phony

I feel like such a phony.

I have always taken pride in the fact that I do whatever I feel like doing-- "following my bliss", so to speak. Lately, I haven't been feeling like that.

I feel like I am compromising. And it's more than just taking a new job that's got me feeling like this.

I have always known that I am not my job. Even when the job is something that I actually like, I am always able to divorce myself from any attachments concerning whatever I do to make ends meet.

So it's not the job that has got me feeling rundown. If anything, the job is a source of solace for me right now. It gives me something to focus my energy on for 10 hours a day.

Over the weekend I came to realize that, as of late, I have been afraid to be alone. This has never been a problem for me in the past. I used to relish my alone time, guarding it with extreme caution and care.

This explains my increasingly dramatic mood swings, perhaps, but the real question is: Why am I so afraid to be by myself? What do I fear will happen if left to my own devices?

What caused this fear to start taking shape?

I have a theory...


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May 2003: My father and I had it out in a bad way. It was an all-out brawl, a fistfight on the scale of the standard saloon scene in a Western.

We duked it out, our respective aggressions being released. My father was crowing about respect, and I was trying to tell him that he lost my respect years ago. We are both very stubborn men, and so we ended up attempting to force the other to see things our way.

For me, it was more than just trying to prove I was right-- it was the uncorking of a decade or more of bottled rage. I have never hit a man with such hate and fury as I did on that day.

I would've strangled him if it had not been for my stepsister intervening.

Ever since that day, he and I have a tenuous relationship. My stepmother has been distant, as well as my stepsister. Ironically, my other stepsister (who did not witness the ugly ordeal herself) understood my situation when I explained it to her, but Steph (the one who convinced me to let my father out of a chokehold) was visibly disturbed by my demonstration of anger.

That is doubly ironic, considering that Steph has quite a temper of her own.

Anyway, the reason why I bring this up is because, ever since that day, I have given in to my anger more and more. A taste of blood in my mouth has given way to a raging river, a non-stop torrent, an insatiable quest to inflict pain and violence upon anything in my path.

And since I spend a lot of time alone, I am afraid of what I might do to myself if given the chance. I'm not talking about suicide or self-flagellation, though: I'm talking about dwelling on the pain with no one around to tell me to stop.

I will take my self-loathing to unhealthy extremes, and whereas before I could always count on myself to rein myself in I now feel terror and paralysis during certain moments when no one is around.


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I watched Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers on DVD last night at Purple Paulie's house.

This is one of those movies that actually gets better with time. When it first came out, I thought it was good but felt that it was too long and gave me a headache.

Now that I'm a bit older, I can appreciate the movie in different terms.

Stone's message, however convoluted, is clear: Love beats the demons inside all of us, or at least it keeps them at bay for a little while.

I wonder if that's true. I try to recall all the times I was in love, and I try to think if being in love brought out the demons or eradicated them.

The demons are mostly still here, so I can't say they were exorcised. But then again, maybe I've never been in love. Maybe all those times when it felt so real, it was all just an illusion.

Maybe I've been wrong about everything and everyone.

All I know is, I feel very alone right now and making matters worse is the fact that I cannot bear to be around myself.

That is the narcissist's worst nightmare: to be unable to look at one's self in the mirror, to be unable to live with one's self.


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The job is just a symptom of this phony feeling. Doing this kind of work does not automatically make me a compromiser or a settler. It is symbolic, rather, of how I am feeling.

I feel empty and hollow. I get vibes from people that only serve to confirm this.

My friend J from NYC was in town, but I only saw her for an hour. I don't think she was trying to avoid me purposely-- she's a busy girl and she has a family that misses her dearly. They want to spend as much time with her as possible.

I don't blame her for not wanting to spend too much time with me. I think it would have depressed her. I am sure, now that she is married and living her own life on the East Coast, that I just remind of her things she used to care about but outgrew long ago.

She was my best friend. But I haven't exactly been that good of a friend to her. So I shouldn't be shocked or surprised that she can't find the time for me. I mean, what would we do if we hung out for longer than an hour?

I would probably just harangue her with the petty details of my life while she sat there, waiting for a break in the flow to give her two cents... a break that might never occur thanks to my motormouth.

I know she reads this blog, and I must stress that my intent is not to make her feel guilty or bad. In fact, as I write this I am also looking up quotes on airfare to NYC later this year.

I guess I am writing this out because it is another symptom of this phoniness I feel. I am not who I say I am. I am aware of this, and it bothers me.

I guess I have to go back to the drawing board and ask myself, Who am I?

What do I stand for? What is my purpose in life? Where will I end up and how will I get there?


*/*


I recently asked some of my My Space friends a quiz-like question: What is one thing you know for certain about me?

Only a handful of people responded. None of them were people I see on a regular basis. Their answers varied, and some of them went as follows:


You are an artist.

You are underestimated by certain people and a lot smarter than you let on.

You are trying to do the right thing.


Rather than re-affirming things I already know, these sentiments confuse me further. I don't recognize myself in their descriptions. At one point in my life I would've basked in the solipsistic glow, but not today.

I am a stranger to myself. I no longer can distinguish myself from anyone else. I am not unique in my own eyes anymore. I do not stand out-- instead, I blend in, I camouflage myself like a chameleon.

I am just like everyone else: afraid to be alone for a second, afraid of everything around me.

This is not right. Something must be done. I kept thinking that I had to get rid of this job, but that's not the answer. In fact, the job may be the key to transforming myself into something I can look in the eyes and feel pride over, something that will allow me to hold my head up high again.

I don't want to live in fear anymore. The irony is that, in the weeks following my fight with my father, I felt invincible, indestructible. But that was a pose, apparently, because now I see that I am desperate and horrified at my disposition towards the world.

I crossed a line, and it is proving to be very difficult to try and get back past it, as if I'd never crossed it.

It seems to be the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.