Well...it's Saturday night, February 24th 2024. If you would have asked five years ago me to predict 1000 different possibilities for where I'd be right now, I wouldn't have even come close to this. I'm in Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm sitting in a room by myself, sitting in the knowledge that the reality I'm in right now is both so far from anything I've ever experienced before AND exactly the same as always.
I sit here, feeling the weight of everything I've done to people I let get close to me. Every time I pushed them away and then realized that I need them and they don't need me so I fought hard to get in their lives. I fought so hard to get back in and then either got insulted by some little thing, put things together that may or may not have actually been what I thought, or I felt the difference between me and them and tried to do what's right for them and distanced again.
Before I thought, "I want to be like these people. I want to emulate them and grow into something like they are and maybe learn how to BE them." Like maybe if I spent enough time around happy whole people, people who have hearts and smart minds and good morals, then maybe it would become my nature. I thought the bad apple could learn to be ripe again.
I learned some things, I grew in ways and I gained an understanding of my mind in ways that took me to a new level in life. Sounds great, right? Sounds almost like I got what I wanted.
The flaw in my plan was that some of the 'bad apple' in me grew into them as well, I hurt their existence and corrupted them in ways I didn't even realize I could. Like an evil seeped into their souls, an evil that never would have had a way in without me. I made them worse people.
I also learned some things about me that changed my world and everyone's understanding of who I am. Most of them walked away from me. They washed their hands of my existence, they realized they were better completely forgetting that I ever was a part of theirs. They made the right choice. I didn't.
Instead of learning from that and realizing I was the curse to their souls, I thought I could get better. I selfishly wanted friends who were strong enough to fight that curse and through life I could learn how to be strong like them and fight this curse too. It took me about seven years to get too selfish and let people in my world again.
I met some people who were the strongest I've ever seen. Long story short...I only found new ways to hurt people, ways I didn't even see coming even when I was in the middle of it. Wasn't what they think, they think I tried to take things from them and use them and pretend I was one of them. I didn't do that, I never lied to them even once. But...
...but I found a way to make their entire world worse without deceit, lies or maliciousness. This 'curse' (me, I'm the curse) put their lives in such a worse place they considered shutting down their life's work. I misspoke many times. I let my emotions lead way too many times, I was too honest almost all the time and I let my absolute unconfidence infest the universe I brought them into until it threatened their life. In a way that statement is metaphorical since I never ACTUALLY threatened them (and I never would, I love them more than probably almost anyone. I'd do anything for them. Anything.) but in some ways I saw a life nearly lost more than once while I was around and when I was not emotionally close, things went back to better again.
Because I am the curse. I am the evil that destroys souls and lives.
Even when I try my hardest to be a help.
Now to be clear, I'm not suggesting doing anything to myself because I don't deserve to just get out while others have been forever changed for the much worse. That's not how I'm going to disrespect those lives, they deserve better and I don't.
I have to walk this earth, probably for many years to come knowing every minute of every day that I met the greatest people, that I hurt them and can't take it back. I have to understand every minute I'm breathing that I broke something in the best people. I didn't break them, because they're better than that, but I broke something in them that I can't undo. I can't apologize them back to being whole, I can't even say one word they'll trust ever again.
So that will be in the front of my mind every minute of every day, in every smile I fake and every good deed I try to dissolve the evil with and every tear I don't shed that I want to. I will keep this pain where others keep joy, and I'll make sure that no one ever has to know this evil ever again. No one deserves to know what it looks like or tastes like or feels like, only me. It's my cross to bear shamefully until my last day...and maybe beyond that too. Alone.
The minute- no, the second I forget this? Others get hurt. I can't take that chance, I can't let anyone in ever again.
Since I'm the only one who will see this, I'll read it whenever I think I might be unintentionally forgetting just how important it is for me to keep anyone I care about from my darkness.
Note to myself: never mistake this with being a good deed. I. Deserve. Nothing.
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