Feelings in 2016

Let’s talk about them.
At times, I lie awake and am just overcome with certain sensations. Feelings of powerlessness are overwhelming at times. I remember, in sixth grade, I went to a party at the indoor pool of a classmate. It was for everybody in the grade, which is the only reason I was invited. I was wearing the white attempted tie-dye t-shirt, an art project from when SCS did a watered down Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat. I usually wore that shirt whenever I swam. I was fat, and I knew it. Somehow it helped. I still remember telling the kids at Cranbrook summer camp that I wore it in the water because the water was cold. Well, anyway, the swim party went well, I got excited, and I started to feel happy and confident. I tried to take the shirt off while I was in the water, but it was clingy and it got stuck to my face. I was in the deep end at the time. I now had my arms trapped, and the shirt was so tight against my head that whenever I tried to breathe, I just got wet shirt instead of air. It was horrifying and I was terrified that I would die. It was a feeling of horrifying helplessness that overwhelmed everything else. Anger at the lifeguard for not coming. Sadness at my imminent death. But mostly, just that sense that I was totally and utterly helpless, made more embarrassing by how idiotic the situation was. Who dies from taking a shirt off?
That’s the feeling I get often, at night, and one of the reasons I can’t sleep. That’s the closest comparison I can make. I think about my life and my decisions and my failings and failures, and I’m suddenly that fat boy, dying like an idiot in somebody else’s pool. Nothing to be done but to die in shame, ending everything through idiotic decisions. That’s how I feel.
I look at my life and all of the hopes, goals, and dreams that I’ve had, and I cannot help but to be ashamed that the only one I managed was the simplest one, and even that took seven years longer than planned. I’ve been going to lose weight every year since fourth grade. I’ve been going to do a lot of things for a long time. There was once a time I did things, even when I didn’t want to anymore, and often when I knew that it was a bad idea. Well, what of it? Those times are gone. I can’t blame it all on 2007, but that seems to be where things shifted. I laughed at scars that never felt a wound. And died in my first scrape.
I feel trapped sometimes. I suddenly realize, in bursts of terrifying insight, just how alone, exposed, and isolated I am. I’m six thousand miles from home. I couldn’t afford to go even if I wanted to. And I’ve got a contract that holds me here. I can’t go back for a lot of reasons, but, it’s terrifying to know that I actually can’t. I worry for my family. To a lesser extent my friends. Yet, this is, in some ways, a good reminder that even if I were there, I’d be powerless. That also increases the sense of helplessness. I feel nostalgia, love, and sadness for mum. But she’s miserable to be around. She can’t be helped because she won’t realize anything. I feel so bad for dad, and I wish we were close, but that ship sailed long ago, and mum made sure I was clinging to her apron strings at the time anyway.
I’m often sad that Amanda is with somebody, and that he’s not me, but I don’t know what good that would do. I even wonder about other girls, sometimes. I’m getting lonely, and I want a woman. I realize that’s a dangerous attitude. I worry. I may fall too hard and too fast for the next lass I meet, and that’s not good, but I haven’t had a person that I really cared about feel the same for me since I wrecked things with Amanda, for good, two years ago. Sure, I’ve dated since then, but not counting the two weeks with Amber, no other relationship meant a damned thing. And the two weeks with Amber barely counts.
I feel worried that I’ll never find a woman. I’m stuck in Japan, and, although now I’m studying more, my language skills require me to find a woman with at least passable English. Not good when there are few women in general. My physical appearance rules out even more. There are a few Tinder girls who seem interested, but I can’t imagine showing up looking how I do. I don’t know that I necessarily want a wife, I’d love a short term thing, but the terror of my increasing years is gripping me all the time. I think about turning thirty and want to cry.
I think about turning thirty and want to cry. It’s overwhelming. I’m turning thirty and my life remains largely unchanged from how it’s been for the last six years. Different country, to be sure, and in a bit better of a mental state, a bit, but, really, I’m just what I’ve been. I’m trapped in a dead end job with no real prospect of internal advancement. The only person who can pull me ahead right now is me, and that’s a terrifying prospect, especially when I haven’t bet on myself in years. Were I religious, I’d pray to die.
But, then, there’s the next point. I feel tired. I feel exhausted. I feel like there’s nothing left. Sometimes. Most of the time. And in those times, the only thing that sounds appealing is death, not because of the various emo sensations that cling to me, but simply because I’m tired. I’m very tired. Maybe I haven’t fought off external things like some of the rest, but I’ve spent a long time fighting myself, and, the problem is, that’s always the toughest enemy. But somehow, for some reason, things seem to be coming together lately. Maybe it’s Star Trek. Maybe it’s the fear that turning 30 is bringing. Maybe it’s the divine intervention I’ve prayed for for the last nine years. I don’t know. But I’m wanting a fight. I’m wanting a struggle. I’m wanting to prove myself. I’m wanting to look back on my past with scorn instead of my future. I’m ready to be so much more. I feel such fire, such drive sometimes. It amazes and astounds me. I just don’t know what else to do or how to describe it. I’ve got to hold on, and, for whatever reason, I’m starting to think that maybe I will. That I will. And that’s an odd feeling indeed.
So many of my entries have been about my feelings for other people. I don’t have a lot of those anymore. I don’t have a lot of people. What’s left to me is me. And that’s a more difficult relationship to consider.