How strange it is... the Internet. I've been thinking back to the old days when I was a teenager and everyone knew everyone. It was sort of a "living" social network - a friend of a friend new another friend - and that's how we'd all meet. Interaction was real. Chatting, debating, talking, singing was real time; up-close and personal. But eventually we all grew apart, we developed different interests, different tastes and ideals. Some had no clue what they wanted and went down the wrong path - fuck, I've been down so many wrong roads during my 36 years on this Earth - others went on to do great things, fulfilling things. After the time I spent running, tumbling, walking, hurdled down the wrong paths, I've been trying hard to take the right path for me. Except I feel that the environment that surrounds me is slowly sabotaging all my attempts. I am trying to be a better person, a person others can take seriously... but I am trying to compromise and the world just doesn't want to meet me half way. The world wants me to conform and become what I am not. I've been down that road before - being someone else to fit in, being someone that I hated, being someone society deems appropriate, being someone that doesn't disappoint - it didn't work out! It literally sucked the life out of me. I'm still recovering from that.
I used to be pretty popular 20 years ago. I had a ton of friends. Everyone "liked" me. Mostly because I had a car, I was privileged. I never thought about that... I never realized I was being used for whatever reason popped into some of those so-called friends heads. I had a HUGE meltdowns - psychiatrists and psychologists were involved - not a happy time. Mostly I can't remember what happened. I guess I just ran out of my built-in bullshit tolerance. It's all a blur anyway. But during those "hard times" all my "friends" just disappear. Some of them pass me on the street now and pretend I don't exist. I sometimes wonder if I'm the invisible woman. Of course my way to cope with these abandonment issues was to just become MYSELF. It was a long process - figuring out who I am and what I actually like. I discovered that I love writing. I love reading. I love 90's alt music. Right now I'm listening to Alanis Morissette's Ironic (well, isn't this Ironic?). I don't care for fashion. I hate shoes and frilly things. I'm not a girly-girl. I am an avid supporter of the LGBT community and, even though I live in the middle of nowhere in Portugal, I feel I am with them; I support them through the Internet. The Internet allowed all of us to connect in a whole new and different way - it became the global village. But now, it's a global community. The spread-ability of the message is so much wider it amazes me. I know that not a lot of people read my rants. But for those who do read them, thank you. I feel like you're my confidants. And you might agree with me (or not), you might feel sorry for me (or not) and I welcome your opinions. Like I said, I'm trying to be a better person. I already know who I am and what I like but I need to keep building on that, keep adding to it. I want to be all I can be. I want to stop being a disappointment to my parents - that's the one thing I want to overcome. They don't really understand me, or why I like the things I like. They don't understand the work I'm doing in grad school. They think it's sort of like going to high-school and there's no way of explaining to them how exhausting it is - all the research and work - blood, sweat & tears! It is taking a toll... but it's something I need to do for myself. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. I've been doing it for the past year and a half. And I'm going to keep on doing it until I drop.
The Internet... it's funny how you meet people though the Internet you wouldn't normally meet. I meet and talk to all sorts of people. Some nice... some not so nice... but sometimes, you meet someone that is totally in tune with you and after years of having people tell you that you're not good enough, that you'll never be anything but a waste of space, someone pops up on your screen and tells you that those people are wrong. I... I literally don't know what to say. Am I really a decent and good person? Am I deserving? Do I deserve happiness? That person has now gotten me to question everything about myself. Maybe my shortcomings aren't annoying. Maybe my imperfections are actually perfect. Maybe I can be myself and have the strength to brush off all negative comments. He saw everything and... it felt good because I didn't have to hide or conceal the bad. Acceptance... that's what it feels like! I've never been accepted by anyone. People just always try to change certain parts of me and I end up feeling like one big puzzle people are trying to fix by rearranging and cramming all the wrong pieces in all the wrong spots. But the past few days I've been feeling like a carefully realist painting - everything captured perfectly (even the imperfections).
The Internet opens a lot of doors but it sometimes keeps other doors harder to open. Sometimes one would wish to be the Kool-Aid dude and smash through the wall yelling: "OH YEAAAAAAAH!". The Internet makes us happy (because we have the whole world at our fingertips) but it also makes us sad (because Geography, man!). The trouble with the Internet, though, is that sometimes you have the Atlantic Ocean as an obstacle. So interaction is merely digital. And depressing as that may be, I still go to sleep wondering about that intriguing person that has been slowly building me up and opening my eyes and I wake up wondering what the day will bring us... and how rad it would be that the Atlantic distance was easier to tame.
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