Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a holiday for lovers or a reason for cynics to complain, right?  Most people think I’m a cynic, so I could write a blog entry about how over-hyped Valentine’s Day is, because it’s just a commercialized reason to guilt people to spend money on someone they care about.  I mean, if you don’t buy your significant other something on this day, you’re an asshole who doesn’t show love, right?

Well, I’m not in love, and I’m not a cynic.  I am an eternal optimist.  I always expect the best of people.  Every day, I wake up and think people are going to be good.  They are going to be respectful and forthright and kind and responsible.  Every day, I am disappointed by people.  Not everyone is unkind or irresponsible, but the people who matter to me are constantly taking advantage of my optimism and love.  I guess I’m just a crushed idealist on any given day.

Maybe I’m doing life wrong.  Maybe I SHOULD be a cynical bitch all the time; at least then, I wouldn’t be disillusioned all the time. 

I haven’t had a “Valentine” for at least a decade.  I have to be content with being the love of my own life, which is difficult for a person who doesn’t have terribly high self-esteem.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care that I didn’t get flowers or gifts or love today, but it would be nice to have someone, ANYone, who cares enough about me as a human being to love me properly.

Perhaps, I’m not worthy of love.  Perhaps, I am unlovable in a romantic capacity.  Perhaps, my expectations of other people are too high.  Perhaps, I don’t deserve to be loved.  Perhaps, my definition of love is so egregiously incorrect that I wouldn’t even know if I experienced it.

Who knows?  Certainly not me. 

Love is a drug like any other.  Love is also a transaction like any other.  Love is often just a contract to which people are bound by the parameters of the agreement.  Weird to think of love like that, yes?  And yet in any relationship, the two people agree on terms.  When someone violates the terms, love dissipates.  And sometimes, one person is in love and the other one isn’t.  That’s life.  That’s love. 

So happy February 14^th.  Love should be an everyday, spontaneous expression of true feeling, not a corporately sponsored day of the year.  Love yourself, because if you don’t, you can’t love anyone else properly.  

On Writing

One of the smartest people I know told me that in order to be a proper writer, I need to write every day.  The problem is that even though I have a million thoughts and ideas and conflicts and epiphanies every day, I don’t have the attention span to write them all down.  I wake up with something deeply compelling – a story trying to get out, or a message trying to get in – and I’m too tired to sit up and write.  Or I wander around my house thinking about how not to think – trying to find ways to distract myself from my thoughts – and all I end up doing is thinking more.  Thinking differently.  I have whole conversations with myself, because my brain is trying to tell me one thing, and my body is telling me something different. 

I literally just took out a different journal and hand-wrote some words that I can’t write here.  Things that I only want to say to one person. 

I can’t believe the fundamental disappointment I feel in that person.  We have been friends for 30 years, and I have never, NEVER, not liked him. 

I don’t like him right now.

It’s not about love at this point, because I will always love him for one simple reason:  All moments are connected, and all moments in life are happening at the same time.  Time itself is fluid like that.  We are all just a collection of moments which all run forward and backwards and sideways.  I love him collectively, as a whole.  I just don’t like the person he is right now.  I wonder if he is so far down the rabbit hole that I won’t ever see him again.  I wonder if I will ever know what happened.  I wonder if he genuinely dislikes me, or if he’s embarrassed for being so disrespectful. 

I don’t think I’ll ever know.  I don’t think he has the personal courage required to own up to himself and his actions.  I’m beginning to think … Right, I’ll keep it at that last statement:  “I’m beginning to THINK.” 

As it turns out, the more I think about him, the more I both love him and hate him at the same time. 

And now I’m realizing that I’m just sitting here thinking about something that doesn’t matter, because I am the only one in the conversation.  So one more day of “writing” done, because writing isn’t changing anything right now.

I cannot, via words typed in a document, change the fact that there is no WHY.  Things simply ARE.  All I can do is articulate things in my brain in a superlatively ineffective way to get the thoughts out of the way.  Flush the emotions into the toilet of cyberspace, hoping that (one day) I will either find some answers or accept that there are none.  

High School is Viral

I am currently sitting at my desk, watching students annotate an Arthur Miller essay.  I look like an infectious homeless person, because I’m totally sick (with a head cold and sore throat) and I’m wearing my giant “I-feel-sick” sweater.  I’m pretty sure I brushed my hair this morning, but I wouldn’t bet money on that.  I tried to call in sick, but I was five minutes past the stupid fucking deadline, so … here I am, spreading my germs around just like the rest of the 1500 germy, viral human beings in this cesspool. 

Everyone is sick, because everyone comes to school sick, and they touch everything, and they cough on everything, and they don’t cover their faces when they sneeze.  It’s truly disgusting.  The problem is that we HAVE to be here, so no one really gets better.   We all just pass around the same cold for like three months. 

I just want to be in my bed.  I would really love to be in my bed and have someone who loves me enough to make me soup or curl up with me and take a nap.  I now understand that will never happen – I will be dating myself for the rest of my life, so I need to find a way to like (and take care of) myself more. 

Last period, my seniors were writing (I use that word loosely here) about their strengths and weaknesses and life goals and whatnot.  They were honest, I’ll give them that.  But when a person identifies their “strength” as being good looking, I wonder what the hell they were thinking.  Or when someone identifies his special skills as hunting and coloring.  Or when someone’s life goal is to stop smoking the “devil’s lettuce”.  Or when someone’s weakness is “trying to get in all the girls’ pants”. 

I was a total deviant in high school, but I managed to get it together.  And in 2017, high school isn’t that hard.  Basically, you show up, do at least half of the stuff you’re asked to do, and you’ll graduate.  I currently have 9 of 24 seniors who are not passing my class, and ALL of them need it to graduate in May.  Sometimes I’ll see them in the hallway before class, they’ll say hi, and then they’ll just leave.  So, like, they were HERE in the building 10 minutes before class, but they couldn’t stand to be here another minute, so they took off and went home or to McDonald’s or whatever. 

So I’m going to do the same thing.  I got someone to cover my last three classes today, and I’m going to pick up some food and go home and crawl in my bed.  Happy Friday.