To Live Someone Else’s Life.

There’s this one part in the Sex and the City Movie where Samantha is at an auction, I forget where or why, but she’s bidding on a piece of jewelry against another bidder who’s on the phone with the person that’s actually going to buy it.  Eventually she loses to this anonymous bidder, but when she goes home, she finds out it was actually her boyfriend that was bidding on it, to buy it for her.  Then she breaks up with him.  Upset that he took the satisfaction of buying something for herself away from her, she realises that she’s lost too much of herself in this relationship, and ends it so she can rediscover herself.

I know exactly how she felt; somewhere between the end of summer and now, which was only really a couple weeks, I feel like I lost  myself too.  like that person I wrote about discovering during my two my get-there is just a memory.  I kind of feel like, my life isn’t mine anymore. 

My computer for example.  It broke, completely totalled.  And I was useless about it.  What do I do? who do I call? so of course I called my dad and he took care of it without me even having to convince him or beg him.  He even coughed up the dough to buy me a new one. 

And of course I’m grateful for it, I need the computer after all, but this is so not about gratitude.  It’s about how, I’m not even involved; not just that I’m not involved, but that I’m not able to be involved.  Because I have no money, I can’t take my computer anywhere to get it fixed, and I certainly can’t buy myself a new one; and since I can’t by myself a new one, I dont get to have a say in which one I get.  I have to take what I can get.  So yeah, i’m grateful for this computer, but who’s computer is it? it certainly doesn’t feel like mine: It comes with no sense of accomplishment for having saved up for months to buy it, and no personalization because I had nothing to do with picking it out.  It feels like my computer isn’t even my computer.

Same thing with my car.  “who’s car?” my mom would say if she heard that.  because my parents bought it after all, and they can’t even let me pretend. 

It’s the same in other areas too.  like, because I have no idea what job I want to do everyone thinks they can suggest one for me.  like I didn’t go through the same career day presentations in high school that everyone else went to.  what am I supposed to say, “oh, thank you, before you mentioned something I never knew dentistry existed as a job choice.”

Oh, and paying my electric bill.  I didn’t have power for like a couple days last week because it got shut off, and everyone was like, “why don’t you pay the bill.”  How am I supposed to respond to that? Smack my forehead like the idea just hit me and say ”Thank you so much, that never crossed my mind as I sat in my dark room and got around by the light of my glow-in-the-dark silly bands.”  obviously there was a reason why it was more complicated then just paying my bill.  but no one considers that.

I try to hold on to the things that are uniquely me.  Like, for example, I hate the sun light.  when most people are saying “it’s such a beautiful day!” I’m holing up in my room or inside somewhere, I’ve even blacked out my window at home and in my apartment at college.  Where it makes most people happy, it makes me mad and annoyed. I never complain more then I do in the heat. I love the rain and the cold and the snow, that’s a beautiful day to me.  Oh, and you know how people are comforted by their dogs? and they love their dogs? well there’s nothing I hate more then a DOG.  I know that statement is going to offend someone, maybe a lot of people.  I just don’t want any of my friends to be animals, I don’t want to feed anyone that’s not my child, I don’t want to walk anyone but myself, and I will not pick up poop.  And if I wanted to hear a Dog bark everytime the doorbell rang… I got nothing.  I mean, I can seriously see that as being the deal-breaker in a relationship.  I would choose a dogless life as a single guy over love and a dog any day. and they are not cute.  Oh and also I ride a unicycle around campus frequently.  I don’t particularly care for the attention it gets me, but I can’t rightly complain, because it comes with the territory and no one’s forcing me to ride it.  I’d like it if that guy the other day didn’t yell at me “get a two wheeler, faggot!”  but I didn’t get upset about it, I laughed because I know he’s jealous.  Haha and one thing I like about myself that’s uniquely me is that I don’t like to say “hi” or “hey” like everyone else; I say it like it’s a statement, with a strait face: “Hi.” Like it’s painful and I’m getting it over with.  I don’t know why I do it, I just don’t like to say it any other way.  But if I say “hello” rather then “hi,” (which is usually when I’m in a good mood, and that means the sun would not be shining on me and there would not be a dog around*), somehow I got into the habbit of saying it like I’m falling off of a cliff: “hellooooo!”

But it’s just like when you get drunk, and then when you sobber up your problems are still there.  When I hop off my unicycler and go into the dining hall, or when I call home from my suffinciently dark room, and as the conversation develops past myseemingly painful and self-gratifyingly awkard ”hi.”,  everything’s the same as it was before.  With every decision I have, someone else always makes it for me.  And the the consiquence weather it’s good or bad, isn’t my own.  It belongs to whoever convinced me.  It’s like a daily thing.  Everyone even tells me how I’m supposed to eat (because I don’t eat healthy and I guess that became everyone else’s problem somehow).  And I sometime I obey these things, not because they told me to, but because it’s actually the right way.  and I just can’t stand it.  Even considering the summer, I can’t remember the last time I got to do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it.  I planned to go to misouri and go skydiving, but my friends flaked on me; I planned to go to pittsburg and see the andy warhol museum, but things came up and I ran out of money;  I was going to save all summer long and have a thousand dollars by the end of it, but here I am without a dime to my name and no idea where all the money I earned went.  And I know everything isn’t about me, I’m just wondering when I’m gonna catch a break.  When do I really get to be me? and if college is the time when I’m supposed to define myself, why do I feel like everyone else is defining me instead? 

And to anyone who tells me to get over it, and to  just suck it up, I’ll say, No.  This is how I feel and I’m NOT comprimising anymore of it: YOU get over ME, YOU suck ME up.  Because it’s really draining to live someone else’s life.

*sometimes people think that because I hate dogs so much, that I like cats, and that is just not true. I’ll be arguing with someone against having a dog, and they’ll say, “well cats are like that too sometimes,” I would say yeah, and i hate cats too.  Basically, I don’t want to run a farm.  I don’t want to live with any animals in my house with me.  I’d like all of my personal connections to be with people rather then animals.  I could really go on forever about it.  How people also annoy me about how they think their dog is smart (what, did it go to school? does it read the newspaper? does it engage in deep and meaningful discussions? no! it’s a stupid animal!) but at the risk of offending anyone and having a long list of comments defending dogs and dog lovers… I’ll stop here.   I mean, if you love your dog, whatever, have it and keep it and enjoy all you want. but don’t let it poop on my yard, don’t let it stick it’s nasty sticky slimy toungue all over my hand or anything else, don’t let it sniff my crotch, and don’t let it bark at me.  or so help me I’ll punt it.  Haha just kidding.  I’d just ignore it.  It’s just not for me.

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