Posted by yellowbrickroad on December 23, 2004, at 22:36:05
In reply to Tis the season to..., posted by alexandra_k on December 23, 2004, at 20:29:43
Hey, I know what you mean. And too many people know when it's my birthday, and ask what great things I'll be doing that day...and the answer, if I tell the truth, is always pretty depressing.
But think about this...nobody knows you're taking a walk by yourself because you're "all alone in the world" but you. For all they know, you are so crowded with family that you are escaping for a moment alone, just like they wish they could do.
Anyway. I recently had someone I don't like...the friend of my recent ex-boyfriend...tell me that my ex is soooooo worried about me because I don't have anyone to spend the holidays with. (As IF!! That jackass...he could have been spending the holidays with me!) And, although I'm not spending the holidays with my ex, I DO and ALWAYS HAVE had the option to be with SOMEBODY. In fact, I won't be alone this year for a change, though it's hard for me not to think of my friends' time with me as "pity time" with the single girl.
After years of family crap, I am finally starting to realise that MANY, MANY, MANY people out there don't have the close, loving relationships of the type they would like to have, whatever that may mean to them. The friends I'm spending the holidays with don't get along with their families, either (or else can't be with them, though they would like to be). Other friends of mine are with their families and hating life. Other friends are trying not to get killed over-seas. The family members I--AT LAST--don't miss, are spending the holidays with people who either they don't like or who don't like them all that much anymore. Nobody I know AT ALL is having a Hallmark-perfect holiday season. And everyone I know (almost everyone, anyway) is feeling very self-conscious right now for not measuring up to the "happiness standard."
The simple fact is, it's a waste of time to worry about what other people think of us and our situations, because MOST PEOPLE ARE THINKING ABOUT THEMSELVES MOST OF THE TIME. If you don't beleive me, ask yourself who you were thinking about for the duration of your last walk alone. You? Or that happy couple with the dog and how they are looking at...you? Or how other people are thinking about...you? Or how other people might be judging...you?
No, all those other people are thinking about themselves. They are all wondering how they are being judged and in what ways their lives are failing to measure up to what they imagine are the standards of the people they pass on walks of their own.
Damn! Whenever I get depressed, I remind myself how self-centered the depressed really are (by definition, we're self-obsessed). If you don't IMMEDIATELY know what I'm talking about, read "Prozac Nation" for a reminder.
We don't have to see ourselves as objects of pity. We can see ourselves as people who belong in a crowd of essentially lonely people. Or as independents. As those who are liberated from obligations. Or we can see ourselves as people who choose to be alone. Or as people who haven't figured everything out yet. Or as fuck-ups. Or whatever we want. And, when we believe what we tell ourselves, other people believe it, too. I mean, what the hell else do other people know about us except what we CHOOSE to show them?!
Buck up.
Happy Holidays, man. We're all in this crap up to the neck right along with you.
poster:yellowbrickroad
thread:433564
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20041128/msgs/433626.html