Well, labor day has passed already. I wish I could say that my time away was entirely relaxing, but that wouldn't be quite right. There's nothing quite like making stupid mistakes and getting reamed for them as if you had planned to be hurtful in the first place. Oh yes, I take so much time out of my busy life to cause other people problems. Isn't it enough that I've got an entire wedding to plan next year that is not going to cost much more than a cheap used car? And the fact that my fiancee has been angsting about the security of his job for the last 2 months?

The present time is not one of the clearest thought...not that I am one who means to be thoughtless. But when timing is an issue, I always seem to come out on the bad end even when I mean well. But, no one seems to notice my intent and instead I get taken very literally and things are taken too seriously. I'm always guilty of taking things to seriously, but I avoid blowing things out of proportion where possible. Honestly, sometimes I think that it's better to not say anything at all than to fall into the accident of saying something stupid. Then again, either way yer damned. So I guess no matter what I wouldn't have escaped this.

I've put up with this for years. I've had venom aimed at me that wasn't all my fault, I just wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time and I end up regretting a lot of shit later. It's times like this that make me feel like I would have been better off not being where I was. It's that "why bother"...kind of attitude.

What ticks me off, is I don't do this kind of crap to people. I don't go out of my way to be a bad person and yet certain people decide to make me one anyhow. So I'm human. I do stupid things at bad times and no matter how hard I try to do the right thing, it's like it never really matters and then I have grudges against me...blah blah blah. It comes to a point where I don't even want to make the effort anymore if in the end when I least expect it, I get walloped with guilt and anger.

Then, do to my already lacking state of self esteem, I get out my boots and precede to stomp myself even further into the ground so no one else can. I can do it better than all of you. So when the smoke finally clears, people wonder why I trounce on myself so much. That's what I've learned, no thanks to anyone.

While I'm fairly decent at communicating, more so than some other people I know anyway, I am NOT a literal person. There's always something more to what I'm trying to say, and if you're not reading the emotions between the lines and catching the details, then you are misunderstanding me. And that happens a lot with a very select group of people. I feel like you are either on my wavelength, or you aren't and you will probably never be. I've argued with someone who took me too literally that THAT"S how language is supposed to be...literal. Word for word. Whatever. Language is not just simple words. Words are tools. People forget we don't just talk in words, we're far more complex than that. What about body language? Facial expression? those other hidden things that are ever present in our communication?

I will not be faulted for communicating differently than other people. I talk the way I talk, no matter how much I try to adapt. I'm an artist, which makes things all that much worse because I don't think the way other people tend to. I've always been more flighty and out there....and I see things far differently - usually in ways that other people can't. And, while it's often annoying, even to me, I can only do some much about it.

So then, I'm perceived as sometimes stupid or thoughtless, etc etc when I'm not behaving or saying quite what other people expect. And half the time, it's because I'm trying to communicate with someone who is so mundane and on the other end of the comunicative spectrum. I've had this problem my whole life. Put me in a room with a very logical, mundane person who has a tendency to get stuck on words and take things at face value. Here's me, a flighty creative type who has a hard time nailing down what I need to say in the right words, and somehow making clear emotions are other things behind what I'm trying to say so I'm delivering a whole package. This scenario makes for a really big mess and a lot of misunderstanding. It's never been pretty, and it may likely never will be - I have yet to conquer this frustrating kind of confrontation.

I'm apparently mired in one of these lovely self-redefining moments. How fun. I finally get a handle on my drawing skills again and start feeling good about something I've accomplished, then I get my kneecaps shattered by the baseball bat of lack of communication . Now I'm sitting in the mud again, feeling like I've accomplished nothing. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to fight this battle of feeling good about myself at all. As soon as things take a good turn, I get knocked down again. And what is going to come of this? More artwork I imagine. The force that drives me to create it makes me insane and stupid, and then the artwork I seeks to become therapy for all the pain, frustration and anger that I'm left with. So...it's like a parasite in a way.

I didn't ask to be who I am, I just am. It's hard enough when other people don't accept that when I can't even do it myself.