You know, despite all the varying emotions and mental states that I have experianced over the last three days, I would have to say right now that I am feeling happy and liberated. There has been a lot of shadow surrounding me over the last few months and I am quite sure now, sitting in my cousins house at 2am on this warm november morning, that 90% of those shadows were in my head.
One of my friends told me not a week ago that only I could make myself happy. I immediately threw that suggestion to the dogs, knowing it as a fact to be untrue, but on further thought of the matter over the last couple of days, I find that it may indeed have merit. I think the skeptisism that I show over such ludicrous idea's has something to do with my constant inner need to be serving other people. I'll admit this works wonders if content is as far as you want to go in life, but the way I see it now is a little different to my opinion earlier in the week. I'll explain the change of heart a little later but for now lets address the problem of the present. I am the only one who can make me happy, but thats a mental thing more than a situational thing. My friend was correct in a sense, but the context in which I was viewing her statement was incorrect. If only I had opened my eyes and stopped being so bloody blind eh? Oh well, small steps people.
So I got a chance to actually sit and talk to Jarrod this weekend. It wasn't for near as long as I would have liked, but we got a chance to sort through a few things and I now realise that so much of the distance that I have created around the two of us is totally unnessisary. He and I are still very good friends, but this protective bubble I have around myself to ward away pain seems to have done the exact opposite in this case and hedged out someone who really could have helped me a few times when I really needed it. I think that I underestimated Jarrod in the very least, and I think it's time for me to step up and give him the credit he deserves.
Actually, I don't think I'm giving enough people enough credit. I need to open my eyes again and see whats going on around me. Focusing on my problems isn't healthy and I need to look around for other things to do when my personal life gets too tough. Thats not to say I can just ignore whats going on behind the scenes, which is unrealistic and a little stupid, I just mean that constantly focusing on such negative things is driving me insane.
So I laid out my problem to Jarrod, the problem our little triangle is having at the moment, and the simplicity in which he attacked the issue is something I am going to respect with him. Although he as yet does not know the full story (or the full extent) of our little cabal, his advice was faultless. It's something I am going to have to think about first.
I know it's what I need, but at the moment, that is conflicting with what I want, and I need to work out why, and then which one is stronger.This weekend has proved so much to me, and writing it down tonight is both possible and tempting, but sleep is something I need to think about at some stage as well. At the end of today, I was so worried about what was going to happen when I got back to Leeton, and I sit here in the dark knowing still that it will likely be uncomfortable for me, but this is something that needs to be addressed and I am feeling better about addressing it now.
I got a chance to be truly alone for the first weekend in a very long time, away from the influences of my two dear friends, and it's something that I wasn't looking forward too, nor was it something I handled particularly well at first.
Loneliness turned into worry, which morphed into fear, which trasmuted into paranoia, then melted into resignation, all before I got a chance to pin down what the hell was going on. As usual, I read far too far into everything, made all the wrong assumtions and felt horrible for most of the weekend, but guess what, guess where the positive is in all of this. Here I am, telling you all of this now, and not one person helped me reach this point. I know I'm overreacting now, and I can reign it in before it hurts anyone. For the first time in a while, I managed to keep my stupid little paranoia to myself and avert a lot of the damage that could have been caused by it. A few messages did let slip, but I was strong enough to dodge a potentially fatal phonecall, and in the end, I am sure that everything worked out for the best.
This of course brings me to the title of the post, The Warrior Within. I've been very worried over the last few months that I was losing the ability to fight my own battles, and had accepted to a point that I needed other people to help me through tough times from now on. Unforunately, this frame of thought is dangerous, for there are times when even the most astute of friends cannot help you, so
losing the ability to defend oneself is a worrying, daunting and belittling problem, something I couldn't adequately explain to anyone. I am just so lucky I managed to find the skils within to fight the darkness this weekend, I found my sword once more, and realised that I never really lost it, I just wasn't looking for it.
Which brings me back to the issue of being blind. This is, of course, very figurative, for my vision is as fine as ever, but it's where my focus lies that is where the real problem I am facing at the moment. I am focused on the actions of two people. I love these people like no-one on this earth a love that is something that I have always wanted to experiance, but this love is dangerous for a number of reasons. I do not feel this feeling in return from either of them, which is something that worries me, although things may change with time. Furthermore, despite the fact that I have such deep feelings for both of these people, a problem ensues from the fact that I am not focusing on the right things.
I am focusing on actions rather than on people. I fell in love with the people, yet I am making my emotional connection with thier actions. Making a connection with two people who do not share your feelings leads to nothing but heartache, and I need to refocus so I am once again watching the people, not the actions.
I used to think I was such a wonderful actor, with all the skills I would need to make it big in the world. It was such a gorgeous dream, to star in a movie, to be famous, to make hundreds of millions of people all around the world laugh at the antics of a character I effortlessly mistrated. Such a dream is over for me now, with reality bringing all the quirks that it always does, but I have other dreams now,
and I feel like I've been sitting in concrete armour as the sands of time flow around and up over me, unmoving and unchanging, uunable to act. I am a re-actor. I use what other people give me to construct what I do in any given situation. I only make decisions in the more dire of consequences and when I do it is usually who do defer to. This is a fascinating trait to discover in oneself, especially when one of my secret motivators is the aquisition of power. I am a behind the scenes leader, preferring to use non-descript methods to acheive my goals. I am only just noticing however, that using such methods rarely acheives what I want it to.
It's time for me to start actually looking at what I want and making an active effort to work towards such a goal. There are two people in this world that I want more than anything in the world and for the last four months, I've been sitting there, waiting for them to come to me, I have never once communicated in a clear and concise manner what it was I wanted from either of them, and if I don't do it soon, I think I'm going to lose the chance with them both forever. I'm scared of what such an action will bring, but it's something I deserve and it's something they deserve and in the end it's got to happen. Sooner rather than later in my opinion.
Lastly, to sign off on this mega-long post, I am going to make a formal, if quiet apology. To all the people who I shut out while I gazed hopelessly at something I couldn't have, you have my deepest and heartfelt apologies. You fine folks know who you are, some of you read these journals, some of you don't, but some way or another, you will hear from me to get the apology you deserve.
Sometimes the pursuit of happiness leaves you further from it than you were at the start. Sometimes it's nessisary for you to take charge again and refocus on the things in life that will remain unchanged. I needed to learn this, and I'm so sorry that you all had to pay for it. I'm not just blaming myself, but I had a lot to do with it. Things are on the mend though, you have my word on that. I cannot be of use to anyone as anything until I fix myself. Finally I realise that. Thankyou to all of you who stuck with me through this time, and a fond farewell to those of you who did not. It's such a shame to part on terms that were self-inflicted, but thats the bitter-sweet beauty of life. And onwards the dance does go...
I leave you all with a quote that does not hail from my usual sourcebook, and a fond farewell for keeping up with me on this monumental post. I hope you can see a change in the mental structure of these arguements now, I feel like so much has happened in the space of two days, I just can't wait to see if it actually changes my life. One can only wait and see.
"To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains;"
-Mary Pettibone Poole
Stay safe my friends, and know that as long as I draw breath I will continue to fight, and now, once again, I join the fight for myself.
FallenPhoenix
