Bottle Up And Explode!

[edit] I was going to publish this last night, but only just remembered I wrote it right now. [/edit]

No, my circumstances are not the same as in the eponymous Elliott Smith song, but its name has been true of describing my thoughts for longer than I care to remember.

I’ve re-discovered this feeling with a sense of self-awareness while trying to remember everything that happened on the Brooklyn trip (it’s a good thing I took notes).  Essay #2 is going to be long because as opposed to Essay #1, it details an entire day.  And with a daydreamer like me, it’s difficult to remember where your head was for an entire day, especially when you are left to wander streets and subways in Manhattan and Brooklyn for a good 4 hours before something eventful happens.  A lot of the writing, it turns out, is going to be remembering a lot of thinking. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately” is a phrase I feel like I say too much, and a phrase that I am rarely given the opportunity to follow up.

I think I maybe don’t let enough out.  And I never let anything out because I feel like nobody listens.  I feel like nobody listens because there is never an appropriate context for it.  I feel like those that are listening feel forced, that contexts are contrived, that it isn’t genuine care but obligation to listen to me spout bullshit.  And I feel guilty for putting people in that situation.

So I bottle up.  It’s just an easy way out.

And it’s a shame that I can’t use this blog as a vehicle for those kinds of unfettered thoughts because of the risks I’d be taking with net identity.  I do, after all, work on the internet.  It’s strange to have that kind of responsibility in restraint, especially in a realm where it is not only acceptable but lauded for people to spill the worst of themselves for everyone else to see.

It’s also strange, because of this restraint, that I have to remind myself that this person on the internet with my username is also a real person.  It’s getting more and more difficult for me to believe that.

Maybe I should get back into creative writing.  In the past, that always seemed to be a good outlet for the speculations lacing my synapses - I could express things candidly and still obliquely hide behind the guise of it being some kind of “artistic expression”.  I was able to get away with some twisted and concerning ideas without the responsibility of people thinking something was seriously wrong.  And that was good, because in reality, I am really only as broken as the next person.  We all have problems, after all.

It’s easy to duck behind metaphors.

And a lot of the sentences in this post begin or end with a first person pronoun, making me self-conscious even though this is my blog.

I need to get out of my own head.  Narcissism leaves a funny taste in my mouth.

What a week this is going to be.