It’s been a tough few weeks. I don’t know if this will end up being published, who even knows at this point, but basically – I’m done.
So, we’ll start with the negativity part of the title, as you can see, it’s beginning to overwhelm me. I know I have always been a negative person, and I have far too many people in my life who like to remind me of this…..often. This actually makes it worse (a hint to all the positive people in the world telling their more pessimistic friends to be more positive). It also just pisses us off … a lot.
About a week ago I made a very late “New Year’s Resolution” – not that I would ever actually call it that, to try and be more positive about myself and my life. It was right after I flipped back a couple of pages in m journal, back to where I said some really horrible things about myself last year. I know that I may be too hard on myself, but to me, that’s how I see myself. Recently though, I have been slightly more accepting. After seeing how much I used to insult myself and call myself on every little downfall, I thought it would be easy to stay away from this habit (I have already for a fair few months without even really trying), however, since reading those pages, it almost seems to have come back. I’m officially negative about my negativity at this point. Every little thing I do is not quite right. Every issue I encounter and solve, I realise could have been solved by someone else, someone better. And that’s all I am seeing: someone better.
There’s someone better for my job, a better daughter for my mum, a better girlfriend for my mouse, a better general fit for my life. I feel disjointed and out of place and no matter how many times someone assures me that I shouldn’t worry about being replaced as a girlfriend, or not being missed as a daughter when I leave, I still feel the horrible sense that I should just disappear and let someone else in to take my place.
Today at work was incredibly difficult. I work an 8-5 job as a hotel reservationist, today, I had no booking system for almost six hours and no computer at all for four of those – it was a long, difficult and exhausting day. At the end of it, the receptionist on duty with me through the afternoon complimented me on how well I had handled the day. She said she was so impressed and “blown away” by how amazingly I did. I didn’t feel it. It was very sweet of her to say, and I did appreciate it, but the only reason I didn’t go straight home and cry in my bathtub and make myself bleed was because my boyfriend was there. I waited until he left to do that.
I came very close to just bursting into tears four times today and actually burst into tears finally, at ten pm as I got into the shower. It was a painful sort of crying, the sort that hurts your throat and ears and makes your eyes sting. I thought about the negativity, my hopes of avoiding it this year and felt like an absolute failure. Unfortunately, there was something else I had to face for the evening after even all that. It is something I know is stupid and ridiculous and absolutely pathetic when you look at it. But my boyfriend got the number of my ‘best friend’ (very long complicated story, we’ve been friends for nineteen years – at the age of 20 – and it’s not an easy relationship anymore, and we definitely aren’t best friends nowadays) a few months ago when I needed to message her from his phone. Today, I regret it immensely. I don’t have a problem with him talking to girls, not at all. I am fully aware that men can have female friends and vice versa, I know he still speaks to some of his exes and can handle this as well. I trust him implicitly. Unfortunately, I struggle with him speaking to what I would probably consider my sister. There has always been an extreme level of competition between us, always a “she has one, I want one too” (on her side more than mine, she is from a rich family and I am not, I had the discount one as a ‘big deal’ and she would demand one as well and immediately brag with her smartphone or expensive laptop or new bedspreads or jewellery or hair etc). The issue is one I cannot identify, all I know is that the very idea of them talking, makes me ill. It isn’t even about the potential of her taking him away from me anymore, it’s just the discomfort and dismissal of knowing that they are talking – especially considering that he knows how I feel about her and this. I am completely aware that asking them to not speak is wrong and ridiculous and not something I would ever do, but after a day like today, it was enough to push me over the edge.
That is what led to this blog post. I needed an honest outlet, a real one where I’m not going to filter or omit things. I needed to vent, so I am venting in the only way I know how, to a bunch of strangers on the internet who probably won’t even read this whole post.
My negativity, unfortunately, is even more difficult to avoid when there are a lot of similarly negative people around me. There are several others in the management team or pessimistic and negative about almost everything they can find. There are never enough rooms booked, never enough phone calls and emails coming in, never enough umbrellas (not even kidding). I have had to deal with a lot of this negativity myself, and it is becoming harder and harder to overcome. The negativity already surrounding my job makes it hard to deal with any of it.
I have mentioned before that I am a little bit trapped in my job. I’m not going to harp on about it, I do too much of that already, but basically, I hate it and it’s hard. So, that’s that.
A lot of people don’t understand this and keep demanding why I am still there and why I haven’t left. One of my closest friends went so far as to say: “I’ve given up on you at this point” and then just shook her head and said goodbye. Others are insistent that the moment I finally leave, I will magically be better and everything will be okay again. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work this way, and after twenty years (almost 21) of knowing the sort of person I am, I know it definitely doesn’t work that way for me. Once I finish work, I’ll have to tackle entering university and finding a new job, maybe living with my boyfriend. I know that I very much live in the future, but it’s the only way I can live, it’s the only way I can survive it. I have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario because if that does happen and I didn’t prepare for it, I wouldn’t make it.
The negativity leads to the lies component quite well. There is a direct segue. Essentially, I’ve started lying to everyone about how far the negativity has gone.
I work in a profession in which lying is essential and far too common. I also took drama all through school and ended up with the drama award at the end of high school. I excelled at it because I have been lying most of my life. In one way or another, I found a way to lie about something. I lied to my family about my depression and self-harm, I still lie to my mother about it even now. I lie to my friends to get out of plans and avoid conversation, because I’m too overwhelmed, exhausted and anti-social to handle any of it. I lie to myself when I say that I am doing okay, or feeling happy, or doing the right thing by lying to someone. I have recently lied to my boyfriend, in order to avoid a fight. And it wasn’t the first time I had done it. The last one is the one I am most ashamed for, and the one I wish I could erase the most. I looked at it, and over the last two weeks, I have lied to him repeatedly – they are small lies: “Yeah, that’s fine.”, “I understand, it was my fault” and “It’s too late” but they hurt my throat and make my eyes tear up.
The main issue is that I often don’t even feel myself lying until I have already said the words, and don’t know how to take them back or if I even want to take them back once they are out. Like I said at the beginning, the lies about my negativity have become a problem. I have repeated to my mum, my best friend and someone I will soon be working with (he starts tomorrow) that I am trying to be more positive this year. I told my best friend that if she ever caught me being negative she could point it out and tell me to stop – she knows how much I hate it usually. Unfortunately, as the week has gone on, it is getting harder and harder to even try and tell myself that I’m trying to be positive anymore. I’ve given up, as my boyfriend and best friend and mum and school friend and ex-best friend (aforementioned) will tell you I always do.
I don’t quite know what to do with that though. I don’t really think I care anymore. I don’t know if that’s a lie.
– Kitten x