Today has been a crazy day. Nothing particularly crazy happened, but my emotions are crazy. I’m not really sure why, but sometimes I have a day like this. I decided to write about it in the open, because I don’t really care anymore if people know this about me.
Today I dropped Steph off at work and went in to Norwich to get a haircut at Croppers. That went just fine. I had to wait for a while and I read on one of the sofas while I waited for my haircut. I was feeling quite up for the whole experience, as I hadn’t had a haircut in over a year. After I got out of the military, I grew my hair for quite a while and then I shaved it all off and I’ve been shaving it since then. Recently I decided to have a normal hairstyle again so I’ve been growing it a bit. Unfortunately this means that it just stands on end for a while because it is so thick. I suppose you’d call it the white man’s version of a budding Afro style. Today I wanted to solve that problem by getting the sides and back cut.
When it was my turn (I had to wait for quite a while) I went up to the lady and got my haircut, saying almost nothing. I had originally thought I might try to converse with her but found myself unable to do so. This depressed me. I guess that for a while I had convinced myself that I was starting to near a normal realm of social capability after being forced to make friends over and over again and speak to people regularly during my time in the military. Really, I’ve been fooling myself. The only reason I was able to do this in the military is because I was forced to do so and because I saw people regularly and got accustomed to them on a daily basis.
The sad truth is that I can’t make friends and I can’t speak to people unless I am forced to be around them until I understand them better and feel comfortable speaking to them. I imagine that even if I knew someone on the internet, I’d still never be able to speak to them in real life in a comfortable way unless I spent a great deal of time with them. If any one of you who reads this met with me at any point, I’d be completely inept in conversational ability and you probably wouldn’t like me very much. You’d likely think I was weird and not want to see me again. The thing is that when I am used to someone, they usually do like me. They usually find me funny and I think that thee people like me and want to be my friend. I’m told I can be charismatic and that people enjoy my company. Why can’t I release this in a normal way with strangers?
After I got my haircut, I went to The Little Red Roaster, which is a coffee shop. I drank a latte. I wrote a poem. I read some of my book. I drank another latte. I was there for like 2 hours. At one point, there was probably a gap of about a half hour in which I was alone with the coffee shop lady and was attempting to gather the nerve to talk to her about anything normal. I wanted to feel that I could have some sort of human contact other than with my wife and her family. The thing is that I’m extremely lonely a lot of the time. I don’t think it would be very different if I was in the same situation in the US. I suppose that in order to meet people I’m going to have to force myself to go to a regular activity and keep doing it until I feel comfortable with people, or I’m going to have to have a job for the rest of my life which forces me to deal with other people. I wanted to do that here and I tried every place with openings but I couldn’t get hired. I suppose it isn’t a great time for job searching.
Anyway, the point is that I was lonely and feeling like an outsider to the world. People were laughing and talking and having conversations with strangers. I live with Steph’s parents and though I like them, they don’t know half of what I’m about and wouldn’t agree with that half because it conflicts with their world view. Steph’s brother also lives here and I think he has a bit of a better understanding of me and that does comfort me to some extent, but he is busy a lot and although we have some in common, we don’t have a lot. I guess what I am missing is some sort of network of friends. I love Steph and I guess I was fine while we lived in Scotland because although we had no friends there, I got to see her all day. I’m starting to understand what she went through while I was in the military. Every day she goes off to work and she’s tired when she gets home. Every day I try to find work online writing or whatever and I feel as if I’m not contributing much to our future and meanwhile I have no friends or contact with the outside world. I have a few friends who I talk to on the internet but that isn’t really the same, is it?
I don’t know. Sometimes I look at the world and see a beautiful place. Sometimes I’m so full of ambition and vigor I feel as if I could be a politician, a writer, a – something. I feel as if I am going to conquer the world and bend it to my will. Then again, sometimes I walk through a city aimlessly and watch people and although I can still see the beauty, I feel disconnected from that beauty as if I’m staring at a painting in a shop window which I can’t afford to buy. Moments like those – like today – are the times in which I desperately try to prevent myself from crying for no good reason while walking through the world.
I guess what it all comes down to is that I’m feeling down. I know I’m here in this place for a reason and that maybe I’ll feel better once I’m doing the access course or going back to school. I know that I’m working toward a future, but in order to feel good about the future I need to change something about what I’m doing right now.
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So I used think “ah it’ll be better when I’m older and have a real normal life,” except the more I watch my parents and other “older normal lifed people,” the more I realize that it’s all the same. They face the same sorts of problems, the same sorts of frustrations connecting with other that all of us do. It seems that the “develop structured activities” is more or less the given solution. Go to geek meetings, writing groups, gaming groups, morris dance groups, and so forth. They all suck and are weird but there are good people in the world looking for connections just like you, and they do the structured activities thing too. And hell, if entropy is going to work for you, you have to give it a chance.
The other thing that I find helpful, is playing tricks on your body. Exercise more and sleep less/more regularly, almost always helps adjust the short term “blahs” which are often physical as much as mental/emotional. It’s always easier to feel better when you don’t feel like shit. :)
Be well, and drop me a line some time.