How Am I Doing – 30/04/2023
[EDIT: 3.35pm 01/05/2023 – Originally a text file on my desktop, I have put it here.]
Not doing great, if I’m being honest. Still get sad, but now am feeling more and more removed and cynical and untrusting of others. Email from Cathie didn’t help. She makes me FEEL like I want to care, like I want to get closer to her. But then I remember all the times she’s made me feel like I did something wrong, like I am/was somehow wrong.
She just never missed a chance to remind me of that. The whole time Jo was there in her house, it would be Jo saying “Wasn’t he just wonderful!” or “Oh, what a cute little guy!” and Cathie would always, ALWAYS follow with “Oh, he was no angel!” in her firm voice.
Man, fuck that. I was a good fucking kid. And what the fuck did she know about it anyway? Did she ever pick me up from school for being naughty? Did my dad? Did either of them sit in a Parent-Teacher Conference and have to hear about anything awful I’d done?
What did I ever do to HER? I was stuck at her place for hours, days sometimes, with no other kids to play with and nothing to fucking do. I was stoked when I got to play on the computer, but the “Emergency Teleport” button was the space bar, and it was quite far away from the arrow pad that moved the little space ship. So when an asteroid was about to smash me, I had to quickly reach across and try and hit that space bar to teleport. It sounded hard, because space bars make slightly more noise than any other key.
Did she come in and politely ask me not to bang on the keyboard because computers are expensive? Did she come in and ask me why I’d banged on the keyboard? Nope, just a medium roar from the next room, “DON’T BANG ON THE KEYBOARD.”
I got one warning. One. If it happened again, in any manner, I was kicked off the computer for the rest of that visit and the entirety of the next one. For hitting the space key too hard. Because I was trying to emergency teleport.
But she never knew that, because she never cared. She never showed any interest in anything I did, ever. She never came to a concert, nor a football game (not even the ones in her town). I was shoved in the corner of her house and expected to play quietly. The toys there never got better as the years went by and I was absolutely, categorically NOT allowed in Jamel’s room in the converted attic. I was one told I could play with her brand-new Rubik’s cube and I got so close to solving one side but I just couldn’t figure it out. When I saw that the stickers were basically layers of plastic laying on the squares, I got my fingernail under one and it came off clean. Then the other one did too, so I swapped ’em. I felt guilty and stupid, but then forgot about it.
Jamel, being brilliant, came home and took one look at it.
“Did you swap the stickers?”
I wanted to lie. “Yes.” I hung my head.
“K, don’t… do that again.” She was pissed and went all quiet.
I wasn’t allowed to play with her stuff ever again. Not even shit she’d outgrown that sat in bags or boxes in the spare room. That stuff was for other people, promised to other kids. Not me.
Fuck I hated going to Cathie’s. And she never came to ours. Stepped foot in our house once in 1988 when we bought Denny’s truck and gave him a Going Away Party before he left for Perth. Other than that, I think she was there briefly when I graduated, but I don’t really remember that either.
So yeah, I’m a bit… sensitive these days. And I’m feeling quite bitter at anyone in my family. I still can’t believe Becky’s post. That was such shit and made me feel like complete shit. They’re all such shit, my family. Why are so many people such shit? *I* don’t think *we* are shit. I fucking love my little family. They’re wonderful people and I think they’re the best around.
Anyway. I’m not doing great. Pretty sensitive to things. Pretty sad sometimes, melancholic, then overly-sensitive. Trying so hard not to be too bitter, to be to reactive or sad or grumpy or shitty.
Kind of feel like shit today. Hate Mondays like Garfield, but hate bad sleep and bad wakings worse.
And all I’m doing is fucking whinging about it now. Just too… nostalgic isn’t the right word. Thinking about the past, I guess. Fuck that shit, and fuck all of them.