not so calmly facing the future

A truly awful day in some ways.

Facing facts. I realize that, to be happy, I need to receive a certain kind of satisfaction. A certain freedom from guilt. And some feedback.

I once thought part of this was in friendships and relationships with others. This didn't need to be voiced, I just thought that it went without saying that certain people liked me and felt better off for knowing me. I'm sure that is still true in some cases. There are people that I enjoyed interchanges with. That feels good. Their lives are better with me in them.

In the last few months, I've faced some awful truths in this regard. A couple of people I thought fell into this category and who I very much enjoyed counting as friends (although they were maddening to me at times) expressed, one way or another, a long-seeded anger at me. I'm sure they had the right to me angry. Probably I could have mustered a long-festering anger at them, too, because, after all, people do irritate one another. But I didn't have any long-festering anger. There were things I wished were different about them, but I accepted it. But their side was different. After hearing some of their side I concluded that, all in all, they were worse off for knowing me. Maybe I was even more 'wrong' in executing the friendship than they were.

And, to tell you the truth, I don't want to revive these relationships to the former point. Havng found out that my efforts hadn't produced anything but anger and envy, I don't want to make the effort. Most, if not all, of the anger toward me that I foolishly mistook for friendship was surely my fault. But it didn't make me want to fix it. It made me want to walk away and be a recluse. With regard to those folks anyway. And, after all, who were they to hang around and fake it so long? To what end?

Then I realized that something similar had happened with someone I do want to remain close to. I felt I was giving up on every point. That no one thing I gave in on mattered enough to risk spoiling the relationship. I could give on these things and I was getting a lot and it didn't matter. But it did matter. I wasn't able to enjoy things or do things my way without guilt because most of the things I enjoyed outside the relationship pulled at it. Rather I would do things I wanted and then feel guilty because they weren't as they should have been for the 'unspoken rules'. So if I did something I wanted, I felt guilty I was leading a spoiled life, but not happily. I had the means to lead my life exactly as I wanted but every inch I moved that way, I felt guilty. Again, no one's fault but my own. The other person mostly manifested this as self-guilt, too. If someone makes you feel guilty, though, does it help if they feel more guilty? If they upbraid themselves for acts that you can't or won't avoid yourself, does it help that they can't forgive themselves either? No.

So what to do? I think it's time to assert myself to be happy. I'm going to do the things I want and not feel guilty. Yeah, right. I haven't necessarily earned the right to do as I wish. I have the means, though, to do everything I want. And, if I am going to do something, then I am going to enjoy it. Work, even. I have to find a way to stop the torture and grab the things I can control and enjoy them.