day122 - peace at last
they invented the roman calendar and by extension "New Year's" to give people a day or two for socially mandated introspection. who were you a year ago today? what's changed? what don't you like? what do you like? what could you do better?
this is, for all intents and purposes, often pointless. it's like when you stay up late enough to get sentimental, and in your altered state you resolve to Do Something About It, but when morning rolls around, you've lost your resolve. You get drunk on NYE and tell everyone around you how much they mean to you, you feel love for you fellow human in the most potent way. Or you get sad and reflective because of the people you aren't with. Or both. Then you move on, because you gotta go back to work.
I think a lot of people do it sincerely, but I'm just bitter. Not for any unique reason, I'm not exceptionally vilified. More than anything I want people to share their joy with their friends, to celebrate finding peace. I'll never resent that.
but what I will resent…
is the group of friends I made in my final year of uni. No one in particular, not even really directly, but just their attitudes. I love them, they're wonderful, funny, creative people and I have fun when we hang out together. But I never truly fit in with them, and that only became more apparent when uni ended. I stopped getting invited to things, they stopped reaching out unless they needed things. We see each other on set occasionally and pretend that everything is normal, but they only really tolerated my presence because I was hooking up with one of their friends.
a few of them have felt bad about my exclusion, noticing my absence but never really doing anything about it lest they rattle the fragile social contract, but their guilt means so little to me without any action to prove they care.
this last year and especially the year before I've done so much conciliatory work to win their respect but it's never done anything. it feels like every conversation is a challenge where the goal is to win them over or maintain my current social standing. but these people don't care about me when it's inconvenient to do so, which tells me that they don't care that much in the first place.
let me be a little sanctimonious in saying I'm not going to let those people in anymore.
"So go back to the cluuuub, bare it all, and stalk the kind of people that you enjoy."
- Caesar Catalina, Megalopolis
this time last year I was so pathetically miserable because barely anyone in my life straightforwardly made me feel I mattered to them.
but that has changed. I feel very loved. thank God, or I would have had no option but to spend new years alone.