Decay

I'm tired of watching the things I love die...

Dance venues...other social circles...friendships... I look at how many things--things that I've cherished so deeply over the years--have come & gone, & it makes me so incredibly sad...

The Weber State Swing Club... It was my first introduction to social dancing, something new to belong to (where I didn't "fit in" with the Band crowd anymore), & it led me to the first thing in my life where I could be confident with girls. But once the Dance Team formed, we lost our core group of regulars...& it floundered on & off for several more years... Then once the Union Building started getting renovated, we got kicked out of the Ballroom, & into the the carpeted Gallery. And it came to the point where there were several times more High Schoolers than College-age kids coming. That was such a depressing fall & winter...watching the Swing Club die was so painful...

The Golden Skillet... It was such an awesome dance venue, with such quality dancers, & then it died down for no apparent reason... They "remade" it as the Downtown Stomp, & it had its moments on & off for a year or so, but with the economy, it kept struggling...& went down to 1 night a month...then died altogether...all because not enough people were willing to support it, & no one new wanted to be in charge...

The Murray Arts Centre... More than any other dance venue, more than Game Night, more than Frisbee, more than school, more than Institute, more than church, more than any other social scene, the MAC felt like "my arena". It was the place I felt most comfortable, most confident, & most at home. The first few years were so amazing... But with the downturn in the economy, it slowed down...and kept going down...until the point that hardly any people were coming...it was like Weber all over again... The gigantic crowds at the final dance, & at the Masquerade the next spring, gave me hope that things could come back, even if only once a month--but the lackluster attendance for the Halloween Dance was so depressing... As much as I love my other social circles, nothing has even come close to filling the hole that losing the MAC left...

Uru... It was such an amazing computer game... An incredibly original idea, with heart, & depth, & a rabidly devoted fan-base, & so much potential... But like so many other things, it was held back by the economy, & limited & fiddled around with by fear-based investors afraid to give any untested idea a decent chance... And it died... It knocked the wind out of us...it absolutely broke our legs... We managed to keep it alive on a small-scale, & eventually got another full-blown chance for it to succeed--but it was just held back again, & doomed to die once more... And while there's so much potential for what it could become in the hands of the fans, the Community is simply floundering...steeped in squabbling, narrow-mindedness, fear, & a lack of motivation...

Friends... I've seen so many friends come & go... And I know that it happens All kinds of people come & go in your life--it's unavoidable. But I've seen so many people go that I wanted not to so badly... A lot simply because they moved away or moved on in life. But other friends whose loss...hurts...so much more... People who were around almost every week, & then completely disappeared once they got married, literally never to be seen again... And several people who drifted away for no apparent reason...no matter how much effort I put in to prevent it...

And now the University of Utah Swing Club... It's far from dead, but it's in such a lull... I've been a regular there for nearly 7 years, & I've lost count of how many times I've seen it come close to dying in that time... We've always stuck it out until a change of the seasons brings in an influx of new people, but I'm having such a hard time with it this time... I've been a regular at Swing Club for longer than at any other venue or social scene in my life--it's where the core of my group of friends has come from. But our group has changed so much over the last year, & with this new downturn...

A lot of my pain over all this goes back to one of my Blog-Posts from about a year & a half ago--"Change". With so little change for the better in my life to fill the holes left by things that have changed for the worse, the change for the worse hurts so much more... So I guess the key is to learn how to make the good kind of change happen... I know there's no strict formula for it, but it's not something anyone ever really helped me learn...in anything in life... And until I can figure out how to do that, I'm so afraid that I'm going to have to watch more of the things I love--more venues, more circles, & more friendships--die... Including ones I'm not sure I can bear to lose...

"Fate has cast us into the mouth of a crucible, without knowing whether we are to be tempered by the flames or utterly consumed by them."

Trust & Time

I really need to Blog more...

I got new car insurance. I went on vacation to Mysterium in Boston. And now I'm quite close to broke. But other than that, pretty much the same old... I've been struggling to figure out what to Blog about that wouldn't just be rehashing what I've said before. But I think I have something...

I'm truly close to very, very few people. And I know that a number of friends that I've had for years still don't "get" me...and they don't get why they don't get me.

A big part of the issue is trust.

I'm very not accustomed to opening up to people. There's always the fear of whether or not I can trust them to respond properly, accept me, understand me...my fears, feelings, secrets, history, struggles...

But it's more than wondering if I can trust them regarding themselves--it's wondering if I can trust them regarding other people.

I've had several experiences over the last few years where I was with a small group of friends, talking about other friends & people. And during each of these experiences, one of my friends (different for each experience) told us something quite personal about the friend we were discussing. And each time, it was also particularly regarding one of the other friends in the conversation.

Each time, my first reaction was "...Why are you telling us this? Doesn't this strike you as something that so-and-so told you in confidence? This is none of our business..." But my second & strongest thought was "Why in the world are you telling this to this other person??? Don't you think that they're the last person so-and-so would want you to tell???"

Each time, I was just astounded that my friend would breach the confidence of our other friend--& to top it off, to the last person that they should... And sadly, each time, the friend who did this was someone I had been thinking up 'til then that I could start opening up to... So much for that...

I don't want my personal life to be made a public spectacle. Whether it's about a girl I like, someone I'm having a conflict with, something I'm embarrassed about or ashamed of, something I'm really sad or depressed about, something I'm afraid of, or anything else that's particularly personal, private, or sensitive--when it comes to my personal or private life, anything I'm genuinely self-conscious about, or anything that's truly serious or a big deal to me, I don't want an audience. I don't want play-by-play commentary, I don't want to be given a hard time, I don't want to be ganged-up on. And I certainly I don't want any of that from people who don't know enough to understand those personal things.

I don't mean this in a mean way, but one of the most important social lessons people need to learn is when to keep their mouth shut...

So yeah, I have trust issues...but I really feel they're justified. But just by realizing this, you can't just say "Alright, I promise I won't say anything to anyone--so open up to me." Open, trusting relationships take time. And most of the time, those who try w/me use a far too...assertive approach. I don't respond well to being watched, confronted, or judged. I really think a lot of my friends don't really understand how introverts think, & how to deal with them. So as much as I know my friends mean well, to those of them who still don't "get" me, & still don't get why they don't get me, I would simply ask this:

Beyond small-talk & confrontation, what have you actually tried?

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved."

Alone & Distracted

I've been looking at my life a lot lately, & for so much of it, I just don't understand how I got here...to where I am right now... All the reasons & details are such a tangled mess, it's hard to explain it all or place blame. But I have come to understand something.

As I've posted about before, there are all kinds of things in life that no one ever really prepared me for. They just kind of said, "When it comes to this point in your life, you're going to do this...when this time comes, theses things are going to happen..." BULL-HONKEY. Things in life don't go according to a nicely-formatted plan. Especially when you don't get much help...

There are so many things in life where people just weren't there for me. I don't want anyone to think I'm just victimizing myself & trying to absolve myself of responsibility or blame--I've made far more than my share of mistakes. But there are certain things in life where certain people should be there for you. And all too often for me, those people weren't... Parents, teachers, counselors, church leaders... They all certainly meant well, they were all certainly "around", & they all certainly brought up the subjects of the important things in my life.

But most of them really didn't do much of anything to contribute... There's all kinds of reasons, I suppose... They figured that I'd "get around to it" at some point... They figured I was getting those things from other people... They figured that "no news is good news" (which is one of the biggest lies ever told)... I never expected people to just do everything for me, but they didn't even really teach me what I think are some of the most important things I needed to learn.

No one did much of anything to help me learn how to get a job. No one did much of anything to help me learn how to date. No one did much of anything to help me learn how to get financial aid for college. No one did much of anything to help me learn how to find out what I wanted to go into in college. No one did much of anything to help me with my personal weaknesses/struggles. No one even really seriously asked me how I was doing with any of those things, & if there was anything they could do to help. I've mostly had to figure things out on my own...

But the real kicker is that I've been able to get away with largely failing at all of those things. It's never come to the point where I had to do any one of those things, or my life would fall apart. My parents are willing to let me live at home, even at my age, which is great, but then there's no point where I have to move out, get a better job, or even go to college. I could go the rest of my life without dating, & nothing would ever "hit the fan". And other things in life...any unsatisfactory conditions or even outright problems have never been something that will reach a definable, physical "boiling point". I can technically keep going on this way indefinitely...

And the reason I have is because I've just been avoiding my problems. Distracting myself from them. From depression & pain. I've struggled most of my life with depression...and it's never really gotten much better. I got teased a lot in Elementary School, which...damaged...me as a person... I've never fully recovered...I'm still much more socially isolated than most of my peers. And as much progress I've made, I still have to deal with the pain of not being where I want to be.

I'm not where I want to be in anything in life. I'm 26 1/2 & still living at home. I make hardly any money. I feel insanely inadequate in dating. I have no idea what I want to do for school or work in the short-term, let alone a long-term career. And all those things cause me pain. Pain from my current circumstances, & pain from the uncertainty & hard work it will take to change things. And so I just don't deal with it. I haven't progressed in life because I spend my time avoiding the pain. I've become an expert on not dealing with things. The end result is that it's made me very, very weak as a person. And that only compounds the problem, because I don't do the hard work it will take to change things...

Among all the varied & chaotic things that have led me to where I am right now in life, they all have a common thread: I've spent most of my life alone, distracting myself from my pain.

Letting that realization sink in, it helps to better explain how I got to where I am today. But it doesn't really solve anything...I'm still so far behind my peers, & so weak as a person...& so afraid... I guess the trick is to learn how to endure the pain that the required hard work will cause...to endure it long enough until I actually get some kind of "pay-off"...until the pain & work actually accomplish something...

"One alone cannot bring in a harvest."
"A distracted existence leads us to no goal."