Tag: Unbelonging

All of Us Dreamers

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Picture: Drawn/made by me. 

I can be a dreamer. Other times I can be a pessimistic realistic. I seem to jump wildly between the two, not trusting if I am worthy enough for at least some of my short term dreams to come true. I don’t know if I’m a dreamer anymore. I don’t know if I’m a realist or a disgruntled dreamer who has spent too much time on the ground.

I can’t seem to find a happy medium.

I’m either hellbent towards every step of my plan, convinced that everything will work and everything will come true. Or I am convinced that nothing will come true and there isn’t much point in dreaming for things that will only disappoint you.

I want a horse (or pony) one day. No one believes me that it’ll happen. They just smile while secretly snickering how much of a dreamer I am.  How I will get burned for flying too close to the sun.  So I back off, unsure if it is my business to have such aspirations. My mom told me that it wasn’t to happen. As did my grandma. And my dad told me that dream-chasing is exhausting and something you won’t have time to enjoy once you have it, hinting that it’s not worth it.

Dressage. That’s what I want to do (admittedly, since I’m not much of a jumper). But every time I speak of it, everyone tells me it isn’t possible. That it’s far too outside my class. That’s it’s too expensive – which it is true. I’m a once a week rider stagnating on school horses – and really, I can’t even afford that I don’t ride enough and I don’t have access to the right horses.  I need to get off school horses first and ride more. But I don’t know if that can happen anytime soon.  So I back off, convinced that those are dreams that will not happen, that will just wither and die. For jumping, I need a Dory (a horse that is fairly slow and that I’m mysteriously not scared with over fences).

Okay, so apparently dressage is impossible and I’m too neurotic to jump most horses. What about trail riding? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know if there’s brave, not-spooky horse for me out there (sand pile of doom….), not close to real trails (and not sure of places close to trails), and I don’t have friends to ride with me. I can’t make friends to ride with me either.  I’m not even sure what I want anymore.

I am terrified that I’ll just fly into the sun again. It’s happened before – I once thought horses will be something I was good at, that I’ll have some sort of belonging. But that didn’t happen. Not quite. 11 years later and I’m trotting around on beginner-suitable school horses still. Occasionally we attempt circles or go sideways.  I am madly infuriated that it seems that anyone that has been riding weekly for about a year becomes more advanced than I am….or more, much more in some cases. I’m not good with handling horses either so that argument is out.

There has been times when I thought about giving it up. That maybe nothing is worth it because it will not come true and that I suck anyway. That it isn’t today. If tomorrow never came, will it be worth it? I don’t know. I can’t seem to think in the frame of today. It’s always tomorrow, tomorrow.

Because I don’t like it here. I feel confined in my current space. My current place. I think back to those winged horses and the castles in the sky and wish I could go there. Away from here.

Sometimes I’m a pessimist. afraid of disappointment. Afraid of everything not coming true, not working out. Beleaguered with the harsh world of reality of the world.

But at heart, I am a restless dreamer.

I’m just too afraid to truly believe so I make sure it is wrapped in a cloak of “realistic pessimism”. I am not sure what I should be believing anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen. There are too many changes at once.

I did keep riding – although it was largely due to my instructor in some ways.  So I did bail out of jumping but I still ride. But now everything is changing. Everything is changing. I’m also almost out of school for the first time and I feel like I’m being sucked into a void. My dreams feel like insufficient crazy notions that may never come true.  And I’m not sure what to believe anymore as reality seems to shift.

I am confined in my current space, still looking for greener pastures….or castles in the sky.

Or purple pegasus ponies. There’s a reason why I like that kind of imagery – it takes you back to a place, where everything is still possible. Unlike this world, in which sometimes everything seems impossible.

Paper Purple Peggy

So unpopular, people need be paid to virtually chat with me too?

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I don’t have friends.  Now apparently, I can’t email someone either and get fast replies unless they are paid to do so.  According to the person arranging a possible new worker, anyway.  Because I’m that unpopular and almost no one will ever spend time with me unless the are paid or have time to spend with me with regularity. As if I wasn’t rejected enough.

If it’s something functional or for scheduling, I NEED a reply right away as I need to plan out my day…week…whatever. Or at least I like to. I need this information, to ease the uncertainty, to make something uncertain certain. Thus, all functional/schedule based emails need to be answered right away or get edgy awaiting them as then I won’t know what’s going on. I become disorientated, uncertain in my crumbling framework of possibility, unsure what is going on next. (My mom doesn’t help these matters either, constantly asking if something is confirmed).

With some exceptions, people only ever hang out with me if they are getting paid. Yes, I apparently I need to pay people to be my friends. I’m just that unpopular. However, I found a way around that a bit – emails! I’m very good in written communications so email  etc is perfect for me. But I don’t get many emails back so I LOVE it when I get replies.

The rest…it can wait, but I LOVE it when reply reply fast. It makes me feel more connected, less of a non-friend. It makes feel that somebody cares. That somebody cared enough to reply back. It makes me smile. I love it. For once, I’m not the only one. I write things to Solitude again and again, but he will never reply. Nor will Fear or Loneliness or Uncertainty or Happiness or any of their friends. Personified entities are great to write for and with but they suck at replying. They also suck for chatting/texting etc.

But the idea that people need to be paid to answer my emails or chat to me online makes me feel even more unwanted. It’s already bad enough that I can’t seem to get anyone to hang out with me without paying them. Apparently, I’m so unpopular that soon people will be charging to answer my texts, emails and online chat. Would it be a nickel for your thoughts, now that the penny is dead? (Yes, and the text costs twenty cents – well,  media theorist Marshall McLuhan did say that the “medium is the message”…not the content). People email, text and social media their friends all the time, I’m sure…oh right, I can’t have friends, that’s not a service I get. Not a service that I’ll ever get it seems.

I don’t get what’s wrong with that. I get that I am annoying. But I don’t get what’s wrong with that, really…having a stupid primitive desire for feedback, validation and comments. Oh I’m annoyed that I have that desire too.  And sometimes, I have looking for feedback. That’s why I’m an English major (I get feedback on my essays and am annoyed when I don’t get it…even when I get a A-) and why English flat classes and hunters at horse shows seem pointless – they are judged competitions but they don’t give feedback per se.

But I like instantaneous communication. If only, I had people to practice it with…

I blame the stupid book that I never finished, House Rules for that realization. In it, the character is made fun of with peers claiming that his social skills tutor is paid to hang out with him (turns out she isn’t)…I kind of got fed up with the book and I never finished it. But I bet the author had no idea how hurtful that sentence was for a person in which that is basically the case. That’s when I realized, that yes, people generally need to be paid to hang out with me with any regularity. There are exceptions and people have hung out with me outside those parameters (especially later on)  but that’s fairly generally true.

And it’s depressing.  But wow, it’s true. I have no real friends.

I tend to use workers as friend analogues, since being paid to hang out with me is the closest I’m ever going to get. Sometimes, it actually does work…many people still have email/online contact with me (yes, they have replied) and I’ve even hanged out with some of them in person even after they have finished working with me…without being paid! It almost always happens, actually (some more than others). So I don’t know why it seems to be so hard to get anyone to work with em or hang out with me or do anything with me….well, other than that I have the social skills of a pet rock that can hide. A sarcastic pet rock. A snarky, annoying, demanding pet rock. Some people don’t get the snarky humour and hate it.  Whatever.

I’m so alone. My family doesn’t get me and they don’t like any of the things I like.  Horses won’t befriend me as I’m not a horse or a horse whisperer (and I’m not there enough or their sole and/or primary rider). I don’t have friends. I can’t have friends.  Not real ones anyway. I’ll just have imaginary ones and that way, there would never be a disagreement ever.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever have friends. In a way, life seems easier without them. I may never have close friends. I may will never have a BFF. Not now, possibly not ever. Besides I have lots of hobbies to do on my own.  Still, the feeling of being rejected by the world floods into these dark, lonely spaces.

I haven’t met a friend since elementary school (and much of the time they were younger than me…or I hung out with adults). I haven’t had close friends since early high school. Even when was hanging out at the barn helping day camps one summer, I never really befriended the other two younger girls (they 12, I was 16). Sure, they let me hung out with them. That was about it. It was cool, I suppose – it was the closest I had for friends in years, people to hang out with. But that’s it…I knew those two were closer to each other and everyone else than me. I was the third wheel, the person that was there just because I happened to be around. That didn’t last too long though – I more or less got “laid off” since they only wanted 2 helpers per week and I was not it. I was so not it. Even if it wasn’t because I sucked, it was because that others had other people they would rather hang out with.  Because  I was out of place again – they were all younger than me, richer than me and better at horses and riding than me (I had other issues with riding at the time but that’s still how I felt).

I don’t make friends. It doesn’t work for me. Or at least it hasn’t.

So I try for friend analogues. I may not be their “real”  “friend” (both words are disputable as far as meaning is concerned) but they can perform some of the functions of one. Emailing makes it feel less like I’m some sort of job for them and more like a person. If they don’t like it, then too bad. Others seem to manage fine. Sort of. Maybe not. Who knows. They don’t HAVE to reply unless it’s a functional email (scheduling, planning, need to get information). Information by definition is a way to decrease uncertainty according to some thinkers. That works for me. It’s not the same as knowledge, that is different.

Right now, my best friend is Solitude.  I wish I could replace that with some sort of equine (even though Solitude will always be my BFF in some way). But it’s so not happening now…

The Odd Duck Out

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Photo: I’m not even sure what kind of duck this is (the rest are definitely mallards).  Based on my research I believe it may be a “manky mallad”  of some sort but I am not certain. Still, odd duck – even more fitting! Photo shot and edited by me. Reifel bird sanctuary, Summer 2012.

I have always felt like the odd duck out. The odd coloured one. The one that people had a strange fascination towards but still never befriended me. The ungainly ugly little duckling that no one wanted to play with (growing up didn’t make it better either).  The one who is even unsure of who one is. But still, no matter where I was or who I was, I never quite fit in. Duck. Duck. Duck. Weird duck. Duck. Duck.

For one, I am not good at math nor have a May birthday (much of my family is). I am a girl (unlike my any of cousins as a very young child). I am quite literate and occasionally artistic (my family isn’t). I like horses and of course, my family doesn’t either. When I was a child…no one really wanted to play with me. At least, not the “typical” children. Like the odd duck, I never really understand why no one wanted to play with me but I accepted it. I mean what else you do, demand people to play with you? (I may have tried it. If I did, it did not work.)

I never had really close friends or best friends (if anyone becomes my BBF….congrats, you’re the first)…all my friends were always quite light, superficial. I only had friends as a younger child. By high school, although there were a few acquaintances within classes, I had mostly become a loner.  Undergrad – both my lower levels at a local college and my upper levels at a local university was a massively isolating experience.  People talk about social lives in college/university, but I don’t think most understand how profoundly isolating it is when all you do is go to class and you don’t really have any social skills.

I ride horses too and I’ve been riding for a while (never said I was good at it…but I stay on most of the time).  Did I make any friends there? Of course not! Even common interests cannot bring me together with a friend (even though it felt like I sucked at horses compared to everyone). I did eventually had some acquaintances when I hung out at the barn…but still never friends and it was not uncommon that they ignored me. I always felt like the tag-along…thing anyway even though I was older than them. I wished for a equine friend but that didn’t quite happen either. I guess you need the horse to do that…or better horse or friend-making skills. However, I got bullied around by a young horse ….interesting but not quite the “special relationship” I was looking for. Class divides (oh they exist so much) aside, I’m also nearly the only flat-only mostly recreational rider in a barn full of jumping show horses…things that I don’t do. Even if I did jump (and I don’t for several confusing reasons), I’ll never show at that level. It’s a sport for the privileged and I will admit that equestrian is elitist…and I am so far from that socioeconomic class, it’s not even funny. That would likely never be a part of my world. Oh yes, the inferiority complex is alive and well (not as bad as it has been though).

I never had pets as my family is not into animals so I had relatively limited exposure to them. I rarely had any close friends. I was always the odd duck out, alone. Whereas it got better for the ugly duckling, it got worse for me as I got older. I did not become a swan, instead I became more isolated, odder. The one that people ask if I’m okay or lost as I wander out, or stare out into space, mind lost in thoughts. Eventually, I would be the one that people may be slightly fascinated in (at least during high school) but remain distanced. As if I was wearing different feathers, a different pattern than the other ducks that everyone looks at but find it’s too different for them. I stand aside, never fully included and never fully belonging.

I go to school but I am isolated, distanced even though we are all in the same place. It’s as if I occupy a different dimension than everyone else, momentary disseminating and reappearing randomly. Sometimes we see each other, but we hardly ever interact. The two dimensions rarely  “Integration” is a misnomer. I may have gone to class with “typical” students. I may did the same academic work that everyone else does. I did “integration” periods in elementary school and was eventually fully integrated by grade 10. But again, “Integration” is a misnomer. Just because I occupy the same space as “typical” students does not make me part of their world. The rest of the ducks make friends, socialize, while I waddle off, on my own in search of my own pond. I still haven’t found it.

But I’m tired of not belonging, in nearly every space.

Yet,  I don’t want to be like the other ducks.

On the Edge of the Unknown

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I couldn’t find an appropriate photo for this post (and don’t have enough inspiration to take one at the moment).

But yeah, I may have been more annoying than usual. I will admit that.

Lately, I’ve been edgy, impatient, more anxious then usual. I have a desire for instantaneous answers. As if I’m trying to secure some sort of certainty, trying desperately to tie peices of what I know to the trees with the prospecting hurricane of change.

This is me on the edge of the unknown. Filled with uncertainty, it feels like the end, even though people may assure me it’s a new beginning (although they actually haven’t thus far). I’m not sure. I don’t like change and someone has unleashed a hurricane on me. Oh I knew it was coming but didn’t think it’ll come this fast. I’m not longer quite sure who I am or what I’m good at or what I want. Everything feels impossible and so far away. As for me, I feel incapable and unwanted.

I feel so out of touch with everything and everyone. Most of my family seem to be on a planet far from my own. They don’t understand me or what I do or what I want to do. I feel so disconnected to them yet reliant. It’s not a good combo. I don’t really have friends. I have made zero friends in high school (maybe some loose acquaintances through) and I have certainly made zero friends in post secondary. While people talk about  the great social lives of high school and college/university, it can also be extremely isolating for someone with little to no social skills. I had more of a social life in elementary school.  By high school, my social life had died.  Now, I’m used to it being dead as I can’t imagine it any other way. If it’s activities where you make friends – well, I failed at that too (although I guess I made some loose acquaintances). Keep in mind that my loose acquaintance is very, very, very loose. It’s someone that I’ll know and the person will know me and I may exchange a few words (possibly a conversation but not required) but that it is. It is very, very, very loose, superficial but it’s at least a step up from pure alienation (I don’t know you and you don’t know me and we’ll all just ignore each other) which pretty much sums up my undergrad career.

I’m not sure about the horse thing, having attempting a sport that is way out of my league and class although maybe I just need to get a different side of it. It’s certainly not about the ribbons (I way prefer to ride more than show right now). There has been many disappointments in the realm, but I still love the feel of the horse underneath me (not on top, though I’ve been there too – avoid if possible) and the reaction when I find the “funny button” like a scratchy spot on the wither or wiggle of the muzzle (I’m not describing that well but it was so much fun) and the furry muzzles under my fingers (and on my face…yes, some bite…yes I generally know when they are going to bite). I’ve mostly given up big fantasies of showing, at least so I’ve gotten a little closer to earth in that way. I know I’ll never be an amazing rider or horse whisperer and my delusions of doing seem so mind-bogglingly naive .

I’m not naive anymore. I don’t want dreams to come crashing down again  or the flicker to gently peter out to the point that I shouldn’t care anymore (it doesn’t mean I don’t though). I had enough of that. The world is now a cynic’s world. The idealism of the future  – not just for me but the world as well has now faded.

But I don’t know how much longer it would be before everything will begin to unravel. When it would be clear that some things are dreams for another lifetime just like my family have hinted.  When everything falls apart, collapsing into a rubble of unfulfillable dreams.

Everything is spinning around, each piece of the wheel is threatening to break.

I’m at the edge of the unknown and I want to scream and cry and disappear (perhaps a wormhole will come…). There is too much happening. I want answers. I want a inkling of the known. I am lost and confused. I am also freaking out.

I don’t know where I am. I am wandering the deserted, dead landscape alone. I watch childhood innocence and idealistic dreams begin to smoke, desperately hoping it won’t alight. But the world is dark, cold. Everything is on the horizon. This is the event horizon. There is no going back. The days childhood have long past, even though I still essentially live like a teenager (that doesn’t mean I want to though but I don’t know any other way  and I can’t deal with it now with so many other unknown factors at the moment). But the bubble between youth and adulthood is about to be broken.

Somebody, please find me and take me back to the known. Or at least take me by the hand through the unknown.

I am terrified. (And edgy, anxious and about to freak out sooner than usual).

The Limitation of Reality

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I have always been somewhat of an imaginative person (although there’s some people that will probably say that I cannot possibly be imaginative but screw them). I’ve always distracted myself with things not from this world. Fiction, daydreams and it all. Many people praise reality and dismiss insanity.  Praise the pragmatists but not the dreamers. Artists are looked down upon, as if one is stupid to choose the arts if one could have chosen the hard sciences, businesses, law or anything else really.

And that is the limitation of reality. I am fascinated by the notions of flight and freedom, of fantasy and fiction.

Perhaps, I am fascinated but things other than reality because I find reality…or at least this reality so limiting.  I am isolated, alienated and have a strong critique over social norms. It’s as if I’m watching the world from afar, watching it as it unfolds but never being a part of it. I puzzle upon people’s priorities, never quite understanding the desire for mates or family, lying to be nice…or worse, fake laughter (especially when it’s so obvious) and assorted social nuances that don’t make sense at all or that I disagree with.

Maybe I’ll never know.

Still, the idea of a different place, a magical place where the world where everything makes sense. Where I can feel some sort of sense of belonging, of connection.

I lack connection. I am alienated to the world, to society.  Some days I think looking out the window, watching as the world goes by from my stance away from it all.  But some days, I wonder what is like to be a “normal” human – to have connection with other people.

But in fiction, I don’t. I was always a dreamer, always staring off into space. Always tired of the limitation of reality.

So I seek freedom in the places I can find them – in my head, in words, in pictures, in motion picture. It’s funny how people can praise fiction but are suspicious of anything other than reality.

Maybe for some people reality is good. People who have lives. But I’m not one of them as I daydream into the open, staring blankly into space.

Maybe all writers are insane.

Some days, the world is so far away

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There are some days that I feel that I can do everything. Some days, that the world is just at my finger tips, waiting for me. Some days, I feel that I am good at something or things.

Some days I feel talented, as if I had a future. Some days I feel like all my dreams will come true – horse and all.

But other days, most days this is not the case. Some days, the world is so far away. Utterly unreachable, as I crawl along the depths, clinging to things – leech-like. Some days I feel like I’m good at nothing and the world with people is more than I could bare or function.

Leaning into the Void

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This is it.

I’m heading towards the end of my academic career. (I don’t really have  the grades for grad school and if I did do it, it’ll probably something not so practical…like creative writing). But I don’t know what’s at the end.

I’m heading towards the void.
I’m leaning into the void.
I’m falling into the void.

Orbiting

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Does anyone mean as they mean?
Maybe some things are as they seem
but you keep looking for hidden meanings
desperate for something other than what things seem

You’re not happy here, are you?

(Fabled fantasies, faded photographs, fear of failure
shedded tears, silly lists, shredded papers
you pack it all up and carry it as you wander on
creeping darkness to concrete)

Would you run into orbit if you can?
You run and try to fly but no one gives you a hand
it’s not that there’s no one there it’s just that there’s
no one who understands

Still, you take a step and blast away
climb the sky and pace around the planet
what did the moon say?
what did the stars say?
the day you became a satellite
orbiting

(They said little but smiled
in the way that moons and stars
can smile to you
reflecting, radiating light so amazing
your eyes in awe at such a sight)

You’re still running around alone in circles but
now you can see the world that you were supposedly from
a blue-brown-green marvel, trimmed with white clouds
and here, there’s no borders, no buildings, no bombs
as it spins, gliding through space
on its marry way

(You’ll rather dance upon the milky way
and stay here in orbit for many more a day
you don’t want to go back down to the ground
since you’ve never belonged there anyway
even though you’ve tried to pretend)

But it feels like you’re burning up like a shooting star
you can’t feel the difference between air and land
everything is numb, cold under the starless sky
you swallow hard, you’re sitting back on the earthly ground
teary-eyed, since though you know you have gone so far

You get on your feet and walk into the now foreign landscape
everyone who you once knew are now strangers in the dark
you knew it’ll be lonely, but didn’t think it’ll be so stark
but maybe you’ll go somewhere now, instead of pacing endlessly in circles
orbiting the room

But you don’t
too scared to choose a path
thinking of the possible aftermath
so you’re still grounded
orbiting
ready to take off again

Notes:

Did the orbiting really happen in the context of the poem? I’ll leave it up for you to decide 😉 hahaha

If you’ve gotten here through my Facebook post. No you’re not seeing things, I DID edit that stanza when you weren’t looking!

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Hermit!

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Or at least that’s what I thought when I first discovered the word “hermit” as a child.

That was before I discovered the wonders of the internet and email.

Now I don’t know. I still live a very isolated life but it isn’t like I don’t like lengthy conversations about whatever is interesting because I do.  But I hate the little things – I hate introductions, I hate greetings, I hate manners and I really hate fake politeness.  I can tell when you are faking it. Please stop – it’s driving me insane.

In elementary school I never really had any “normal” friends within my peer group and outside my “special” class. In high school, I never made any new friends period.

I’ve haven’t made a friend since I was in grade 5 or so. I haven’t had a close friend since maybe early high school (grade 9 or 10). I do occasionally see a friend from my elementary school days, but I really feel that we have drifted far apart since.

I’m not even sure what friends are anymore and I laugh when people assume I have friends (plural). It seems like a ludicrous idea to me now. It’s even funnier if they think I have friends within my peer group. I know people often take friends for granted, but I’m so isolated from even the notion of “friends” that I’m not even sure what they are anymore. Most of the things I know about friends is from fiction. Likewise, I hate the message of “friendship is the best thing” yadda yadda yadda. It’s not. I don’t have friends so shut up about that.

I still joke about being a hermit – maybe in some shack in the middle of the woods with my pony. But I probably won’t be a hermit.

I’m just not quite sure what I would be…

 

Come Home

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This world is not where
I belong

Everything is too strange,
too different, too normal here
as I watch the world
so close, so far

I wander, wait
and wish that those from the
otherworlds would come for me
take me by the hand
“come home” they’ll say
and I somehow know they will
as go into the world where we’ll
all understand

We’ll walk through dimensions
through the greens, wilds and waters
through space-time
and I will go somewhere
back where I belong
where it’s I am part of the world
and not staring though a glass wall
and where I won’t feel so
lost and inadequate

But I’m here and not there
and much as I wish, I doubt that
my mothership or fairies will be
coming for me anytime soon

But where am I?
I don’t know
How is it that I can be lost in
the familiar?
I long for somewhere else.

I look around, unsure of where to go
and so I wander here, to and fro
hiding from the species that should be
my own and yet feel so distant from

And I don’t know why I’m here
or what to do
or what should matter
or what is my purpose

But I guess I’m waiting to
come home

Note: Yes, it is inspired by “Stolen Child” by WB Yeats