I'm Here

Note to self: don't read old posts

I feel almost obliged to assure whatever readers I have that I'm not nearly as depressed of a person as my posts make me out to be. I'm pretty happy on a day-to-day basis, but I guess it makes sense that I would tend to blog when depressed.

Anyway, I'm not depressed right now, but I've been in a very reflective mood after reaching a certain age milestone. Thinking about how I could have lived my past couple decades differently, but also thinking about how I could not possibly have avoided the many regrets of those years without the recovery process I'm going through now. I'm grateful that I can look back on those years and see a person in terrible, unspoken pain, and not the selfish asshole I sometimes fear I am.

I think about the person I could have been had it not been for my parents' constant emotional abuse and neglect since infancy. I probably would have been faster, more confident, maybe even an extrovert. Would I have developed the same interests? I don't know. Where would I be now? I'm not sure the question even makes sense, considering that I never was that person. In a way I'm asking about another person's life, because that person wouldn't be ME.

I think I still have a lot of mourning to do, but not for the childhood stuff that I've been working with lately. My adulthood has been emotionally tumultuous, even if my relationships and career have been mostly stable. I was an alcoholic for a long time. I think I spent a lot of time self-soothing by perfecting my work in an OCD sort of way. I say “emotionally tumultuous,” but really I was numb and self-medicating. This disconnection from myself led me to make a lot of mistakes and miss a lot of opportunities.