Rant, kind of
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything online let alone something personal. It’s not that I haven’t been writing because I have, just not anything that has to do with what I usually post. Life has this funny way of taking over my thoughts and my usefulness with a pen. I can’t seem catch a break even when it looks as though I have. Over the past year, I have had to watch my father’s health steadily decline and been powerless to do anything to stop it or help in any way at all. It has been eating away at me but in the course of time that has passed; I have learned and grown in several ways. I am feeling more confident in my own skin and considering how I used to be, used to think, and used to express myself that is a milestone. Singing has become as much of an outlet for me as music generally is when I am driving to nowhere in particular with the radio turned up loud. Writing stories has taken a back seat to writing journal entries and poetry as of late simply because the inspiration for my stories has been absent. I’m only writing all of this because I am truly at a loss for what else I could possibly do to give expression to how I am feeling. Lost, confused, afraid, angry, those are just some of what I am battling with everyday but I know eventually it will all come crashing down in a blaze of glory. I’m bound to hit the end of my rope eventually but for now, I will just keep finding outlets for all the frustration. Regardless, music and writing remains my foremost pain reliever.
I’m often asked what I write about or where my inspiration comes from. I can’t find the words to explain that both my inspiration and the ideas formed therein come from everywhere. The small moments glimpsed in passing or the monumental moments experienced in my own life. Every small and large moment of grief, loss, pain, kindness, snatches of happiness and true selflessness that I see inspire me whether they take the form of actual people or fictional people represented on some TV. sitcom or movie. In the emotional moments of some show I am watching where I can truly feel a reaction for what is going on is when I feel as though I am still alive in the sense that I hardly feel anything other than some obscured hue of emotions when it comes to my own life. As distorted as that sounds it is simply a truth that I have accepted about myself. It could possibly be that the anger and frustration have muted the raw emotions I should be feeling when it comes to matters that are very much present and forever engraved into the facets of my life.
There is a confidence I present to the world around me that I do not always feel but other times that confidence is genuine. This is something that I have had to learn the hard way. I mean that in that, I had to learn to appear confident and that true confidence did not present itself until I had conditioned myself to have faith in my decision-making abilities and that I truly did have a true sense for what is right and what is wrong. For example, I am confident in my ability to write but I often question how genuine what it is that I say comes across to those who read it. Fictional stories do not un-nerve me quite as much as something like this entry does. I used to question my ability to write but years of praise and constructive criticism has taught me that I have grown and learned as a writer. I know that I can convey more with the written word than I could ever dream of being capable of doing with the spoken word. In that, I am most assuredly confident.
Whether or not someone agrees is beside the point because these words are my own and come from within my own mind. I have learned to accept that people are different in countless ways and that it is indeed a rare thing to have someone agree entirely with anything that you may believe to be right and true. Throughout my life, I have made decisions to be different, to stand out from the crowd and in some instances; I have taught and possibly inspired others to accept those differences in other people. I can attest to the fact that I have taught a great deal of tolerance and acceptance to those in my immediate family and to see them fully accept and try to understand things they would otherwise turn away from makes me feel proud and more accepted into the family in which I would and have done anything for.
Now, however, there is very little I can do for my family and what we are all going through. Recently I bore witness to an altercation that ripped apart a piece of our family. While we are all present that rift is so wide and raw that it can never be repaired and I felt it in my soul. I knew that there would be no undoing the damage done because words spoken can never be unspoken. It is a simple fact that words cut deeper than any knife. I know that from experience, from being on the receiving end of such words and from speaking them myself. What truly angers me more than anything else is bearing witness to the pain that is dished out and how instead of standing up and declaring that they deserve better they simply take the abuse. I know what it would do to this family to have them leave and never return but it angers me that they withstand the treatment and how it affects those they care dearly for and still choose to withstand the abuse. How very hypocritical of me, I am as much in the line of fire as they are but my choice to remain is very circumstantial whereas they have the option to walk away. Since I am in the situation as well and chose not to walk away, I am as much at fault as they are.
I will endure and survive and remain because this is my family and I will not turn away from them. There was too much of my family turning away from me growing up and none of those here were the ones to turn away so I own them the same. Mostly it has more to do with one family member that I refuse to leave behind than anyone else but that seems inconsequential now. Until they decide for themselves what it is that they wish to do I will let the shackles remain where they are currently resting. I have broken the chains and the restraints before but never again, not until I can provide the one I am remaining within this situation for a choice to leave it all behind. There is nothing in the world that I won’t do for them because I have already sacrificed and endured for them and I will continue to do so. This is not me doing so silently but I have never and will never let them know just how much I have endured for them because why let them know when all it will do is make them feel obligated to pay you back in some way? I want nothing in return, I never have and I’m not one to ask for anything anyway.
I’m often asked what I write about or where my inspiration comes from. I can’t find the words to explain that both my inspiration and the ideas formed therein come from everywhere. The small moments glimpsed in passing or the monumental moments experienced in my own life. Every small and large moment of grief, loss, pain, kindness, snatches of happiness and true selflessness that I see inspire me whether they take the form of actual people or fictional people represented on some TV. sitcom or movie. In the emotional moments of some show I am watching where I can truly feel a reaction for what is going on is when I feel as though I am still alive in the sense that I hardly feel anything other than some obscured hue of emotions when it comes to my own life. As distorted as that sounds it is simply a truth that I have accepted about myself. It could possibly be that the anger and frustration have muted the raw emotions I should be feeling when it comes to matters that are very much present and forever engraved into the facets of my life.
There is a confidence I present to the world around me that I do not always feel but other times that confidence is genuine. This is something that I have had to learn the hard way. I mean that in that, I had to learn to appear confident and that true confidence did not present itself until I had conditioned myself to have faith in my decision-making abilities and that I truly did have a true sense for what is right and what is wrong. For example, I am confident in my ability to write but I often question how genuine what it is that I say comes across to those who read it. Fictional stories do not un-nerve me quite as much as something like this entry does. I used to question my ability to write but years of praise and constructive criticism has taught me that I have grown and learned as a writer. I know that I can convey more with the written word than I could ever dream of being capable of doing with the spoken word. In that, I am most assuredly confident.
Whether or not someone agrees is beside the point because these words are my own and come from within my own mind. I have learned to accept that people are different in countless ways and that it is indeed a rare thing to have someone agree entirely with anything that you may believe to be right and true. Throughout my life, I have made decisions to be different, to stand out from the crowd and in some instances; I have taught and possibly inspired others to accept those differences in other people. I can attest to the fact that I have taught a great deal of tolerance and acceptance to those in my immediate family and to see them fully accept and try to understand things they would otherwise turn away from makes me feel proud and more accepted into the family in which I would and have done anything for.
Now, however, there is very little I can do for my family and what we are all going through. Recently I bore witness to an altercation that ripped apart a piece of our family. While we are all present that rift is so wide and raw that it can never be repaired and I felt it in my soul. I knew that there would be no undoing the damage done because words spoken can never be unspoken. It is a simple fact that words cut deeper than any knife. I know that from experience, from being on the receiving end of such words and from speaking them myself. What truly angers me more than anything else is bearing witness to the pain that is dished out and how instead of standing up and declaring that they deserve better they simply take the abuse. I know what it would do to this family to have them leave and never return but it angers me that they withstand the treatment and how it affects those they care dearly for and still choose to withstand the abuse. How very hypocritical of me, I am as much in the line of fire as they are but my choice to remain is very circumstantial whereas they have the option to walk away. Since I am in the situation as well and chose not to walk away, I am as much at fault as they are.
I will endure and survive and remain because this is my family and I will not turn away from them. There was too much of my family turning away from me growing up and none of those here were the ones to turn away so I own them the same. Mostly it has more to do with one family member that I refuse to leave behind than anyone else but that seems inconsequential now. Until they decide for themselves what it is that they wish to do I will let the shackles remain where they are currently resting. I have broken the chains and the restraints before but never again, not until I can provide the one I am remaining within this situation for a choice to leave it all behind. There is nothing in the world that I won’t do for them because I have already sacrificed and endured for them and I will continue to do so. This is not me doing so silently but I have never and will never let them know just how much I have endured for them because why let them know when all it will do is make them feel obligated to pay you back in some way? I want nothing in return, I never have and I’m not one to ask for anything anyway.