It's Probably All My Fault, All My Fault.

Lately, I find myself looking around and thinking "How did I even get here?". 'Here' mostly meaning your standing point with people. How they perceive you be they friends or just a random acquaintance. I've always been interested in making friends. It's like my own personal challenge - to see just how fast I can get someone to befriend me, open up, and be comfortable around me to talk about mostly everything. I've gotten pretty good at it, I think ; possibly without even trying. It's like my own personal little super power in this shell of mediocrity. But I'm getting a little off track. I see how I've managed to get immensely closer and closer to people I've known for years as well as months. While some have just had a wedge put in between us.

All of this happened in an instant without me noticing ; Maybe the other parties in question did? I'm not saying that these friends are any less or more friends than the other. Things change, friendships and loves vary, I'd still lend a hand or ear if I'm summoned. It's like looking back and realizing you have no control over the course of your life completely. As you slowly get wrapped up in yourself , your life - your situation, somehow you blind yourself to the fluctuation between everyone. Until it's too late, until both parties have solidified the change ; After you give up trying to call or once you find yourself calling all the time. It's like living in a time vortex, sucked in and spat out in a shit storm of emotions and connections ; for better or for worse. "The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change." But honestly the outcome is somewhat on myself. Something in that person pops up like a firecracker, something always there and unpredictable - you suddenly just notice ; You either like it or not. Distance is the variable. So many variables... Until you don't have to weight the variables anymore. But I guess that's what they call true friends! At least that's what I'm hoping at this juncture.

These thoughts have got me thinking about how we present ourselves to the world. Your aura, essence, soul, and/or face (whatever we want to call it) seems like it has this template. This template for people to just pick up on and interact. Maybe it's just what we perceive as a first impression. I've seen and interacted with plenty of random people to try and figure it out. Mostly I'm just paranoid about my self-image ; how I portray myself and how I'm perceived.

I have this theory, as crazy as it may be, that I have general black genes. In the pot luck of baby making The Gods, Evolution, Genetics, and Chance got bored of making new faces and was like "BAM give him the Steven face!" (I say Steven face because it IS my face, I know it as nothing else.) Too many people look like me ; I look like too many other people? For me it's a blessing and a curse. When equipped with a familiar face it gets people to open up , which is pretty much my goal in life, I'm trustworthy and a friend upon first or second meeting. It's a pretty sweet gig. But on the flip side, I'm likened to that of so many characters - unfamiliar, flat one-dimensional characters. Familiar enough to remember on a face value, but not completely enough as a human being , just a character from that one story with that one guy. I should be honored to have such strong willed genes, maybe these were the good ones. I could start an army of myself! Yeah...I am gonna take over the world! Possibly this is perceived that way because I'm so unkept. This concept called beauty must have been created to carve out your own personal image. I never really grasped that very well though.

"For the life of me, I could never understand why women's clothes must be so damn complicated."
"It's just our way of expressing ourselves I suppose. "
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Well you have so many ways of expressing yourselves, where as we must make due with our hats and our dresses."

But that's not really my only qualm with my world. I've set up this life where even though I starve for some sort of attention and recognition ; I set up the fact that it's completely OK to overlook me, that I'll be perfectly fine if not. Even though I'm not a blip to my friends and people I'm honestly touched and moved by. So maybe the universe knows such quirky things about me. Possibly that's why I get stuff thrown at me on a whim, screaming "Oh damn!". The universe is testing me to change or stay the same. I don't think I want to change though, I'm happy with who I am for the most part. I'm just one ball of contradiction (aren't we all). I shout for people to open up and say what they really want, voice it aloud with conviction. When all I do is hide in the corner and submit to their wants and needs. I shroud myself just a little bit, just so I seem not so bright , or just so others don't seem so dim. I haven't figured out which yet. (Yes, I'm being over dramatic ; I feel it is required at this point.) But I'm getting to the brink, the bottleneck of it all. "The more comfortable I get, the more afraid I get. The more I'm willing to expose, the more I want to hide." I'm gonna spill over with truth and the world will have to soak it all into its roots. Some will celebrate in joy and some will cry out in blasphemy. I know it'll be worth it though, because in the end - if I think it was worth it. It was worth it. So maybe it is time to reinvent myself - reinvent this template of a person into something more unique and memorable(is that even possible?). Although, I believe and feel like I'm at the whim of chaos and chance, I refuse to believe I can't make some changes and order out of it myself. So until I'm on solid ground, I'll continue to believe that all these look a likes are my superpower to multiply myself unharnessed. That all these people shining around a bright star ; empathy to the max. Because honestly, I'm pretty god damn amazing at times. They are pretty god damn amazing all the time.