twelfth anniversary

A day for complicated emotions.

Okay, now I have something to say here.

I have frequent flashes in my head about how I feel Leah did me wrong, before and during the troubles. It keeps me sane and I do not linger upon them. It happened, it's winding up.

What I realized on Wednesday with my maudlin attitude is this is not me. I am aping Michael and whatever he considers to be romance and love. Toxic.

Which brings me to something which crossed my vision on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning: People get ahead by being liked regardless of their ability.

My "role models" are not the best. Both are two-faced with Joanne being Eddie Haskell, nice on the outside but a wretch in private, and Michael being a cowardly sneak who talks behind people's backs but can schmooze. Watching from my young, naïve perspective I acquired the notion of being nice to people is duplicitous. People are being manipulated. At a time, I liked that feeling of power in manipulating others but I wasn't very good at it per experienceand constantly being beaten down by Joanne.

Thing is, I adopted this behavior after a fashion. Reckon I made it my own kind of toxic. Take Leah saying I tricked her into marrying me, a common refrain, is something which wounds me because I did my best not to manipulate her. I know I'd lie about stupid shit to avoid conflict, like Michael, and a mere lie can fester and grow while blowing affairs out of proportion in someone's head 'til it has a life and truth of its own when honest communication could have squared things up.

I think I know better now, but I won't be certain 'til I'm put to a test.

Right now I am trying to figure out how to be me. Drop that old shit, or at least manage it, and grow more. Most of all, have faith in myself to be myself and I'm not fucking up doing that.

That's for Leah. I will always love her.