Rehi...

What happened here?  Why did I say nothing here for over a year?  

I guess my plan to go to school took root, and things got complicated after that.

I have to say that I am fairly burnt on this experience I'm having in this life where I am constantly labeled in every situation as too much of me, in spite of my attempts to scale myself down, be quieter, be less of me, to take it down a notch, calm down, relax or whatever else anyone wants to call it.
It came down to Carlos.  And this morning he says to me after we have this argument "it's just like you've been experiencing at school this past week, Matthew.  Your intensity, your emotion, causes me to react emotionally and defensively."  


Well, sure, that's true.  But that's everyone.  There's not a person or group that matters to me that has not said it in one or more ways, and very very clearly.  "Matthew, you're just too much to take.  You embody too much Matthew, and not enough me/us to be welcome here."  With Carlos' comment, I deflated almost completely.  My voice took on that tinny sound, like from far away, or like on an old phonograph.  I looked away from the swelling emotion in my shadow, to my left, and behind me.  I looked ahead, to my right, numbly, trying to get into the space of that person looking ahead, trying to be outside the smoke monster, but to no avail.  I waited with that soft rigidity that accompanies the balanced state between inner and outer.  I could see directions, but the shadow had me in its grip, holding onto me, not letting me go ahead, and the future I am trying to create is not well enough supported outside my own psyche to have a gravity sufficient to pull me into it.  This past week, it has suffered tremendous disconnects of psychic support from many important sources.  


Of course, all I can be told is that this is the result of my de trop behavior. The problem is, as always, Matthew, de trop. 


As I've lamented many times, however, MY experience is that I'm ALWAYS trying to be less of me.  I'm ALWAYS trying to fit into a box that's just way, way too small for me.  Too restricted, confined, unyielding and unreal. But I do this in order to try and fit in with other human beings.  Alack!  It has resulted ONLY IN MORE OF THE SAME!  So this tells me that the effort to be more "normal" is futility.  It is terribly caustic and painful to deny myself like this *all* *the* *time* much like I did when I was growing up in the Southern Baptist backwaters of good old Missouri.  I decided (16 years ago) when I was 17 years old that it wasn't worth it to do all that, and came out of the closet instead, letting the cards fall where they may.


But I've been fired from many, many jobs.  I've *never* been able to get along with others.  I really can't.  It's just not a gift that the good lord gave me.  I desperately need people to get along with me though.  What the hell choices do I really have here?  Guy says to me on Friday that if I can find an adequate outlet for all this emotion, things will come into more balance.  I don't know that I agree.  But whatever.  I'm trying anything right now.  I don't want to die.  Not really.  I want a life that is good, and pleasant.  Where I am not being supported, but am supporting myself and others in this life.  That's what I really want to do.  I am a giver that way, but at the same time, I know what I do to those around me, which is to say I know that what I give others isn't always welcome.  As I am trying to say here. 


It's a conundrum.  I don't want to be louder, meaner, angrier, more of Matthew.  I really don't.  Maybe that's why I don't like these totally self-absorbed blog-things, and why I don't find the idea of giving in completely to the raging voice(s) to be a reasonable alternative.  It runs counter to my need to control my demons more.  I think the idea is that this is supposed to somehow be a confined space, like a fenced-in leashes-off area where the monsters can play and move more freely, but where the damage done is minimized.  It's a nice idea, and one I'm willing to entertain long enough to see what happens, but there's also something sort of unsatisfying about it.  Even if I come here and vent and billow and say, with total honesty and ugliness the very truths of whatever is on my sick little mind, it's still just bitching, and in a relatively hidden, quiet way.  


I mean, I COULD, hypothetically, come home from a bad day of production, vent some nasty thing here, and then email whoever pissed me off with a link to the post, thereby ensuring I'm actually being heard by those toward whom the venting is directed.  But to what end?  To what end?


The reality of all that is that if I do something like that, really, I'm just picking a fight and being a jerk.  Writing semi-publicly (where at least my words could be found by anyone who chose to seek them out) and saying what I think about real people is likely to lead to real hurt feelings.  And damnit, no matter how angry I am, no matter how much emotion informs and enlivens my words, I don't ever INTEND to hurt others with those words.  I don't intend to leave others wounded.  I probably do intend to frighten people into no longer threatening me.  Although that's what I do, it's not how I like being.  I just don't know anything better.  


And when it comes to cutting myself down, honestly, when that is never, ever, ever acknowledged, when every time people still come to me and say "If you could just be a tiny bit less intense...." I just shake my head and start crying inside.  Everyone I have ever tried to satisfy, to please, has found me to be lacking.  I have never been good enough for anyone.  


So that's the truth of my experience right now.  I am having an incredibly difficult time right now getting into the headspace of doing the work I need to do to build the future I (at least used to) want.  I sense that basically no one is rooting for my success.  Chef said to me on Thursday he would fire me if I was his employee.  One more person saying "Matthew should be erased."  


I would erase me too, if I weren't obligated to Carlos and my two cats.  


I really, really hate being me.  And yet, it's practically impossible to explain to normal people why being me is not something I can change with a breathing exercise, meditation, or medication.  I think I'll say more about those things later rather than right now.  I'm starting to feel like one does before one loses consciousness.  Sounds are far away, and my hands and feet feel tingly and numb.  I wish it could be the end, but it isn't.