A Tragedian at Heart

A lot of my time--my free, absolute free-from-others time, the time I spend wallowing and dreaming and scheming and apologizing and reminiscing and laughing and thinking--is spent in a state of remorse. Why is that? Sometimes I wonder about what I did, or who I have become, or who I am currently. The mirror is broken, or more accurately, waxed. I see who I am, but not clearly. Without inhibitions, I can look at the reflection and know that this is not what was expected. But nothing is clear. Everything is in question. Why do I feel so bad about who I have become?

Maybe "bad" is too strict. Right now, I am alone--those who would shield me from myself are gone, asleep, and the only suit of armor I can wear is one of my own design. Tonight especially, but hopefully not only tonight, I have been on a crusade to show those that supported me when I was at my most base that they were not wrong. And it can be so easy when they fawn you with compliments and sentiments and thoughts and sentences and words and letters and detritus to agree with them and think "maybe this time things will be different."

And the head hits the pillow and sleep comes, not as a friend in the night, but a burglar to steal you away from your concerns and doubts and misconceptions and maybe one day you'll be the person every one said you'd be. But until then you wake fitfully and toss and turn and what is real then?

I love my friends; my real friends. It's because I know me, you know? I see the marks and scars and imperfections and malformed tumors of the soul that define "Adam M. Robinson" because the "M." is so elegant and part of the facade. They see it, too. They embrace it. They see me at the lowest they could--the person I am every day; the adaptable, charming, smiling, laughing, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake version of whoever this Adam M. Robinson person is--and grab hold. They don't give up. I could never, ever place faith in anything--even something I saw with my own eyes--the way they place faith in me.

It's humbling and confusing and wrong and right and the reason all at once. And it's not fair. I didn't ask for this. My dream was to wake up and change someone, anyone. I want to grab hold of them and shake and scream "You're making a mistake, can't you see?" and push and prod and exacerbate and alienate and be lonesome and go back to the beginning all over again. But no one lets me, because they are bold and strong and wrong, yet cowardly and weak and humanly all the same.

And no one, not one, has given up on me. Not a single person. And it's tragic. I can't move on from it. I see and know myself. But others have this vision, this embodiment of potential, that they actively choose to see. And it creates an imbalance which is infuriating. It forces me to look beyond--beyond me, beyond you, beyond my parents, beyond our ancestors, beyond our ideas, beyond our conceptions of the future--and prepare. I'm not a planner. Every day beyond 25 is a gift and a curse and an anchor and the reason I keep on going. Because everyone who knows me is right, and because I have to prove them wrong. I'm exactly as mundane as expected.

Until an asteroid,
Adam