From one dramatic person to hopefully one I've managed to distract.
I.R.D- also known as Inevitable Relational Demise. It is when an overwhelmed person underwhelms the other person and eventually no longer has a connection with someone close to them because sh*t happens.
It's evident I made this up. But this creativity- this outlet that I use and the very one you're reading right now- is the only way to capsize my frustration in hopes to drown it with exactly that: hope. And also faith.
I have an endless amount of faith applied to the future. I know, for certain, that there is going to be a relationship (regardless of what type) that I can keep. We've already succeeded in keeping at least one relationship that has been long term. Whether it be a parental figure, or someone who is your biological sibling or a person you consider one. You have family. And I know, somewhere inside, that family is enough. In fact, I am so comforted with that thought, I am starting to calm down as I write this.
I'm trying to conjure up what I have left of the frustration that is cooped up from before. Come to think of it, it fluctuates so often, it takes me forever to write an emotional entry such as this one. But, I succeed in my own way.
I don't let my writing come to a demise, but I let my relationships with certain people do.
I have one person in mind. It's debatable whether or not they'll stick to their word and read this. But if you are, I have one thing to say to you.
I hope you're happy.
I was going to choose "thank you", but I went with the phrase above, because judging by who my audience is, it can be interpreted in so many ways. It can be rude, finite, a prime example of I.R.D. It can further dig this hole that I've managed to put myself in again. Or it can be respectful, progressive, and pure.
I mean it in both ways.
There is no reason to end our relationship. You said it yourself; I am saying it now. But for some reason it does. And I know why.
Our energy doesn't coincide; we see one another as nuisances and we never want to come off like you actually care. I stopped talking to a close friend of mine (I act like this stuff is set in stone) and it's had a toll on me. I'm scared to tell this person how I feel.
Not because of their reaction, but because I'm scared of mine.
I don't want to hold a relationship up, and feel like I am the only person doing so. I want people to take me seriously. I want to stop feeling like my lungs are collapsing at the first sign of a distant "hello" instead of a hug.
It's hard to find someone who is okay with reassuring you, and you're okay with reassuring them.
So when they don't message as much, or they leave your messages dangling, or they don't even look your way with intentions that aren't cruel, it's easy to assume cruelty and apply the cruelty to their actions. I keep thinking there's a reason why this person isn't seeing me for the person they claimed to want to know, but what if there isn't? That petrifies me as well.
Why can't you stay. I end that as a statement and not as a question because this pent of frustration is coming again. It's tiring to always be angry, and to be angry about things that aren't depleting at my health or aren't moving in a fast pace.
I'm not angry at things that deserve to have anger harvested towards them.
What makes matters specific and unique to mine, is that this person was having a conversation with one of their friends and the talk was about being cold to those close to them. My friend legitimately said, "I've walked past a [person] and acted like I didn't know [them]." And for the person to just say that, it was always welded in my mind. I always had the fear of being that person they just walked by. Of not being close to this person one of these days.
Those days arrived way before I expected them to.
Am I okay with that? That's a different story. Am I plagued by it? I don't try to be.
I told them before that I wanted to distance myself, because I knew that inevitably there would be a demise in our relationship. I will take your distance to heart, I will revert back to closing myself off, and I won't ever see you again once I graduate or once I move on. They asked me why it had to be that way, and how did I know. I told them it's happened before. Then they told me that it doesn't have to be that way.
But then they countered their own words, and did exactly what I had desperately attempted to not fear. They treated me like the person they just discarded, they put their attention on someone who might deserve it, but why didn't I?
Just because I called out their authenticity, invalidating it, I lost someone I thought would be there for at least a while longer.
Our relationship was diagnosed with I.R.D long before expected. But I wasn't proved wrong.
I'm still trying to sort this I.R.D out. As I grow older, it's become less of an issue, or I've gotten more used to it. I'm worried.
I'm worried that I won't have any more energy to apply to new friendships.
It's an aching feeling, but I'm starting to get to the point where I need it medicated. Where I want to avoid it, until it swells and starts appearing in loneliness and desperation.
I stand there; facing the shower head; feeling the water at an odd temperature; understanding now how the water masks any type of negative feelings I have. How the water protects me from letting the world see how drastic of a toll expectations have taken on my everything.
The inevitability of this all is what comforts me. If this self deprecation exists, so does the capability of me putting myself out there. Because somehow, somewhere, I still believe that I'm my own type of beautiful. How could something be true without the false?
The good, the bad. The clean, the dirty. The cocky, the humble. The liars, the candor. The intentional, the unintentional.
I.R.D and than I.R.G.
Inevitable Relational Growth, perhaps?
I could live without you, and I can't live without you.
Quality over quantity. That is what I'll leave this with.
[Photo is of my art after the second painting class that I went to. As I've said before, I'm obsessed with hands.I love how much of an outlet or how connective they truthfully are. This is the aftermath of avoiding something I do that I haven't been able to control three times since I've been to college. I survived though, and I was okay. But this is what resulted from my fourth attempt. I got an idea to paint this because of my person that I mention above. They wouldn't grab my hand. It's poetic to me. And the lyrics painted across the canvas are from a song called I Feel Like I'm Drowning. It's by Two Feet. The singer is very ominous and enigmatic about what he is singing, thus the & symbol with the ellipses. He leaves room for thoughts. And that is another fact that can be revealed about me: my drowning won't be something that I always will be going through. I can and I will swim through my troubles.]