It’s been slow.

I’ve had lots of time on my hands today to think about the past 24 hours, and what they did to me. I ran out of emotions towards the end, and that’s probably a good thing. Sometimes I feel that emotions are too calculating, and only when you stop them dead in their tracks can you truly begin to feel. But who really knows?

So, I’ve spent a lot of time on dooce today. She’s funny, more often hilarious, and incredibly smart. I adore people who carry the gift of written thought, because so many people can’t get there, at least in the intellectual sense.

…but that’s another story for another time.

She wrote an entry almost six years ago, before my mind could really process anything of my current future, and I just finished reading it. Almost as though it were meant for me, she says:

“… And if there is one thing I learned about life in that relationship it’s that if you enable certain people to take advantage of you, if you allow certain people to exploit your good will, they totally fucking will.”

It’s true. Every single word of that is true, and my coping mechanism this whole time has been DENIAL. Because in so many ways, in so many parts, that sentence doesn’t belong to me. I don’t own that, though I can certainly understand, but that isn’t what defines me now. Or the situation that continues.

That could be the DENIAL speaking again, but I’d like to think I know my heart a little better. God, I fucking hope so.

I have been so concerned, so involved with the emotions of those around me. I have been playing those ridiculous games with those ridiculous people that I cannot stand, and for what? What is at stake here? What’s left to win?

I’m not sure about that one.

I am only sure about one thing right now, and that is what it’s going to cost me to continue this game. Me.

Everything that I like about myself, everything that I appreciate in my personality, all of it will be gone. I have turned jealous, vengeful, snarky, and most of all: hateful. Most people would never notice it, but I do. In every single flare of my temper, unpublished journal entry, rude conversation, and angry flow of tears….I notice it. I am not a game player, I don’t desire to “run with the big boys”, and I certainly don’t relish a victory after being pulled through ringer. Who can be happy when their favorite jeans are grass stained, their wrist is probably broken, and their right eye is most certainly going to be black and swollen tomorrow?

A means to an end? Nothankyou. I don’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve me.