12.01.09
Swimming up stream
Sometimes I really am scratching my head, wondering why I am the way I am. Certain groups of people have accused me in the past to sit on a high horse. Trust me, it was never my intention to come across that way. Quite on the contrary, sometimes I wished I could be more like everyone else. It would certainly make things easier.
For as long as I remember I have been at odds with what most people consider “normal.” What most people do not know about me is that I really tried very hard for the longest time to fit in. I had to give up when I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not, would not fit in with cliques and groups. I figured this out when I was still in my teens, and I became a loner. I kind of got used to it and after a while I even liked it. When most “cliques” would go out in groups, I’d show up by myself, happy that I could leave when I got bored. I would get bored rather quickly. I found that nothing really could hold my attention for all that long, and I also found that the things most people considered entertainment either disgusted me, bored me, or simply didn’t appeal to me.
It became my shtick over the past 20 years and thankfully, most of my friends stopped making fun of it, but I ended up the designated driver. When most people tried any drug they could get their hands on, I didn’t. When most people partied, getting wasted, I sat at home and wrote poetry. When people would accuse me of being a goody-two-shoes, not being able to have fun, boring, stuck up, etc. I would retrieve back into my shell, hurt that anyone would think that.
The truth is that I never did feel better as anyone else. The truth is, that to this day I don’t usually get drunk, but violently ill. The price for an hour of “loose fun” was too high. Hanging over the toilet bowl for a day, puking my guts out is no fun. It always actually felt as if I was allergic to alcohol. The other side of the coin was that any substance really scared the hell out of me. I always did feel like a kettle left to boil and I didn’t want to risk bringing out certain things in me that I didn’t like, that scared me or that simply held great potential for destruction.
My friends know what I endured growing up, I didn’t want to be out of control like my parents. I didn’t want to end up like them. The only way for me to feel safe was being in control of myself. To this day I get scared when I am around a bunch of drunks or druggies, simply because I know how unpreditable certain substances make people and I know that the potential to get hurt, at least in my head, is a huge threat. To this day the pungent stench of alcohol makes me want to run.
What sucked about this pseudo discipline is that it often isolated me. Even in relationships I was told on occasion that it wasn’t fun that I was always sober and “didn’t know how to have fun or loosen up.” This, in return, would put me on the defensive. I didn’t feel as if I had a stick up my ass, but for the party people that is exactly how I came across. Hence, after a while I simply started avoiding most people and especially cliques. I had my fair share of herd abuse and simply didn’t want to become part of that. There seemed to be a dynamic within groups that I never quite understood or got. For the same reason I never did team sports. For the same reason I hate crowds and won’t go to clubs, concerts or other large gatherings, unless I have to. It is not that I get panic attacks, I simply don’t feel comfortable with how the herds behave. It frightens me, but I guess I can see how some who don’t really know me would easily mistake that for arrogance.
I think my worst trait is the fact that I am very black and white. If I do drink, I don’t want just one drink, I want to get drunk, which makes me feel like crap. If I do eat, I want to have the full plate, and so on. I have always been an “all-or-nothing” kinda girl, but it still pains me to realize how wrong this is getting perceived at times.
Right now I am 40. For the first time in well over 10 years I have decided to get healthy and fit. I quit smoking, I do eat a well-balanced diet of about 1,000 to 1,300 calories a day and work out about 4 times a week. I don’t remember the last time I was this disciplined. And yet, here I sit at gatherings, watching everyone around me getting drunk and not giving a damn, looking at me as if I am crazy. It makes me sad that inadvertantly I am swimming up stream again. It isn’t something I consciously choose. It is just that when I do set my mind to something, I do it and I don’t really care if others are with me or not.
I must apologize to anyone who may have heard me from a place of arrogance. I do not feel that I am better, and I will not make excuses for reserving the right to be honest if you ask me to be. I do get annoyed with excuses for lame ass behaviors, not because I think I am better, but because I trust that others have the same ability to change what they don’t like about themselves as I do. I get defensive when things that are very hard for me to do get turned against me and misinterpreted as lecturing or being on a high horse.
I remember when I left Germany. My colleagues at the court gave me a good-bye card. It was a penguin, drifting all alone on a bed of ice, waving to the other penguins at the shore. Oddly enough, this is how I have felt for as long as I can remember. It isn’t a “woe is me” revelation, it just is. So, to those I have ever offended with my “rules,” I apologize. To those who call themselves my friends I have to say this. Sometimes I need encouragement and help too. Just because I don’t ask doesn’t mean I don’t need it. It is very hard for me to not just let myself go, loosen up, drink, smoke, try a few drugs, etc. but it is who I am and who I have always been. Maybe the reason that some accused me of being judgmental is the fact that it is so easy to judge me, because I just lay it all out there for everyone to see. I vomit my stupid thoughts and emotions all over the place and I don’t do it behind your back.
So right now, it IS hard to sit amongst you when you’re partying and thinking to myself “shit, this drink has 100 calories, that is a lot.” Give me the time to be in shape and have reached my goals, so all I have to do is maintain. But don’t kick my butt simply because I can’t fall off the wagon before I have truly gotten on it yet. Don’t give me grief because I won’t have an occasional cigarette, because that is the road that would lead me back to smoking. Don’t belittle me or give me crap because I am who I am. At least I never lied about it or made myself out to be something or someone that I am not. At least give me credit for being authentic. It feels a bit lonely swimming up stream at times and I AM proud for finally getting my butt off the couch and doing something about the things I don’t like.
And when I ask you about your experiences with drugs, I ask because I really am interested in finding out what drugs do, what people see, etc., knowing that I would never have the courage to try them myself. To a degree, it is like being blind and asking someone who sees to describe color. I am very well aware that I have missed out on a lot of fun in my life by forcing myself to be so straight laced. But I would choose my boring way of being any day again over the chaos I grew up in. It is the best I can do to not loose the sanity I had to fight for so very hard to begin with. Trust me on one thing, if I HAD chosen drugs and booze, I’d probably be in a psych ward today, rocking back and forth and talking to myself.
I simply try to give myself credit for not choosing the same route my dad did, for not becoming like my mother and for truly doing my utmost best to not continue the family cycle. I am not arrogant or stuck up, I am simply happy I survived and made it this far!
