. They always cover it up with the justification that they're just worried about me, but it's hard to accept that when they tell everyone but me.

Maybe they're somewhat right and I do take too many risks. But it's hard to really do much about that when you're such a faded memory of yourself as I am. When half the time when you say you can't understand a feeling it's because you honestly can't. Not because you're unable to sympathize or understand the words or the description but because no matter how hard you try, how hard you search for it, you can't recall what that feeling is supposed to feel like. You're hollow, like an empty shell. But you don't feel empty. You don't feel a knawing hole there, as though there's something that should be there and isn't. You feel... the way someone who's been blind since birth feels when you ask them if they wish they knew what the sky looked like. There's a slight sadness, a whistfulness because yes. It would be nice to know that. But having never seen it yourself you can't connect with the sensation of lacking that would come had you seen it once before.

Do I need therapy? Probably, though it really isn't anything they can fix. And honestly, I'm not opposed to the notion. I just don't think it would do any good. Really, what I feel that I need, is for those who claim to care, who claim to worry and to be concerned... to try to understand. To try to understand that I'm not the way I am because I necessarily wish to be that way. But that I hold myself together as best I can in an existence that feels even more tremulous every day as my grip on it slips even more. As the spasms get worse, it gets harder to breathe, I realize I've been staring at the same space for 5 minutes aimlessly, I forget that something I thought was real wasn't.

So before you judge me... before you decide that you understand... perhaps you should take the time to actually ASK. To actually find out and try to see what really goes on. I may be a private person, I may not be the type to volunteer information. I may even be the defensive type at times because I've been hurt a great deal. But really... all you have to do is ask. Show me that you really do care. And I'll let you in.