How easy would things be if I could have all my conversations over the internet? I'd have time to think over my responses. I wouldn't have to deal with people's facial reactions or their reactions to my own. But I guess that's a complaint that our generation faces, the fact that we are growing further away from interpersonal communication skills as technology develops.

A few months ago, maybe even a year ago now, I was at the mall at the John Varvatos store. Anyways, I was by myself and...

So the part above this was a section of a story I was trying to put down but I started writing it 2 weeks ago and I couldn't bring myself to blogging it. I don't know why. Not that its a particularly difficult story or embarrassing, I just wasn't in a blogging mood. I only get in a blogging mood when I feel like I'm on the verge of some emotional breakthrough, good or bad. Anyways, the general gist of the story is that some store worker said "You don't really want to buy anything today" or something like that implying that I couldn't afford to buy anything and I said "Yeah I do" when in reality I was really just browsing. And I felt offended that he thought I couldn't afford stuff but I didn't say anything. And the moral of the story is I don't think I stand up enough for myself and speak my mind enough. Like if I feel I've been slighted in some way I won't come out and say anything about it. Maybe I'm just not a confrontational guy. But its odd because I'm plenty willing to tell someone something I KNOW is right, like a fact. Like if a child isn't tall enough I don't shy away from confronting the parents, but when it involves my own stuff, I can't do it.

The other point of the story is that I care way too much about what other people think of me. Or at least I used to. Like other's people's opinions of me mattered to me way too much. What does it matter if I can't afford a piece of clothing? I mean its the truth right? Like why not just be honest and up front? And not just about that, but about everything? And I think that since that happened to me, and I've definitely been working towards this in my interpersonal relationships, I need to stop caring about being judged and just "be myself" as people would say. And tonight I sort of feel that I am content being honest about who I am. But it doesn't feel like one of those epiphany moments though. I've felt those moments where you feel invicible, not in the physical Superman, faster than a speeding bullet sense, but emotionally, like a feeling that no matter what happens, I know everything will be alright sense. But in realizing that I don't really care too much about what people think about me, its not a happy sentiment for me, at least not in this moment.

It most certainly feels like another extension of my emotional detachment. I think that I have lived my life in a constantly un-confident and semi-depressed state that I don't know how to deal with myself as a person who is okay with who they are. Like I WANT to have some mental hangup in my psyche. It makes me feel like more of a person to be emotionally damaged. How fucked up is that?

This is a restart of my blog. Again.

Its been 10 months since I've written. And I come to realize that without the introspection of this blog, I really don't know anything about myself. And I've also seen how little I know about myself and how un-self aware I am. My friend Leo told me online one day that I am a good person and that I am always defending people and giving them excuses because I see the good in people. I didn't even know I did that. I suppose once he told it to me it became obvious, but without him pointing it out, it did not dawn upon me that I was that type of person. That night he told me that was like an epiphany for myself and I read one of my postsecret books and get all sorts of sappy like people get when reading emotional stuff like that. Then that night I realized how long it had been since I'd had a serious emotional moment, albeit that one was all by myself.

I feel emotionally detached, from everything. Like I'll talk about things going on in my life but I realize that I don't feel the emotion that I once did. Is it because I'm a more open person now? Somehow I doubt it. I feel like I'm more emotionally shutout than ever before. I suppose I should start from the beginning, at least the past few undocumented months.

A few months ago, I'm not even sure when, I began ignoring my mom. I know how despicable that sounds, and I agree, it is. Like I literally only gave her really short answers to questions and didn't really have any conversations of value with her. Not that my parents and I had a special relationship or anything to begin with. I'm not sure if I can adequately explain how that is without writing an essay, but suffice it to say, my background lends itself to little to no intimacy with my parents. But in the past few months I became something else completely, in relation to my mom. And I suspect that's when my current emotional haze began. But it wasn't until recently that I realized truly how far it has seeped into my current state of being.

To be fair to myself, I've been having a really good time the past few months at work and just hanging out. I fill my time working Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones Adventure, something I very very much enjoy. At Jungle particularly, I feel like its something that I'm actually good at for the first time in my life. In the past I've worked on things and participated in stuff but was never anything special, and while there are many many many talented skippers at Jungle, I count myself in the upper echelon of the current skips. But enough jerking myself off.

Throughout this fun summer of Disney World trips and making new friends, I cannot recall a single unabashed, honest moment where I shared myself with someone else. I've been having a lot of exciting times and I don't regret anything, its just that I wish I were more in touch emotionally. Does that even make sense? Its like I've been a holding pattern as far as my intimate life goes, perhaps even taking steps backwards. The realization of this hit me just yesterday in fact. Prior to that I hadn't really thought much about it.

I was having a conversation that Leo would call a DMC (deep meaningful conversation) where two people just sit together and talk, but I didn't feel anything. I completely wanted to and intended to, but I didn't. Not awkward silences, not sexual tension, not boredom, nothing. And I guess if I had described a long talk with those attributes it would seem like a good talk, but it just didn't feel like it. And maybe it was just on my end, in which case I'd feel like even more of an ass for how it ended, but I thought I had been sharing myself but I just felt nothing emotionally. Like you get that welling up feeling in your chest when you start talking about stuff that really matters to you, and I just didn't have it. Like right now I can go and read grouphug.us online confessions of other people, strangers, with true emotional regrets and secrets and I can get the feeling almost to the point where I long to physically hug them, but when I think about my own life and problems, nada. Is that because I am a happier person now? Maybe. Or am I on a verge of some sort of breakdown? I long to have an emotional bond with someone but I just don't know how and of course not everyone is willing either.

But then earlier tonight, while watching Gossip Girl, the most stereotypcially vapid of all shows, it came to me. If I can't have a healthy relationship with my own mother at the age of 25, how can I hope to have one with anyone else? Christine, you were right. You warned me it was a bad idea to ignore her and now I see the light, at least a little bit. Leo says I'm a forgiving person who wants to see the good in people, so perhaps I need to do the same for my mother. And then maybe if that can happen I can have actual DMC's. I'm hopeful, I think. Maybe its more fun to be a part of what another friend of mine has aptly named the Sad Club, of which I am not an official member. Maybe because of my upbringing I'm more comfortable being a sad person and this new found emotional void isn't a void at all, instead its happiness and I just don't know how to deal with it. I need a hug. And a life.

I'm totally back doing Flashback again and I'm having a really good time. It does make me wonder about how I should be defining my success or happiness in life. I'm totally a materialistic person. I am very much into buying expensive things, clothing, cars (unfortunately), food, and just stuff in general.

If I'm going to have something I want to have the best of that something. I suppose this is some incarnation of my need to be the best. Like if I'm driving on the freeway I don't like to be passed by another car if I can help it. I also always have to be right. Its really quite a bad personality trait. But its not like I have to be the best, its just that I have to classify everybody and everything as better or worse than something else. What is that? I have to compare everything to something else and decide which is better. This isn't so bad when I say something like Friday Night Lights is a better television show than Grey's Anatomy. But it gets me in trouble when in my mind I'm saying to myself "Girl A is prettier than Girl B" or "Girl A is too good for Boy A." And this manifests itself in weird ways too. Although I try to hide my thoughts from the world I'm pretty sure people can see it in my facial expressions or my tone of voice, despite my attempts to mask my unsavory thoughts.

So what does this have to do with my happiness and fulfillment in life? Well like many in our modern society, we've come to define our success in material ways. Like in Fight Club, and I'm only generally pulling from this, Ed Norton's character remarks about his now destroyed apartment that his IKEA-esque furniture portion of his life had been fulfilled and it was something he didn't have to worry about any more. Is that what its come to? I need a material good to define my success as a person? Do I need that pair of Diesel jeans? Yeah, I feel like I look better wearing them, but isn't that only because I think other people think I look better, like "oooh, Diesel jeans." But if I'm not defining my success and happiness through material means, by what means should someone define their life? I suppose my mom would say something about how I treated the world around me, in particular my friends, family and those I care about.

Are we merely just existing and are material possessions just another way for me to rank myself amongst my peers? Undoubtedly yes. But how do I break away from this? How do you define happiness when I've been bombarded by all of these media messages since my youth? Is it just about being happy in the moment you're in? But how do I know that I really am happy and I'm not just being influenced by what society has dictated should make me happy? It seems very paradoxical. Well I do know that I want to just shake about and bounce around my room when I hear this song from The Wombats and it makes me happy at least for now, and for now, that'll have to do... at least until I find a new pair of jeans.

The Wombats - Let's Dance to Joy Division

What the hell. I already messed up my new car. What a shitty careless driver I am. Breaking my passenger side rear view mirror casing. On the garage entrance no less. I hate having nice things. Dammit!