As I evaluate my life and surroundings now, I cannot help but look at my past. I was a social outcast in high school only admitted to the click because I played sports. Typically hanging out with the younger kids as they hadn't developed all the criteria to be truly cruel as those who judge everyone by their surface. I drank a lot, was rebellious, and simply never really felt as if I fit in. I dated misfits as I always felt a connection with the misfits, and they didn't care who you were because they didn't belong either. I've never been able to get past things easily as I would result in isolation or being even more rebellious to compensate for my lack of being able to cope. My version of coping was isolation and refusing to communicate in any shape form or fashion other through poetry that convinced those that read it that I could possibly have issues. I said it was just how I wrote, but now I realize normal people do not write the things that I wrote then or now.
As time grew on, I moved out at 18 as I once again chose a route of rebellion so that I could be gay and not damage my parents reputation. My one rule was always that I would not let my lifestyle affect my family, when really is what inevitable. The only thing I could prevent was others judging my family or them losing social status, but an effect on my family was a battle that was futile. So I relocated to Jacksonville, Florida with the girl who I was with. Finally, being able to get a place of our own, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with an air mattress, tv trays, a computer, and dishes. A wonderful life huh? At the time I believed it was a sacrifice, because the one thing I've fought so hard for all my life is independence of people, yet I've never achieved it. Then I decided to join the military as my ticket into something that would allow me to belong, and have a career realizing I was going no where. That too I gave up on to be with her. A sacrifice that cannot be changed. Finally moving back after boot camp life began to come together a little bit. We had good jobs, fully furnished apartment, and things seemed okay. It was all a false security, as she began wanting to move, so we moved back to my home town for month, and then back to Jacksonville. Got our good jobs back, which was working in the shipyard doing manual labor. False security again, as we shortly thereafter packed up again and moved to Mobile, AL where the journey all began. Moved in with her grandmother, as once again we had nothing other than I had accumulated debt.
Finally got jobs, and learned how to just get by, simply rotating which bills would be late, so no one attempting to collect. Moving into a job to where I thought it would be okay, I entered the resturaunt business. I began working as a server, she was a cook. Finally, I began moving up the chain quickly becoming a shift manager while she remained a cook. I once thought it was my talent as that was what I was told, when in reality, there was just a sexual interest it seems. The relationship was going down hill fast in this year 3. It finally ended with me being kicked out and having no where to go. I moved in with my boss and compromised my body for her. She wanted it, I was hurt and angry, on top of needing a place to live, so it became functional. Stupid , yes. Functional, yes.
Then I decide to run and make a break for Pensacola , FL where a girl I had just recently met lived and I moved in there. Struggled to find a job, my parents covered first month rent for me. Which I gave to the woman I was living with, which of course I was sleeping with as well. I helped take care of her kids, as she did not. Come to find out I met her ex-gf and we really hit it off. IT was something that started as spite on her part, and being lost on my part. Finally I find out that all the money I had been shelling out to live there was going somewhere other than to the bills. Then we were evicted, leaving me once again homeless. So, the natural sequence happens and I move in with her, the girl that would prove to make worse than I had ever thought it to be, yet the greatest I've ever found at the same time.
We spent 4 years together, I was given a life I had never seen. Being able to sustain the bills between the two of us, giving complete trust and control to someone. For once me not being the one to handle everything. I began to handle nothing more than I had to. I went back to school, and began working full time once again as a cook. It was the week before Christmas that we moved in together. This is the part of my life to where I felt I had finally caught a break. I had a job, was going to school, and got to see the finer parts of life. What do I consider these finer parts of life? Vacation, seeing things that I didn't think I'd ever see always being at the bottom of the barrel. There were trips, cruises, and random adventures, being able to mingle with the part of society that I had a natural dislike for. Yet now I understood why they enjoy the perks they get. So what was wrong?? Who knows. Maybe me, maybe her, maybe a little bit of both. Either way, this is where the story comes to the present.
I sit and look about my surroundings once again and realize that I have nothing. I've owned nothing and made no progress towards getting from the bottom of the barrel. Unfortunately, my will and spirit has been broken this time, and I find happiness in the bottom of the barrel, laying there confined with the space. 7 years had been spend to get through the journey I've spoken of, and most importantly, I am no closer to independence than when I began the journey. Honestly, I am further from it then when I began.
So how does one keep fighting? Why should I want to keep fighting? I know many fight all there life to stay just above the water, but how do they keep there spirit and desires from being broken and just prevent themselves from conceding into the darkness that surrounds them? That is another fault of mine, I guess. They are stronger than I, as all I want to do is concede to the darkness and let it all end. I'm exhausted and tired of fighting, fighting not to stay above water, but just fighting to hold my breath a little longer so I can even get back to the surface. I say I am indifferent, but that is only because it is better than how I really feel. It is a process of stopping emotion and convincing yourself you don't care. Because if you don't care, then it can't hurt, you can't be angry, and you don't want to die, you don't want anything. Is it better? Probably not, but it is self preservation mechanism of a sort I guess, at least for me. Just like now, I am tired of writing this story, as there is no happy ending to wrap up today, there is only a person laying on the floor, stripped of their pride, their energy, and their will to be something other than what they have always been.
