就当我为遇见你伏笔

being depressed makes you think about how the trajectory of your life has brought you to this point. that is in so far as life has a trajectory, and is not simply a collection of random events. both has its advantages, as philosophies in life. if life has a trajectory, we can control it. if life is random, then we are blameless for our mistakes. i suppose at this point, i prefer the later.

but we don't quite have a choice. because subscribing to one belief necessarily means that you are closing off the other. and to believe that life is a sequence of unpredictable events is entirely crippling. what is the point when life is going to do whatever it wants to you? might as well just give up. so i can't choose the latter. i have to choose the former because choosing the former is the only thing that keeps us going. the fact that it would later make us we we had chosen the latter is an unfortunate corollary.

gah. that's not really what i wanted to talk about at all. it was simply a faux-philosophical way of moving into the real point. that is, how i need to make a choice. when you've been wearing rose-tinted glasses for so long, and you smash them, your vision takes a while to recover. (that's the metaphor i'm going with now) but i think right now i'm beginning to see how deluded i might have been.

so i suppose i was mistaken. my emotions were highly misplaced. after all, here i am, almost 2 weeks after this mess started, and i'm still feeling confused. somehow i still feel obligated, and i'm getting so sick of them weighing on me. the thing about this whole mess is that it wasn't some kind of clean break. there was no transition, no rubicon that was crossed. i wished there was. because in between last sunday afternoon and now, the line wasn't broken, it just got messy. all the weight of history that is tethered to that line remains where they were. all the obligations made under false impressions are relentlessly present.

i suppose it was my fault. my desire to hold on to whatever scraps that were left made me say things i didn't mean. because i don't think i can be the big man. i can't live with this feeling. i can't live with the constant suspicion that i'm insignificant.

the problem with being in my position, in this triad if you will, is that, as i have recently learned, a triad is nothing more than a dyad with a third wheel. and if i don't want to be a mediator between the two, or if i don't (as is being made totally clear) have the ability to break the dyad, i will always be in a precarious position. a position where a single word, or a single silence, is enough to break me down. a position of self-doubt and paranoia. a position where i can't feel like i'm in control.

argh. i'm approaching this academically again. there is nothing academic about this. i feel like shit, even though i've been trying hard to tell myself not to be, and that this is not worth it. i hate myself because everyday i find a new low. how did these emotions get so strong? i was never like that. when you get used to your emotions being a shallow shell-scrape, you don't learn how to climb up when you fall. i saw the pit coming, i just didn't realize how deep i'd dug it.

and so we are back to choice. choose to climb up now, by whatever means necessary, or to just wait for something to happen. the former is not so much a choice, as it is an enabler of choice. i have to go with that. then i'll have to decide what to do. and this is the point where i rationalize the choice i have already made, because it's not making the choice that's hard. instinct has us covered 9 times out of 10. it's understanding the choice that counts.

in a world where self-help books frequently top the new york times non-fiction bestseller list, we are so quick to decry walking away as a cowardly choice. face up to your decisions, be a man and take it, says our world. why is that? i stepped out of my comfort zone and got kicked in the face. but if i sat there and just took it, that doesn't make me brave. it makes me an idiot. i don't want to take it. it takes as much to walk away as it is to stay in the same place, especially when you're running as hard as you possibly can to do either.

in a way i suppose i've chosen. or perhaps life has chosen for me. i've been down this road before, and i'm making the same choice as i did years ago. the world might be a small place, but there's plenty of room for strangers. and if there's one thing i know, it's that strangers can't hurt me if i don't let them.