An Actual Musing.

I've had a lot brewing on my mind since the weekend. I've ridden up and down various thought trains and emotional roller coasters. I feel like I've been dropped into a maze and been stripped of my sight. Analogies aside, I want help. I need somebody brave enough to jump into the depths of my mind. I want somebody to go into the depths of my thoughts and help me through them. I'm slowly becoming a mess.

So here they are, for whoever dares to be brave... a thought-train of things that I can't seem to tear my focus away from.

I warn: A lot of them aren't pleasant.

When I was in the emergency room a little over a week ago, I walked past a group of people. They were all crying and holding one another, and it was obvious what they had seen. One of the women gave me a passing glance -- that glance pierced through my body and hit me right in my very soul. A tearful glance was what I was given, a look of confusion, devastation, and helplessness. A look that almost begged, "What do I do now?" And even though I was in such an excruciating amount of pain, I wanted to hug that woman, and I wished that I had something to say to cure her expression. It was a fleeting moment that bothered me, even after I had been placed on the morphine and other drugs. They finally came and whisked me away to a screening room, so Mama and Dawn stayed behind in my room.

When I returned from the test, they told me the coroner and morgue had come to pick up a body of a person who had died in the room across the hall from where I was -- the relative of the woman who gave me the heartbroken look. I felt my eyes water even though I had no clue who this person was.

Mama told me, "The coroner said while they were wheeling the body out, 'Looks like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.' He then laughed about it." I felt sick.

How can people do that? How can people be so callous and cold as to laugh and joke at the expense of others? Where is the pleasure in teasing another, living or dead? I kept wondering to myself if that coroner would've had the same reaction had he seen the expression I had been given. Could he be so cruel as to laugh after seeing the heartbreak and agony the loss had caused those people.

Where is the pleasure in hurting others? I, myself, am guilty of getting laughs at the expense of others. And while my own antics are rude, I don't set out to hurt, I set out to annoy. There is a difference there. I set out to hurt somebody one time in my life. Just once. I felt so horrible and guilty after the fact that I went back and apologized. There is no pleasure in hurting others. Sure, you might feel dominant and super and all that jazz immediately after the fact, but the pseudo-happiness melts away and the truth eventually comes to surface. But for some people, there is no feeling the truth. Maybe they deny it, or maybe they have trained themselves to believe the pseudo-happiness is the truth...

On the topic of truth... when does making excuses become a lie? I'm notorious for making excuses. Not excuses for why I didn't do something, but rather... excuses to "protect" people. Primarily their feelings. I like to say I'm a person who doesn't want things sugarcoated, yet I turn around and sugarcoat all the time to protect people. What a hypocrite I've become.

I make excuses when I should be angry at a person. I make excuses so I don't wind up being angry at said person, and eventually I keep telling myself them over and over until I begin to believe them. Suddenly they aren't "excuses," they're "fact." I also make up these same excuses for when a person hurts me. Anything to prevent me from being upset with them. But does that make me a liar?

Over the past few days, I've felt like a liar. Playing pretend, making the excuses, employing the ostrich theory (if I don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't exist)... I don't want to be labelled a liar...

Lately I've felt like there's been a lot of conflict. It starts with a conflict of interest, and ends with people going to bed angry and feelings hurt.

I hold onto an old grudge. Something that has seemed to span my entire dating "career." I have the ability to get with people who are addicted to things that I don't seem to grasp on to, or things that I might not like. And I try so hard to get into these things, but sometimes I don't understand them or I just can't make myself like them. And these conflicts of interest turn into permanent wedges that eventually drive my relationships apart. It's happened every single time. You'd think I'd be used to it.

It doesn't bother me too badly until people begin mentioning it or talking about it around me. The second it gets mentioned, I want to curl up and hide. So again I lie and make excuses for my own "negligent" behavior. Deep down, I want to scream that it isn't my fault. But maybe it is. Anytime a fight starts because of this conflicting interest, it's because I've started it. I'm always the spark that causes the fire. Always the instigator. And I hate it.

It's gotten to the point that I can't even stand watching from the sidelines. I feel like I should be on the field, at his side, right where I'm supposed to be. And even when I get out there in a bit part, I can't stand it. I feel possessive... I don't like the idea of anybody but me being at his side and I get so jealous and mad when I see anybody else doing what I ought to be doing... even though I know I can't do it at all and he's better off with somebody who actually gets it. And I get so jealous that it puts a bitter taste in my mouth. And it's even caused me to have awful thoughts of wishing I could turn the tables for just one day. I wish I knew how it felt to have an important role to play somewhere, but I'm just an average nobody.

I used to say, "I refuse to be second place for anything." But I am second place. I've always been the one who gets pushed aside for the sake of something or someone else. I used to fight it. I used to argue and complain and demand to be first place. But now I've given up. There isn't a point in fighting something that's never going to change. I'm slowly learning where my place is, and the sooner I accept it, the better off everyone will be. I'm tired of fighting it. I am second place. Always have been, always will be.

I put myself on too high a pedestal, but now I've fallen off. I've landed and now I know where I should have placed myself all along. The perch is not as high nor as glorious, but at least it's an honest perception of where I should be.

I don't want to be on a high pedestal. It hurts to fall off it.