Allow Me

Let me tell you a little bit about where I come from. Almost every time my girlfriend and I go to visit my family for the holidays (or whenever), Maria tells me that she can't believe I'm from this family. Well, I can because every time I look at my family I see a little bit of them in me. It's scary, and I don't do it often. Allow me to give an example, probably the one that causes me the most trouble:

My mother has mental issues, mostly stemming from depression. She's on some drugs that are supposed to help, but for the past four years I've only seen a downward spiral from her, and sometimes I just want to take her by the shoulders and yell "Snap out of it!" Apparently one of her most beloved psychologists did something similar (if much more calmly, I'm guessing) and she dropped him faster than you drop a cigarette that you're smoking from the wrong end. I'm thinking that if I did this, it would cause way too much internal strife in the family, starting with me not being asked back for holidays. So I don't do it.

How does this reflect in me? It's pretty simple, really. I go through bouts of depression pretty often, which are caused by ... lots of things. Even bad weather can snap me into a cold front of moodiness. There is one big difference though, and for that I'm glad. I have Maria here to grab me by the shoulders, shake me around a bit, and yell "Snap out of it" at me when I'm really getting into a deep funk. I don't push her away, at least not for more than an hour, because I realize that this is exactly what I need.

Now I just wish I could find someone like that for my mom. My dad won't do it because he's given up, and the people she pays to do it she can just get rid of. As her oldest son (of five children) I can't see myself doing it.

So who do I turn to?

Jumbled

I was just given the chance to get in touch with many of my closest friends from my years in high school, and though I look over their profiles with a smile on my face, I hesitate in indecision before clicking to start reading. Immediately, I'm sucked back in to old feelings, remembering what we used to be, how close we were, how good it was to simply be with these people that I haven't talked with in almost six years.

Things have changed so much. Even now, thinking back to the way it was back then I feel nostalgic, and kind of lonely. I love Maria, and hanging out with my friends out here is great, but these old friends and I had the connection of going through the roughest times of our lives together. Okay, maybe not the roughest, but some real turbulence that messed us all up.

So many things have changed, but then I see my old friend's smile in a photograph, and I see the same old person there, behind the years that have changed them.

I miss them. I don't know what else to say.

I realize that I'm a little ... angsty ... today, and I apoligize for that. It's been a day for deep introspection. I'm a little bit not here in my brain. It's not depression, just wishing for things I can't have. I need to go do some kind of work-out, I think, to get out a little bit of these feelings that are invading.


((EDIT: Yeah, that's right, I signed up for a myspace account. That's me. See how original my user name is?))