Stupid Mistakes
Posted on 29th May 2007 by antuan goodwinIt’s called a Freudian Slip. You’re talking freely. Your mind wanders for a moment and the truth slips out.
Yesterday, I was talking to an old friend, describing my situation and out of my mouth the word “co-dependent” popped. Co-dependent is pretty close to the perfect word to describe my emotional state. Sometimes the truth just pops out of nowhere. Psychologists use this Freudian Slips to gain insight into their patients’ subconscious minds. I think it’s fascinating how a little slip of the tongue, the briefest moment of honesty, can put your whole life into perspective.
Since I’ve moved back to Augusta, I’ve a little depressed. I can see it happening, but I’m not really sure what to do about it. Realizing that I’m a co-dependent person has put things into perspective and shed some light on a recurring problem in my life, loneliness. Loneliness will make you do stupid things. Well, maybe not YOU specifically… but loneliness definitely has made ME do some stupid things.
In no particular order:
Stupid Thing Number 1: Serial Monogamy
This isn’t really an issue that I’ve had to deal with since I’ve been in Augusta. It’s actually more of a theme for the rest of my life. Like I said, I’m a pretty co-dependent person. I’m working on changing that and I see that I’m getting better now that the issue has been spotlighted. The most obvious manifestation of this issue is in my tendency to jump from relationship to relationship. I’m a bit of a serial-monogamist, if you will.
I’m always falling in love with someone. I’ll end a relationship and fall right into another. Everything is love-love-love with me. You wouldn’t think this is so bad, but the true issue is that I’m not really capable of being alone. I never really know until I’m in the thick of things whether I’m in a relationship because I really love the gal or if I just didn’t want to be left alone in my apartment. I think this is why most of my relationships seem to sputter out at about the 6 month mark.
Living in Augusta, I haven’t had the opportunity to jump to a new relationship, so I’ve been stranded in the land of the single. It’s been an interesting experience. Before this year, the longest I’d gone as a single guy was 2 months. That goes all the way back to the 8th grade. My current stretch of singleness is 14 months. It’s been… interesting.
There have been stretches of depression and many moments of clarity. I see that I’ve become more self-reliant as the year progresses, but there have been moments of weakness as well. Such as Stupid Thing Number 2: my random preoccupation with my ex-fiance last month.
Stupid Thing Number 2: Olive Obsession
One thing that Olive always said made her insecure about our relationship is that she felt like she was the backup girlfriend. While that wasn’t always necessarily true, I can see what she means and how she can feel like that. I usually started dating Olive when I was on the rebound or when I was feeling lonely… so maybe she was right.
Look at my record, I dated Yeller, then Olive. Then Shell, then Olive. Then Muse, then Olive. You see the pattern. This wasn’t particularly fair to poor Olive. Eventually this lead to my short-lived engagement to Olive. When I found out that Olive was pregnant recently, I kinda handled it improperly. The lesson to be learned here is “don’t blog while angry”.
I don’t know why I was even concerned with Olive. The fact of the matter was that I knew that Olive and I could never be more than friends, if even that. I’d told her that myself just a month or so prior. I don’t know why I was upset about it. I think maybe I was so starved for attention that I just took that opportunity to make her issues about me. It was a pretty selfish thing to do. I’ve gotta work on that.
Stupid Thing Number 3: Self-Imposed Isolation
The dumbest thing about loneliness and depression is that it’s cyclical and self-perpetuating. I’ve gotten to the point where I could sit in a room full of people and still feel alone. I’d sit on the pew at church (of all places) surrounded by people who’ve known me for a decade or more and still feel like no one knew who I was or cared to find out.
By not speaking to people, or looking like I wanted to be spoken to, I was giving people the impression that I wanted to be left alone. So, they did. People stopped speaking and going out of their way to chat with me. This all but reaffirmed my beliefs that no one wanted to talk to me, which lead to more loneliness and further isolation. See? Self-perpetuating.
It’s dumb, I know. I’d ask people for advice and they’d say, “just go talk to people”. Yeah, right. Like it’s that easy. Turns out, it is. But you don’t see that when your feelings of depression and loneliness are being validated by your own actions.
I’ve been working on being more social. Not that I think that adding more people to my life is going to solve my problems, but isolating myself from others isn’t going to help either.
Stupid Thing Number 4: Throwing a Pity Party
My first year out of school, I was supposed to be making $40k as a big shot graphic designer, living in a big city, in love with a pretty girl and generally successful. Instead, I make about $25k as a lowly production artist and I live alone in Augusta facing mounting debt. It’s kind of depressing. I’ve never really been the kind of person to hang around losers. So I also have to deal with watching my friends become more successful and independent by the day while I try to ignore the calls pouring in from debt collectors. Actually, it’s very depressing.
I try not to compare my life to those around me. I understand that everyone is on their own path, but I can’t help but feel sometimes that I made a mistake somewhere in the past and that I’m no longer equal to my peers. I know that whole thing about the grass always being greener and I truly am happy for my friends and their successes, but sometimes it’s really hard not to be a hater. I can see how a person could adopt a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality.
Mistakes Can Do Serve a Purpose
All of that being said, I don’t believe that things happen by coincidence. I believe that God lets things happen for a reason and that there’s something I’m supposed to learn from the struggle. Since I’ve been in this town, I’ve had to deal with a lot of crap and done some really stupid things, but I believe that things happen for a reason and that in coming out of these situations, I’m a stronger, better person.
