Tonight I didn't go out out. I went to the beach. I normally leave at around 10pm on Saturdays, so I got in my car and went to Dog Beach in Ocean Beach. Let me remind you... I don't like the ocean. I just wanted to go somewhere. I needed to clear my head. I started walking along the water's edge. One of the reasons I don't like the ocean is because it is so loud.... and so ANGRY sounding. I watched for a while. I tried to remember all the times I had come to the ocean. Whale watches, school trips, hiking trips, Oaxaca Mexico. I realized that despite my aversion to the ocean it had left a huge mark on my life; changes. I walked to the pier and then back. I watched the ocean at the pier for a while and contemplated that the ocean was so angry and it never stopped. Chaos kept rolling; never ending. The waves slowly fizzed out and rolled onto shore and left a mark on the sand.... that with time will eventually lift/evaporate away. My life I guess is kinda like that.
After a while on walking on the waters edge again (mostly to avoid the fire rings with people further up from the tides) I realized I was walking between the chaos of my life and the social life I always wanted. I walked between and was yet so close to both.
I've been very depressed lately. I have been processing a lot of emotions from a year ago. It has hit me kind of hard. My new medication (I'm off Lithium finally!!!!!!) is sedating me (which contrary to popular thought makes things worse) and the intended effects won't kick in until almost October, so I'm kinda going solo here. I feel like one of the only things that I was ever good at, I am so ashamed of. I was really good at something, and I still get compliments on it occasionally. I'm proud of the skill but ashamed at how I acquired it and how I used it. I was prepared to be successful because I practiced almost everyday as a child. Its no thing a child should have to learn. I tried to use it for good and did for a while. Then, I found I could support my self and get off of pretty much living on the streets. I hated it while I was doing it. Yet I miss it terribly..... cuz it made me happy. I was successful, respected, looked up to, better than everyone else, and worth something. It was something that helped others in the long run and respected by powerful people. It was respected, honestly, cuz it is a dirty job. No one wants to do it. Not many can. And I was GOOD AT IT. Top of the line. I was ashamed that I was doing such as low level dirty job but went to sleep proud of myself every night that it I did it and I was one the best! I left willingly. I wanted to move up in the world. I didn't exactly make it.
When you don't have friends and family to give you that worth of a person, your career and your hobbies are almost everything to you. The people in your life mean pretty much everything, even if they are not the healthiest people for you in the world. I admit it... I'm jealous that I'm not mucking it with the best of them in one of the least desirable jobs in this country. I miss the people that were there for you no matter what when it got bad and you for them. Its like the brotherly love you have for your fellow soldiers. We were soldiers of civil service. The kind you don't hear about and spit upon when you do. Hated and respected by all. It comes complete with battle scars, stories, training, commanders and officers, missions and PTSD.
I'm looking for myself. Trying to find myself. My direction. I know where I am and I know who I am. But what am I? What do you do with yourself when you come back from the War and what you have been trained to be doesn't exist in civilian life?
No comments:
Post a Comment