the devil and god are raging inside me

"And over the sea in a warm sunny place 
men and women sit watching TV 
they say, 'it's a shame anyone has to die
but it was either them or me' 
all safe and snug, tucked away in our mansions 
we smile feeling comfortably safe 
and over the sea there's a dark cold place 
out of sight, out of mind, out of reach, washed away..."
-Showbread, Escape from Planet Cancer

"The death, the rape, the tragedy

the world is an ugly place

what's capable inside of me

is going to rear its ugly face..."

-DIES, Aesthetics of Violence 

"And in my best behavior 
I am really just like him 
look beneath the floorboards
for the secrets I have hid..."
-Sufjan Stevens, John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Several years ago at my former job, I sat down at my makeshift desk, which was really just a folding table propped up against a wall.  I was a temp, hired on to help the company catch up on their paperwork and they had no proper office to give me.  So they made due and assembled a desk from extra parts they had in storage.

As I sorted through the stack of files, I noticed the room grow dim on my right side.  I looked up and saw the florescent light on the ceiling had gone out.  I looked at the wall three feet in from my face and saw the light and the dark encompassing the same portion of polystyrene.  To me, it felt like the technological equivalent of the angel and devil on my shoulder.

When I was a child, as I came to understand myself and the world and people around me, I realized I wanted to help people.  I lived in a small town with small minds.  Religion reigned over everything.  God was not at the center of people's hearts but at the center of social normalcy.  And with that warped sense of religion came a warped sense of right and wrong.  They did not look to the Bible but to their biased pastor to see who should be shunned or celebrated and a mess was made of everyone.

Fortunately, I was able to avoid such brainwashing.  I did not grow up in the church and it spared me from being taught to discriminate (disclaimer: not all churches teach hate, just all the ones I attended).  I wasn't told to hate the gays or keep my distance from the blacks and shun the atheists and fornicators and underage drinkers.  In fact, all these "bad" people comprised the majority of my friends.  I liked them and I was a good judge of character.  How could they be bad?  And how were they any worse, open with their vices, than those who hid their sins on Sunday and resumed their wicked ways the rest of the week?

Although this "Christian" behavior was hypocritical, it didn't anger me at the time.  It only inspired me.

I realized I wanted to help people. I wanted people to love each other, to realize we are all the same underneath our skin and sexuality. I wanted people to know we all have the same desires and defects. I wanted to use my art to inspire and incite revolution. All I really wanted to do was open people's eyes.  I just didn't think I was good enough at the time. I wasn't quite ready yet.

I was a child, still developing my skills and message. What did I want to say? How was I going to change the world? I had lofty ambitions and I didn't want my life to go to waste. I grew up deformed in several ways and I felt so much pain inside because of my feelings and fears. I didn't want anyone else to go through that. I didn't want anyone to feel as alone as I did. Despite my personal demons, I thought people were basically good. The world was bad and we would get corrupted but we could be saved. We were worth saving.

give it to me straight

My mom called me at work one day and said a family friend's boss's son needed an assistant for three businesses he was juggling. The family friend put in a great word for me (and they respect her so her recommendation is gold) and he agreed to meet with me. Bam. Just like that. The work seemed decent and best of all, no more working with the public. The only drawback was the pay wasn't great and there were no benefits. But I kept leaning toward no more working with the public.

I kept thinking how it all worked out so well. An office job with recommendation from an insider. And I had a day off from working coming up so I could take that day to do the interview and it wouldn't interfere with my current job. Perfect.

I met the man at his father's restaurant. It was empty because they weren't open for lunch yet. The man, M, was short and overweight, a roly poly kind of guy with a round, young face and closely cropped gray hair. His cheeks and chin jutted out when he smiled. His skin was shiny and ruddy around his hazel eyes. He did not walk but waddled. He wore a shirt and jeans and dirty white sneakers.

We sat down and he told me a little about his businesses. He has three and he also deals with his family's personal finances. His family is rich and they have several sources of income and I guessed he needed someone to help him keep everything in order.

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It was apparent from the beginning of our conversation that M wasn't articulate but he was extremely southern. He spoke with a grating country cadence and often raised his voice toward the end of his sentences. He paused several times as if he were trying to collect words from his head before he said them. He mentioned the job didn't necessarily have a title since I would be doing a little of everything. I wasn't worried about job titles, only the duties. Fortunately, they were duties I had done during previous jobs or duties I felt confident I could do if given the proper instruction. It wasn't neurobiology we were dealing with here. I was going to be faxing and using Excel and taking out the trash.

He asked me to tell him about myself and I did and then he sat back, his squat, chapped face stretched into a mischievous grin. He stared up at the florescent lights, again trying to find his words.

"So, tell me this...hm...so basically...well, let me tell you where I'm coming from...what my concern is...it seems to me like you're going from A to Z. You went to college to be an artist and you've got this degree. And now you wanna be a secretary. You see what I'm sayin'?"

I basically explained the best I could, downplaying my crazy, that I had a change of heart after I graduated and wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue art and decided to change my direction. He said he encountered a similar situation after he graduated from college so he understood but he was concerned, if I took the job, I would pack up and leave after two months or so. I assured him I wouldn't do that. I pointed out I've been at my current job for three years now. And if I didn't get that job, I'd probably have to stick with it for another three years because these opportunities rarely come along.

In some ways, I could understand his concern or just curiosity over why I made such a radical change. But in other ways, it made me feel bad, as if he were implying that I was downgrading myself or that the job was beneath me. First of all, nothing is beneath me. The job might be beneath my education but not beneath me. I'm just not uppity like that. And I told him I enjoy being organized and doing office work. It's easy and I don't have to deal with the public and it wouldn't be so stressful that I couldn't work on my writing or even pick up art again on the side.

The problem with my job now is that it's so stressful and dealing with the public gives me such bad anxiety that I'm emotionally and mentally exhausted at the end of the day and have no creative output within me.  I wasn't necessarily aiming to move up as far as a job goes, but just to find something to lower my stress levels.  And that seemed like the kind of job to do it.

And then he said if I were hired, he'd have to get into the mindset of a man doing the job because he envisioned a woman filling the position. I was slightly irritated by that but it wasn't a deal breaker.

The deal breaker came a week later.

art

"'Cause we all know art is hard
young artists have gotta starve
Try, and fail, and try again..."
-Cursive, Art is Hard

"Art is not the world, art is in our hearts..."
-Showbread, Stabbing Art to Death

"Let me ask you something, what is not art?"
-Unknown

I used to draw.  A lot.  My childhood was spent with a Slim-Fast in one hand and a pencil in the other.  I often sneaked into my sister's room and pulled out her charcoal sketches of dragons and Axl Rose she kept underneath her bed.  And I copied them.  I learned about lines and shading sitting on the floor of her room, surrounded by the waxy smell of drugstore makeup and wall-to-wall posters of hair metal bands.

An artist was born.

I devoured sketch pads and ground colored pencils into stumps.  As much as I loved toys, I loved drawing utensils equally.  I couldn't wait to try a new type of marker or a new color of crayon.  I drew my favorite superheroes and created my own action figures out of paper.  But I was never incredibly creative.  My artistic endeavors were derivative of the enormous amount of Saturday morning cartoon I consumed and my eventual discovery of anime, which I was into way before it became so huge here in America.  I was ahead of the game back then.

I learned to shade and highlight.  I learned about depth and perspective.  All from doing it on my own, from observing, from drawing, from constantly creating.

I was good at copying.  Any attempts to be original were mediocre at best.  But when I was younger, I wasn't preoccupied with being original or unique.  I just genuinely enjoyed drawing and having fun with it.  I was good.  It gave me pleasure.

But sadness and insecurity crept in and my mind became poisoned and I became a perfectionist.  People noticed my talent and were impressed.  And somehow, people began to inflate my abilities.

"Brannon drew a picture of my daughter and it looks just like her!"

"Brannon doesn't even use an eraser!"

"I heard Brannon doesn't need to draw from pictures, or from life.  He can draw from memory!"

"One time, I saw Brannon sneeze on a piece of paper and then when I looked over his shoulder, his snot was in the shape of Mona Lisa!"

None of this is true, of course.  But for some reason, in some people's minds, I'm better than I actually am.  And that was a part of the insecurity.  I felt I could never measure up to people's outlandish expectations.  I was my biggest critic.  Eventually, nothing I drew matched the image I had in my head and it frustrated me.  I knew I was better, more capable, but for some reason, I couldn't translate the image from head to paper.

There were times when I got away with reaching people's expectations, or at least that's what they told me.  I did a few commissioned drawings.  But eventually the stress became too much and I stopped charging because my art was not worth anyone's money.  And eventually I stopped doing drawings for people all together because I couldn't afford to jeopardize the reputation bestowed upon me by others.  I never lived up to the hype, never went along with the adulation and as much as I tried to downplay what I could do, no one believed me and I suddenly I was a small town art prodigy.  And wanting to please everyone, I didn't want to produce low-quality work and prove everyone wrong.   

I had been painted into a corner, so to speak.

Art became a source of frustration instead of pleasure and so I stopped drawing as much.  And then I went to college to study art.  No one had any preconceived notions of who I was or what I was capable of and suddenly I was a clean slate, an out of practice clean slate.  And I felt like I was starting from zero while all my classmates were already prodigies themselves.  I was in over my head and terrified I had made a huge mistake.

But I finished college, got a degree, and graduated with honors.  I guess that means something to someone but it doesn't mean anything to an animation company.  They want to see your demo reel and it doesn't matter how great your grades were in college, if you don't deliver mind-blowing art, you're done.  There's hundreds of other wide-eyed kids in line behind you who have dedicated themselves to their art.  They didn't hide behind rumors of grandeur.

I abandoned art after college.  I didn't feel good about my abilities and wanted to go in a different direction.  I just wasn't sure about the direction I wanted to go in.

Let me let you in on a little secret I've been keeping about my relationship with art:  I DON'T FREAKING GET IT.

consumed

"Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us."
-Peter De Vries

"Well, I hate myself.  I already have a pint of ice cream, a pizza, and mini eclairs.  I don't need these cookies.  I'll have to put something back.  Pizza.  I'll put that back.  I have pizza at home.  But no, that's why I came here.  I want this kind of pizza, not the kind I have at home.

"I'll just put back these eclairs.  I can do without them.  Yes, I feel good about this.  Actually, no, these eclairs remind me of the time when I was in college and went to Publix and bought eclairs and ate them all in my car to soothe the pain of being a gigantic loser.  Those were good memories and I think I want to re-capture them.

"And I really want this ice cream.  And the cookies.  I haven't had the cookies in a long time.

"I'll make chili dogs when I get home.  I don't need this pizza.  But if I bought the pizza, I could have that the day after.  That way I could satisfy my cravings for chili dogs and pizza.  Yeah, I have to keep the pizza.  But I have one at home.  But this one has a cheese stuffed crust.  I'm definitely keeping the pizza.  Nah, the one at home is just as good.

"Okay, pizza is gone.  Too many sweets here.  Okay, ice cream gone.  Just eclairs and cookies.  That's not too bad.

"Okay, the ice cream is back.  I know I can do without it but it will literally be on my mind, making me crazy, until I eat it so it's better to go ahead and get it so I won't drive myself nuts.  But that means I'll have to, have to, put back the cookies.  I've got to compromise.  I don't want to spend too much money.  Or calories.  But my diet is already shot.  What's another weekend binge?

"Damn it.  Okay, keeping the eclairs for sure.  It's just...I'm so annoyed right now and these frozen foods, these processed pizzas, is what soothes me.  I know I'm hurting myself.  This is not normal, healthy behavior.  But I'm sad and so I just don't care.

"Screw it, I'm gonna get the pizza too."

This is an average conversation I have with myself when I go to the grocery store, except I use a lot more foul language and stand around being indecisive for a longer period of time.  People passing by probably think I'm lost.  And in a way, I am.

I've struggled with my weight over half of my life.  You'd think it would be easier to deal with by now but it's not.  I think about food and my weight every single day.  I think about everything I put in my mouth.  I chastise myself for the bad things because I know it will lead to weight gain and I complain to myself about the good things because I know it won't bring satisfaction.  I have to assess my wardrobe every day and wonder what I can or can't wear because I've gotten too big or small.  It's a struggle between calories and comfort.  I get lost in the swirl of butter cream and bat shit crazy and there are days when I wish I could just get it under control.  There are days when I wish I didn't care so much.  Or at all.

There's the logical part of my mind that knows I can lose weight.  I've done it several times before.  But there's the insecure hurting child deep inside that craves the satisfaction that only sugar can provide.  And when it comes to logic and pain, pain will always win out.  It's the underlying weakness that's the strongest force within me, popping up and making its way to the surface during my struggles, filling my cells with the urgent need for food, any carb to curb the current crisis.

It's embarrassing to lose weight and have people notice...and then gain it back...and have people notice.  It's like, "Have you seen Brannon?  He's getting fat again.  He was doing so well.  It's a shame he's letting himself go."  But they just don't get it.  I didn't suddenly find myself overweight and then took control of my body and lost it and that's the end of the story.  It's a constant, brutal struggle to stay sane, slim, and satiated.

It's made even harder because you can see my struggle.  I wear it around my waist.  I feel exposed, like my pain and shortcomings are out there in the open for everyone to see.  It gets tiring and I think it's especially hard because I can't avoid food.  It's in ads in magazines and on television.  It's in my kitchen.  It's always in my head.  It's cultural.  It's social.  Celebrate with food.  Gather the family around a buffet. 

But for me, it's not cultural.  It's not social.  It's emotional.  It's sacred.  It's spiritual.  When I meet someone for dinner, I'm more excited about the meal than the company.  And I want to gather my food and go into a private room and eat it alone.  I want to go through my ritual of chewing and swallowing and savoring, of experiencing different combinations of condiments and mixing all the sides and seasonings.

Every time I eat, it's a religious experience.  Pasta is like a prayer.  It calms and centers me.  It takes away the hurt and the pain.  How could I not want to recapture that transcendence again and again?  Especially when my head is in chaos most of the time.  It's a legal high, a harmless elevation.  But it's only harmless when experienced occasionally.  Otherwise the side effects add up and suddenly I can't button my pants anymore.

I don't want to blame my crappy job or lack of friends for my unhealthy relationship with food but those things really do drive me to eat.  I'd like to say if things were better, I would eat better.  I don't know if that's true.  It's not even a good excuse.  We all have our problems but not all of us deal with them in such unhealthy ways.  Sure, a lot of us do but a lot of us don't.  I just wish I could be one of the healthy ones.

But it hasn't all been a series of failures.  Through writing about my struggles with food and emotional eating, I think I've come about as close as I can to identifying why I eat the way I do.  Unfortunately, that's about as far as I've come.  Despite determining many of the causes of my caustic relationship with food, I have yet to find a way to fix it.  All the multiple episodes of weight loss have occurred despite my bad habits and habitual cravings.  I never cured them, only temporarily deflected them.  But there comes a time when I feel too good, too accomplished, and the ugliness, that weakness, bubbles up again and I'm put back into the clutches of agony and the resulting addiction.

Eventually my body is going to give up.  How many times can you bounce back from extreme weight loss to extreme weight gain?  I also fear eventually my heart will give up.  How many times can you bounce back from extreme accomplishment to extreme failure?

It's mind over matter, food vs face, health and heft.  It's nothing new.  But it doesn't get easier with your head in the way.  And no one understands unless they've been there before, as many times as you have been.  Can I beat it?

I want to sit down to dinner with someone and not have food be the main course.  I want to be satisfied with one slice of pizza.  I want to skip dessert without feeling like I have deprived myself.  I want to go to the grocery store without getting into a mental argument with myself.  I want to be able to skip the candy and enjoy a glass of water.  I want to use food to celebrate, not medicate.  I want to feel normal.

I don't want to starve anymore.

two corpses, caressing

for p.

two bodies traverse the expanse of a bleak surface

turgid tendons, split shins, flayed toes

but still walking

propelled by a hunger surpassing the stomach

as lidless eyes dance among the faces

desperate to find a hollowed out counterpart

two bodies come together with clanging cartilage and vacant stares

empty eyes and lolling tongues

tissue skin sheared from the friction of fingers

gnashing teeth reminiscent of romance

hollow hearts and hands, touching and tearing

clamoring for a clavicle

but only grasping guts

devoid of pleasure but programmed by dim memories

of what this once felt like

two bodies moaning in the murk

assuaging and assaulting, seething and writhing

 falling away from each other in the blood wet world

trying to taste the truth of one body to another

but only tasting tin

drunk on the red wine of blood

full on necrotized flesh

satiated by nothing

one body gasps and screams

and shudders and stumbles
stops

then moves past the other

blood on the mouth, hole in the chest

seeking sanctuary in another skin

one body stands alone

and watches the other shuffle away

filled with a mud soaked memory of pain unidentified
flooding back from the faint fog

no marks on the skin, no bruise to the brain

only an internal hemorrhage

one person bludgeoned by the burden of belonging
recalls the ramifications of respiration
and dies again

 then concedes to the cold dark

and crumbles

agnosticynicism

cannibal magnetism

"Now that I am opened up, let me do the same to you
I can't digest your insides but I can still chew
you look so beautiful, you look so sweet to me
you look so edible, it's time for me to feed..."
-Knife to Meet You, Guts

"I sing for the damned
soulless hand in hand..."
-William Control, Damned

"I am not your friend
I am just a man who knows how it feels..."
-Brand New, Sowing Season (Yeah)

I just don't know how people see me.  I don't even know how I see myself.  I constantly go back and forth between thinking I'm good-looking to thinking I'm ugly.  It goes beyond the skin.  Sometimes I think I'm an ugly soul as well.  And no one understands because they don't see what I see.  They don't know what I know.  I can spot every imperfection on my face and body and mind and I do my best to cover it up with spot spell and sarcasm but I fear if people see me as I see myself, they won't like me.

People tell me I'm attractive.  Smart.  Funny.  And sure, I can come up with a good joke every now and then and I can clean up well when all the elements combine and I'm having a good hair/skin/body day, which is rare.  But most of the time I feel like a mess and it messes with my perceptions of myself.

Another fact that should be pointed out is most of the compliments come from the Internet.  I don't want to negate the positive comments but I wonder how these Internet entities can say such things when I get no interest from anyone in real life.  Where's the disconnect?  Am I different person online?  Am I some inadvertent catfish?  Am I "hooking" people by presenting myself in some falsified manner, some idealized version of a tortured soul, but displaying an uglier, more genuine version of my vexations once the connection gets closer than a tweet or blog post?  If anything, I would have guessed the online viewers would think I'm a freak show based on the things I write about.  I think I'm actually more subdued with my psychosis in real life.

But I guess that goes back to not knowing how I present myself to others, not knowing what they are picking up despite what I'm putting out.

I spoke with a co-worker several weeks ago and told her about some of my insecurities and she said, "Don't you see how everyone here gravitates toward you?"  It was a simple statement but it was also something I never thought much about.  I know I get along well with everyone I work with but I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I don't do drama.  I wouldn't say anything necessarily "gravitates" toward me, sans work girlfriend.  I just don't get caught up in gossip and backstabbing and when I see it coming my way, I do my best to circumvent such scenarios.  People know they can just have a good time with me and a good chat with me and I guess that's a good quality to possess but I just see myself as a reprieve from all the garbage that goes on at work.  I'm a safety spot, a place to stand still among all the whispers and dirty looks.

But so what if I am?  That's still a good thing.  It's still a desirable quality in a co-worker and, yes, even a friend.  Does it really matter why people like me?  It doesn't have to be because I'm the best looking guy in the room or the funniest or smartest.  Maybe dumb jokes and an open ear is enough.  I don't need to change someone's life to be good company.  I need to know and realize that.  I put too much pressure on myself to be this perfect human being, the guy who has it all and knows it all and can fix it all.  I don't have to be everything to everyone and I need to learn that it's okay not to be.

Several months ago, a high school classmate randomly texted me and we filled each other in on what we had been up to.  I told him I didn't do art anymore and he was shocked because he thought I was so good.  I explained that I was good for my tiny town but once I stepped out into the real world, I wasn't as good as I needed to be.  He said he was jealous because I was talented and smart and was friends with everyone.  I told him I thought I was a mess and he said he was shocked to hear it because he thought I was so put together.  And I was shocked to hear that.

Again, I just don't know how people see me.  I can't help but to think of all the things and people I missed out on because I thought I was too hideous to participate.  All the while, they sit around and think I have it all together and never know the depth of my pain.  Kind of tragic to think about.

So I'll try not to.

What is my attraction?  I'll concede that I can provide a decent presence.  With a little photo trickery, I can give a good picture.  I have time to think of a good pun between text messages.  Maybe I'm just attractive enough, just tortured enough to catch someone's eye.  Maybe I'm open enough to provide a voice to the vagrants.  I'm a beacon for the berated, a magnet to those who have been torn down by people, violated by misfortune, killed by the world.  I search the littered bodies and pick them up and cradle them one by one.  My words are tiny visits, palpable connections through a recognition of pain.  It's a safe spot where the blood can be cleaned away for a while, a respite from the ravages of body and circumstance.

I'm not an expert on pain but I think I've felt it for so long and have written about my own struggles to the point where I can convey it in such a way that is accessible and easy to understand.  Suffering is universal, after all.  It's not like I'm tapping into a niche market with my musings.  People can walk in and sit down and take in my madness and appreciate it.  Some stick around and stay for something else.

I think I'm so hard on myself because I have potential I'm not utilizing.  I could have been an amazing artist had I not stopped drawing.  I could have been an amazing writer had I not stopped writing.  I could have been well read had I not stopped reading.  I could have been a good boyfriend had I not stopped trying.  I could have been all these things but I just stopped for one reason or another and now I feel like a waste.  Sure, I could continue drawing and writing and reading but it feels more like starting over rather than picking up where I left off.  I don't have the energy for that.

Despite the pressure I've placed on myself to be perfect, I've made strides toward just accepting that I am not.  I don't know if it's wisdom or old age or just looking in the mirror and giving up but I've grown to realize this is all I am and I can only go so far with my looks and my talent and my personality.  I'll never be a model or find my books in the stores or be the life of the party but I can do my best within my limitations.  I can do my own thing.  I can keep creating.  I can keep striving to be the best person I can be and find acceptance with that because there's no logic in wanting to be something I'll never achieve.

Maybe I just need to try to see what others see.  Maybe I need to try shift my perspectives and trust that I am more than a waste.  The potential can still be tapped.  The progress can still be made.  I can still reach out.  Maybe one day I'll touch someone and it will resonate within them and they'll be better for it.  And maybe I will be too. 

After all, we're all feeding each other energy.  Sometimes it's bad energy but sometimes it's good energy and it's that nourishment that helps us get through the work day or the school lunch or the lonely nights at home.  We take in other people's pain through their art or their pleasure through their laughter.  We use it like medicine and pull it out when needed. 

I've always said I wanted to do that for other people.  I want to help.  I want to make a difference.  I know what it's like to be lonely and weird and different and I want to make someone's loneliness and weirdness and differences easier to digest.  Maybe I already have.  Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong direction.

be my veins

"Love is nothing, nothing, nothing like people say
you gotta pick up the little pieces every day..."
-Liz Phair, Love is Nothing

"For a heart beats the best in a bed beside the one that it loves..."
-Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Crane Your Neck

For a while, it felt like everyone else was falling in love and I was just falling apart.  It was like some kind of pheromone phenomenon.  Everyone around me was talking and dating, mating and relating, getting engaged and pregnant and coming together.  Normally, I couldn't care less about people and their paramours but when so many people were coming together in such a small amount of time, it threw me for a loop.

And I kind of felt down about it.

I never wanted to be the kind of person who was happy simply because I was in love.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  you don't need another person to be happy.  I really believe(d) that.  I know my writing and whining about being lonely doesn't always (or ever) reflect that philosophy but even loners get lonely...right?

But what if I'm wrong?  What do I know about love?  I've always thought I had the level head, that my heart wasn't tainted by crushes or heavy feelings and I could dole out decent advice about the topic because I was removed from it.  I could think logically.  But maybe you can only know so much about love from mere observation.  Maybe the best way to know about love is to live it, to love and be loved.

But how do you start to love?  How do you know if you're doing it right?  How does any one of us know?  The heart doesn't come with a handbook.  Love is universal yet it seems the way in which we all come across it and experience it is unique.

And what if happiness, or at least some form of it, does come from love?  If you don't love, are you missing out on happiness?

heterotaxia

"You love, love, love
when you know I can't love
you love, love, love
when you know I can't love you
so I think it's best we both forget
before we dwell on it..."
-Of Monsters and Men, Love Love Love

If someone says they love you but they don't show it, does it really count?

It's like living in poverty with a million dollar bank account no one told you about.  You're rich but you're not rich.  You're blessed but you're not blessed.  You're loved but you're not loved.  

I don't want to say not being in a relationship has been detrimental to my self-worth but I don't think it's helped.  I just keep thinking how I'm 27 and have never connected with anyone on a deep, meaningful level.  And the one time I thought I did, well, it disintegrated and completely changed the way I saw people.  If that strong of a friendship could crumble, there was no hope for me and anyone else.

But stuff happens.  People form relationships and those relationships sometimes end due to any number of circumstances.  And sometimes you're left wallowing in your own cesspool of self-doubt because no one else comes along to help you correct your interpersonal errors.  Sometimes locations and circumstances make it hard to hone in on a partner.  Or even a friend.

There must be some benefit to being told your loved by someone outside your bloodline.  They can be with anyone but they choose to be with you.  They open their hearts to the possibility of pain and see through the marks on your skin and the mistakes in your mind.  Someone out there came to you and decided to stay because you were worth getting to know.  For me, people have come into my life but it's the staying part that seems so difficult.  Do I subconsciously drive people away?  Do they just get tired of my incessant self-deprecation?  Or do they get bored with my personality?

I often feel like a novelty act, a brand new Brannon still in the cellophane and once the protective casing has been cut away and I've been squeezed of jokes and encouragement and conversation, I am discarded.  The newness wears away as the imperfections poke through the shellacked surface that's eventually worn away through long exchanges and lots of laughs and eventual awkward pauses.  Then missed e-mails.  Unanswered text messages.  Phone calls not returned.  There's something about me that hooks people in but once they've penetrated whatever "thing" magnetizes them to me, they realize I am too flawed, too flat, too frail to stick with and they eventually pull out.

I'm not trying to make myself look like a victim.  I know you think I am.  But I'm not.  And I am not blaming anyone who has gone away.  I wouldn't want to put up with someone like myself either!  The novelty becomes a nuisance after a while.  And everyone says they aren't like everyone else.  They'll stick around.  They never do.  Some stay longer than others, but for me, it's just a waiting game.  Classmates never called when class was over.  Co-workers never kept in contact when they found better jobs.  Old roommates haven't written.  It hurts.  It hurts so bad.  But I'm not bitter about it and I don't blame them.  I just take it for what it is: another form of rejection, just a slow kind, a knife plunged inside by inches. 

duck, duck, noose

"I'm sorry for the way I am
I'm tired of waiting for the past
I'm lookin' for a better place
I'm longin' for findin' my way around..."
-Groove Armada, History

I feel like we are living in an age of one-sided relationships.  We as social network users put ourselves out into the world and allow anyone with an Internet connection to get to know us through our words or art or music or favorite movies, etc.  And we never know who's watching, who has taken an interest in us, who forms feelings for us based on mutual love for zombies or writing or puppies or Sweet Brown memes.  We build our personalities through our blogs and Tumblrs and other sites and that creates the potential for trouble.  

The problem with following someone through their social networking sites before you get to actually know them is you've already taken the time to shape who you think they are in your head, forming a one-sided sense of who they are through their words.  And you see these commonalities and connections and when you finally talk to that person, you expect the two of you to click and hit it off right away.  Sometimes it actually happens.  Sometimes it doesn't.  And in the times it doesn't, you feel disappointed.  I've been let down.  I wonder how it didn't work out.  We have so much in common.  We've walked the same paths.  Maybe I'm ugly.  Maybe I try to hard.  Maybe the other person is just looking for a certain type of person to befriend.  Maybe the other person just doesn't have room for one more friend.

I think we've all been through this.  We all know how it feels to follow someone who doesn't know we exist or couldn't care less if they did.  It's definitely disheartening and as painful as it can feel, we shouldn't take it personally. 

I try to remember it's not my fault and it's not the other person's fault.  Sometimes two people just don't connect.  Sometimes you're the one with no interest and sometimes the other person has no interest in you.  I've been on both sides of the situation and both are difficult but at least I can understand when someone does not want to talk to me and I can leave it alone and deal with my issues without pulling the other person into my muddled mind.

Those polar opposite examples sum up my relationships with everyone throughout my life.  It's almost always been one-sided.  Any mutual interests have been superficial friendships or genuine good relationships I eventually wrecked due to my insecurity and selfishness.  But despite these many mishaps, I feel like I've tried to continue to branch out, connect, and make new relationships.  I have not been very successful.

The only problem is when I meet someone new, especially someone I admire or respect as an artist, I over think and over analyze my words and actions.  I want to be cool and smart and easy to talk to.  I want to be funny.  I want to be liked.  And sometimes I think the stress of trying not to show my craziness becomes more trouble than the relationship is worth.  I just don't know how to interact with people in a natural, effortless manner.  I feel like every move and word is calculated and it's exhausting.

The stress makes me want to withdraw.  I don't feel cut out to be a sociable creature.  Nice effort, Bran, but no success.  It messes me up because I don't want to be isolated.  I want to be able to reach out and have someone there.  But am I deserving of it?  Can I handle it?  Have I been mishandling all my relationships and that's why I don't feel fulfilled by any of them?  Or am I just over thinking again?

There is an ebb and flow to every relationship.  I'm not going to be great all the time but I'm just so terrified of losing people that I feel like one awkward moment or social slip would mean the demise of the relationship.  And as lonely as I might feel, the frustration of dealing with forming a fellowship doesn't feel worth the hassle anymore.  Maybe I'm alone for a reason.  Maybe I'm mean to be a loner.  I can talk with people and share and give and take but at the end of the day, all I have is myself, which would be fine if I liked myself, but you've got to like yourself before anyone can like you.  Or some horse crap like that.  I always end up feeling empty.

I walk around this circle of people and inspect and analyze and hone in on those I feel have potential and when I choose, the race is on and they chase me down and knock me over the head with my own insecurities.  But they aren't really doing anything.  I think I'm in control, that I'm choosing carefully, that I don't just let anyone in.  I think I'm being particular in picking these people out but I'm really just picking myself apart.