As I was learning to be content, it now makes sense that the opposite was happening out here on the farm. Resentment grows. It happens. Almost like a point system, every day those little annoyances we once accepted add up, and at some point, it becomes so much, too much, and you start thinking all sorts off new thoughts you didn’t see coming. I remember daydreaming about ways to plan accidents or even elaborate murder plans against some bad bosses in my past. I imagined how much better life would be.
When humans cross over from being happy, accepting people into that kind of darkness, it affects their every moment of happiness. Some accept it, and get grumpy or angry at their situation and never do anything about it. They live on in unhappy relationships for years, resenting the annoyances more and more. Some take drastic measures that come from true desperation. They may go to the store for milk and never return, or follow through on their daydreams and suddenly thir partner goes missing. Some divorce or cheat. Everyone has a way of handling life when another person has ruined it for you. Some, like me, put away hose negative thoughts and live in the ignorant bliss that it’s not so bad. I don’t think about being the cause of other people’s missery, or at least not for long.
When I first moved out West, away from everything that was bad in my life at the time, I felt uncomfirtable. I knew I was thrust into somebody else’s contentment life and considered myself an incnvenience that was unwelcome. It took a while to feel welcome and once I did, it never occured to me to re-evaluate each year. I deliberatly stopped those thoughts because I needed to not feel a burden or bother for my own happiness. Meanwhile I didn’t realize that every day I would be doing things that caused friction to build up. My way of life was in contrast to theirs, and the fact that I didn’t realize it may have made things worse. My apathy was misunderstood and to outsiders, it must have appeared like I was taking advantage of them.
Living for free without putting any effort into change. Coasting through life without care or concern at how it must have looked to anyone footing the bill that allowed me to not help out, contribute or progress towards a solution. No exit strategy could easily add up those resentment points and turn nice people into mean daydreamers plotting against me. I was the houseguest who stayed too long, and was breaking their relationship, happiness and freedom. Not only a bother and financial burden, but a point of argument in a couple that seemingly lived without ever raising their voice or fighting. That should have been my first clue. Yelling. Shorter tempers started showing up, and tolerance for things that once were accepted. Not related to me or each other, but a temper erupting at inanimate objects and pets. It was a natural progression when you begin to feel trapped by life. The pent-up anger you wish you could vent towards people, but won’t, gets thrown at other things.
I was aware of it, but chose to not believe it was because of me. Now I see it clearly was, and my perspective opened up to see all the ways it was happening. Being around me became an emotional effort. Their personality was still light and friendly but the shift in mood was clear once you started looking – once I started seeing it. In subtle ways, I was excluded. They must have been counting the days internally until their life could being it’s road to recovery. The cancer that is me would be gone soon. Out the door, with one final lump payment for the cost of eviction.
I doubt we will stay in touch. It will be a story told from two different extremes. Another Chapter in my life story about how I arrive in somebody else’s life, and sour it before leaving and starting the loop over again somewhere else, justifying my destructive habit in a new home and life. To them, I doubt I’ll have many good stories. A forced house guest who became content doing nothing, and they finally got rid of, with minimal guilt, if any. There were few actual good stories or memories to highlight when reviewed. I was just “there”. I can now imagine the conversations they may have had with friends about me. Peer pressure must have only added to the feelings of aggravation. Why? When? Your friends tell the truth. At a certain point, the “smuck” principle takes over and one starts to think they are a smuck for allowing it to continue. Happiness returns when I am no longer a constant reminder of what they had before my arrival, and the hope that they’ll stop getting angry at the coffee maker once I’m gone.
I will never know how much of this story is the truth, and how much of it is fabricated in my head based on years of pattern recognition and low self-esteem. Each chapter of my anthology is different from the last, and yet somehow follows an overall theme that my lifestyle is in conflict with others and always just incompatible, that one side or the other forces an end in about 3 or 4 years. I get to choose from three or four mental illness excuses and pass off any responsibility by saying, it’s who I am. A nomad living in other people’s lives until it’s time to move on.
Just like the Hulk, or The littleest hobo, touching the lives of others and then finding a new family to influence, change and eventually ruin. That is who I am, and I seem to be ok with it because healing and therapy and any change requires effort and persistence, and I really prefer to just exist, and coast of the current of life.
