I’m a bastard.
A cold-hearted son of a bitch.
Heartless, cold, detached – removed from everyone and everything.
If you ask some people what they think about me, that’s what they would probably respond.
Asshole, I believe, would be another fitting epitaph that belongs in that Top Ten.
Why?
Because I’ve let a lot of people whom I’ve met recently go.
I’ve cut them off from my life.
Pointless relationships that have added more stress, more drama, more baggage into my life – a life that has already been overloaded by stress, drama and baggage.
How have I come to this decision?
What led me to this?
Nothing.
Feeling nothing has lead me to this decision.
What do I mean by that?
Ever since last summer, it’s been a constant ritual of mine to go out to my backyard, listen to music, have a drink, smoke, and think. Recently, however, I’ve noticed something. The ritual hasn’t really changed, but the motivation behind it has.
I don’t feel anything anymore.
And I mean that in a good way – in the best way possible. The pain is gone. The sadness is gone.
I’ve realized that I’m no longer grieving. My father, my breakup, my cheating.
The grief has gone.
I’ve accepted.
I’m at peace.
I’m balanced.
And that is such a damn good feeling to have.
Fine, but strange.
I’m not used to this.
I’m not used to feeling even.
The rituals I have created to help me process and manage the pain are have now become the rituals I perform to simply unwind. It is now a ritual of relaxation, a ritual to enjoy simple pleasures.
I still think.
I still ruminate.
I still take mental and spiritual inventory. I practice being in the now, being self aware.
I’ve started smoking pipe tobacco.
I love it.
It suits my contemplative lifestyle, my fetish for collecting objects with I can physically interact with. But it is also a way for me to stay connected to my past – my dad used to smoke pipes. So it’s a ritual with a spiritual aspect, and I need those practices in my life.
It was during this time, when I was taking mental inventory and feeling at peace that I was able to pinpoint other, much smaller, but no less significant areas of stress and anxiety in my life. It was in that state that I was able to itemize the personal relationships in my life.
I’ve been striving to achieve peace. Now I have it. And it’s allowed me emotional distance and clarity of thought.
My life has been a constant struggle to balance a life of solitude with a life filled with having relationships with people whom I always feel I need to validate my life to, with whom I seek constant stimulation from.
I’m tired of that.
I’m tired of trying to impress people.
I’m tired of trying to actively have people in my life who don’t really want to be there.
I’m tired of trying to show people all the good about me that they don’t even have the eyes to see.
I’m tired of having people in my life who feel the need to remind how they don’t have to be here, how they could be doing other things – that their spending time with me is a sacrifice their making.
Who the hell says that to another human being?
Because I never have.
I’ve given my time up freely. I’ve accepted people into my life as is: broken, whole, mental illnesses or physical illnesses. I’ve accepted them because I’ve enjoyed their company.
And I don’t feel that any friendship should come with an asterisk, or with micromanagement. I don’t tell people to stop telling me about Zodiac signs, because I don’t believe in that. I don’t tell people to act this way when they themselves act that way.
I don’t tell my friends how to live their lives – I make suggestions. I’ll bring up the subject – but that’s only if they constantly vent about something in their lives. I tell people how to live their lives as a general statement more on a social media post than I ever have in a one on one personal relationship. And I do that to provoke thought.
And after the life I’ve lived, the mistakes I’ve made, the damage I’ve done, I know that I am no one to tell someone how to live. I can offer advice, that’s all.
I’m tired of trying to make friends I don’t really want and I’m tired of trying to impress or get the attention of women I don’t really care about.
So they’re out.
Gone.
I’ve deleted, unfollowed, disconnected everyone who isn’t important to me, who hasn’t made my life better.
Is that cold, heartless? I don’t think so.
I’m not a fool, nor am I delusional.
I know that anyone that I’ve cut out will be as glad to be rid of me as I am of them. I know that anyone I’ve cut out already has too much going in their lives where they will barely notice my passing. Or if they do, they’ll get over it soon. I know no one I’ve met depends on me.
I know that no one I’ve met would be devastated by my absence. Because most of the people I’ve met and have formed any sort of bond of friendship with since my father passed away have been in their mid-twenties. Any twenty year old is not going to be all broken up by what at best would be considered casual friendships.
Even one whom I considered my best friend for a time, but with her unchecked depression, I would invariably be the one she would dump on. She would tell me not to send her memes on my being a Gemini – I mean flat out text me back, “I don’t believe in that. Stop sending me that.” She would always feel the need to remind how busy she was, and that she didn’t have to be here in my life.
I’m sorry, but who the hell is anyone to tell anyone that they can’t do the little things they do because it’s part of who they are?
Don’t check me like that. I don’t correct your spelling. I don’t tell you not to parrot your college professors – or at least not on the daily. You are as you are and I accept you as you are. Isn’t that real friendship?
I definitely do not need people like that in my life.
I’m sorry, but I feel only two should have the right to correct me – and that’s my mother and my mate – and she was neither, so I forced her out of my life.
I felt nothing when I cut her off, no grief, no sadness, no regret. Actually, I felt good, I felt light. I felt free. Now what does that tell you?
There are some people who I’ve remained on good terms with. People who I would like to have friendships with in the future, if possible. But these are relationships that have been maintained at a constant temperature, with people who are more even-tempered.
But right now, all I feel is the need to put myself first.
I’m still working on being me.
I’m still working on solidifying the relationships I’ve already had with the people who have been in my life. I have my relationship with my oldest brother and his partner. I have my relationship with my mother. I have my relationship with my best friend all the way back since our elementary school days who just had a child. I haven’t visited yet, and he expects me too. I need to prepare myself to be more of a presence in his and his son’s life – which he also expects.
Then there’s the relationship with my ex-girlfriend.
I reconnected with her. Things between us aren’t a hundred percent, but it’s the best they’ve been since we fell apart. The space and distance and boundaries I’ve set have helped. We’ve talked. We both know that we may never have the same relationship before. We may never be able to get back together as a couple at all. There’s still so much to work out before that, and our lives are still so different. But I do want her in my life.
I love her.
I always will.
Having her and her daughters as some part of my life is important to me. And after all that has happened, I’ll take whatever I can get.
I’ll be in their lives in whatever way she’s comfortable with – even if that means she doesn’t. It’s her call. After everything, she’s earned that right.
It’s worth it to me. It’s my decision, and it’s a decision that I choose to make, and it’s a decision that I make on a daily basis. And I’ll change it if it’s not beneficial to me, if it hurts me more than helps me.
Who I keep in my life, who I cut off – it’s my choice.
I decide.
And if I no longer see any value or benefit for me, then I’ll cut you off.
I can do that, because it’s my life.
I can do that, because I’ve wasted too much of my time on people who just used me.
I can do that, because I know that I’ve either given, done, or tried something to make that person’s life better.
I have given them something of worth, of value. I’ve given, not taken.
And at least I announce it.
I’m not a coward, some indifferent person who simply ghosts you – that’s simply inhuman.
Every relationship begins with an introduction, so if that relationship must end, then there must be a farewell.
It’s the geometry of life – circles and lines.
I believe in closure.
The equations of relationships, the balance of my life.
Everything must be equalized, calibrated, on the scale of my life.
It’s what allows me to sleep at night, free of guilt, remorse, or what ifs.
I’ve put good karma out in the world. Now, some might say that karma will leave me alone in the end, that karma will have people I care about leave me on a dime, without a word, for the actions that I’m doing in the present.
That’s fine. It’s been done to me – plenty of times. But if they leave me, then they weren’t really good for me in the first place, were they?
If I’m left alone, good, I prefer solitude – especially now that I know who I am and that I’ve learned how to enjoy it.
Life’s all math, isn’t it?
It’s all odds and percentages and additions and subtractions.
Risky behaviors done repeatedly increase your chances of an early and ugly end.
Positive behaviors and habits increase your chances of a longer life.
Then there are those random one thousand-to-one occurrences – like car crashes, terrorist attacks, mass shootings – that come out of nowhere and in a few second’s time rip your world to shreds.
Funny how numbers rule and determine our outcomes.
Odds.
Percentages.
Additions.
Subtractions.
Age groups.
Demographics.
Time, told in seconds, minutes, hours, with it’s ironclad multiples of sixty.
Days, months, and years – dictated by the Gregorian calendar, with its multiples of 12.
Your geographic location – longitude and latitude.
Some numbers we can’t escape.
Others we can proactively do something about, to change our predicted outcomes.
So, yeah, in a way, I am being calculating.
And if you consider that cold-hearted, then I’ll own it.
I play the long game. I follow my in-the-moment, short term-gut intuitions to increase my chances of the best long term life I can have.
Because in the end, that’s all we really do have, isn’t it – ourselves?
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