Well, this is a monumental day. Today, I actually have serious thoughts. This will not happen often, so deal with it. Most people write their thoughts in a diary or journal as serious thoughts about their daily lives. I don’t have serious thoughts daily, so it is rare that I would write them here. I am just writing the autobiography/book of my life little by little instead of at the end of my life like most people. If I wrote this at the end of my life, I would forget most of it. Today, I’m going to emote like a normal person. (I’m not a normal person, but I play one in therapy sessions.)
There are several things going on in my life right now beyond my normal artistic projects. (Those are going on, but I’m not talking about those right now. By the way, if I write something non-serious in parentheses, it doesn’t count. And now, the Soap Opera that is my current life continues.) Patti is on the edge these days. She wants to go on vacations (my word) every other weekend. She calls them getaways. If we had large amounts of money or I was on the way toward the job I wanted, I would be fine with this. My real problem is the lack of discussion on the matter. Patti claims we can discuss any of these things. However, she doesn’t seem capable of discussing these things without yelling, which always leads to the end of the discussion. If I try to avoid the end of the discussion by bringing up the yelling, that will end the discussion. This psychotic quagmire of trying to talk to Patti is driving me insane. I love Patti to the very end, but at a certain point I can’t take more without imploding. Unfortunately, I am more logical than she would like and she’s more frantic than I would like.
On Friday, I got into an argument with another driver. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did more than just flipping the guy (and his “woman”) off. I was at my highest frustration level and went too far. Patti was in the car with me, and she got extremely scared. I said I was sorry, but I knew it didn’t mean anything because the damage was already done. She didn’t talk to me the rest of the night and wouldn’t have talked to me the next day unless I talked to her first. I’ve often wondered how long she would remain distant toward me without me saying anything to her. I’ve never found out. I always talk first. Karen (my co-worker) said the other day she can’t stand conflict. I’m in the same boat. Patti will never admit it, but she would rather be in conflict about some issues than actually face them. Don’t get me wrong, there are about 112 things I avoid doing daily. One-on-one conversations aren’t one of them.
My parents raised me and did a pretty good job (considering what they had to work with). I raised myself, in part, to be an honest and open person (not that my parents had nothing to do with it). I think you decide whether you’re going to be honest or not. I never saw the point in hiding things, not sharing information I know, or trying to fool others. It seemed like a waste of time and was too difficult to keep track of where the truth ended and the lies began. I have a hard enough time dealing with real life without having to keep track of a fantasy world of my own creation.
These days, I feel like I’m lying all the time. There are certain things I don’t tell the people at work, certain things I’m not allowed to tell Patti, and other things t I keep from my family. I don’t like this. The only thing I can do is to be completely honest and deal with the consequences. The consequences will be awkward conversations. I hate awkward conversations. Just about every conversation I have is an awkward conversation. At some point, though, I need to deal with my fears and just live through them. At the beginning, that’s about all you can do is live through them. Eventually, you become more skilled at conversations, etc., and it becomes easier if not actually fun. At times, I have those conversations, but I need to force myself to do it more.
(Future note: I wrote here about a situation happening in my life that involved Patti and several other family members. It was too honest and involved too many specific details about other people, so I took it out. I was glad to get it off my chest in writing, but it was too personal to share with the world at large. I kept the non-specific parts in which I only talked about what I was dealing with because of the situation. The next paragraph is replacing two much larger paragraphs.)
I am dealing with a series of circumstances that I have no one to talk to about. Karen at my work knows about many of the circumstances because she’s nosy (I kid) and is a disinterested party who I can go to when I can’t go to anyone else. I am the lucky winner of all the knowledge. I get to talk to the separate people knowing what I know, but not saying anything about some of it to some people. All I know is I’d rather not be in the middle. I know, when I’m rich and own an animation studio, these problems will not go away. In fact (joy of joys), they might get worse. I’m dealing with them and that’s all I can do.
I know I could just not talk to any of these people and have a few days of bliss. After a while, though, I would want to share my joys with someone and there would be no one to share them with. Also, I think most of the people I know are pretty good people. I pick the people I know out of a select group. I talk to very few people. If I have talked to you, you are special. (Essentially, if I haven’t talked to you, you are a piece of crap. You’ll notice, these sentences are in parentheses. That makes them immune from seriousness.) I need to talk to the people I know more and not less. Less is bad. More is good. Nothing is terrible and everything is too much. I will just jump back into the shades of gray that is my life.
I’m done emoting right now. Tomorrow, I will talk less of seriousness and more of weird stuff. Actually, tomorrow is going to be a pretty busy day, so I probably won’t have time to write at all. Today, Karen is gone, so I have time to talk to myself. The next time I write my thoughts, I promise to be stupid again.
(Future note: Astute readers may have noticed the date of this Thoughts paper and know the significant event that happens on September 11, 2001. You are probably already guessing that I did not write about stupid things. You would be right. In fact, I didn’t write at all that day. The next Thoughts paper will be my thoughts on 9/11, but was written on September 13. This Thoughts paper is actually longer than my thoughts on 9/11. Make of that what you will.)
Thoughts from Life 
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