Eric's General Thoughts

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This is the part where I bitch and moan.  Kind of imagine yourself as a psychiatrist.

This entry was written...I can't remember, I'd guess around November of 2001.  The parents of kids at my school saw this when they tried to shutdown my webpage, and thought I was suicidal.  Does this give of a suicidal vibe?  Ignoring the first sentence, if you read through I don't ever say I want to or plan to kill myself.  I use the term "dead" as meaning "not living," but not living in terms of not having great, "exciting" experiences.  Parents can be pretty stupid.

  What do I want to be when I grow up?  Dead.

   No, this is not the rambling of a melodramatic teenager depressed over the loss of a girlfriend or a bad grade on a test or the upcoming college years, this is a guy sitting there, telling you that he wants to be dead when he grows up.  The thing that would be most favorable to me would be to be dead.

    I came to this conclusion after the Halloween party where Aaron, Megan Roberts (too lazy to change her name), and I got into a discussion about what we wanted to do when we were older.  And Aaron and Megan were both in agreement that they wanted to travel around the country, and that they would love to travel around on the seat of their pants, taking jobs when they needed gas money, and basically living life on their own terms.  And I just realized that I could never even wrap my mind around doing that.  That would terrify the hell out of me.   The thing I want more than anything is to get college over with, settle into a career, get somewhere to live, and go through life.  I don't want to take too many risks, I don't want to waste time...I don't want to live life.  Ideally, I would win the lottery and never have to work, making my life that much easier.  I don't want to live life's ups and downs, I just want to have average experiences.

    Even now, I'm not really living my life.  I stay at home nights, and while I feel kind of lame doing it, it doesn't feel necessarily bad while I'm doing it.  I don't feel that I miss anything by sleeping in.  I have fun hanging out with people, but I don't do it that much.   My fault?  Actually, it's not 100% my fault, it's that..well, okay, it is my fault, but part of it is due to the fact that I am not in cross county or band or in a church group.  Excuse me for having a heart defect, having no musical talent or control over my fingers, or really believing in God.  Sorry, that was just me being pissed in general.

    Recently someone I know told me they had been thinking about suicide.  And I just realized, this person has so much more to live for than I do.  They have way more friends than I do, and they just seem to have more fun in life, in general than I do.  I know this could just be a well-implemented facade, but they really do seem happy, even if on the inside they feel horrible.  I also realized that if I did more of what I'm doing now (reflecting on what I'm going through and all), that I would probably be suicidal too.  I am just the master of repression.  Something shitty happens, I just sort of take it and keep going, my mannerisms a little bit more screwed up, but all in all pretty much the same: a numb, generic sort of person who makes too many jokes to cover up the fact that when I'm not cracking jokes, I'm pretty much depressed.  That's my two personality traits: I'm either trying my best to make people laugh, or I just have this totally depressed look on my face, and I cloud over any feelings, shutting down emotionally.  People interpret it as a bored look, because I find myself staring into space, or just looking at the ground, and people say things like "Having a good time?" or "Man, you look bored."  And maybe I do look bored, but my blank look is just the result of having no internal feelings.

    Well, this one is significantly shorted than last time, but so the hell what, no one reads it anyway?  Until next time, I'm Eric, and I'm more screwed up than you.

This was last time's installment, from some time in September or October of 2001, but it still applies and I think it's well-written.

    Well, I guess the thing I want to talk about, that seems to be the root of all my problems, is change.  My last year of high school.  It's actually easy.  That's a big change from last year, where I had to work my ass off.  I finally got my license, so I can drive.  Humongous change, but probably for the better.  Most of all, the end of this school year, where I have to go off to college.  Have to leave my friends, that I've had for years.  Have to leave my room and live with a stranger.  Have to be hours away from home.   Have to leave home-cooked meals.  GIGANTIC CHANGE.  The friends is probably what is most worrying me.  Anyone who has come to this site before knows that Brian, Grant, A.J. and I have been friends since before the site opened back around 1998.  But even friends I've made in the last year or two.  The Bill Heidrich's, the Aaron Innes's, the Kyle Gebhart's, the Josh "Yosh" Krieg's.  People who I became friends with just because we had lockers next to each other.  The Sarah Lavash's, the Megan Lange's.  People who I came friends with just because we ended up being in the same classes for 2 or 3 years in a row, or even just seeing them a lot.   The Abby Smardon's, the Leslie Trout's, the Megan Mathie's, the Kyle Davis's, the Dustin Helton's.  The girls I had crushes on that I never asked out.  The Megan Roberts's, the one short punk girl a year younger than me with the glasses.  Then the people who's names I didn't even know, but just seeing them made me feel comfortable, like pieces in a large puzzle that even though I didn't connect with them, they still somehow completed my world.  Seeing them there made the world right.

    And now I'm expected to go and make a whole new crowd of friends.  The thing is, most of my good friends, I made before I was really punk, and I know seem to hang out with more not-punk people than punks people.  So how do I present myself?  Sure, people say "be yourself," but to what extent?  Beats the hell out of me.  It took me these many years to get just a small group of friends, and as I've grown I went through an antisocial stage from ages 1-9, a social stage from 10-14, then another antisocial stage from 15-now.   And going to a new place with all-new people, I'll really be out of my prime.   And what if I get a shitty roommate?  A real shithead jock?  I figure the roommate would hopefully be a guy I could be friends with, then his friends could be my friends, or I could get into his circle of people.  Or if he was antisocial like me, we could at least be friends.  But what if he always has football players (nothing against ALL footballs players, but most of them suck), and all they do is hang out, smoke, and listen to rap?

   Re-doing this website (dropping pages, adding pages, changing background) is a change I probably did just so I would be in control of something.  I'm thinking of changing my hair, maybe something as drastic as shaving my head.  Why?  So I can be in control of a change that happens in my life.  That, and I'm going to be leaving this school in 9 months or so.  Right now I'm debating whether to run upstairs, get the hair clippers, and just do it.  The thing is, I often find myself not liking myself, but I'm not liking the things hardest to change.  I like the way I dress, I like my music, I like my sense of humor.  But I hate my overall gutlessness.  My...lack of overall life knowledge.  My naivete, that I look back on 45% of what I've done and said "God, what an idiot I was," but never really changing myself.

    And what's weird to me is that people around me don't seem afraid of the changes at all.  Brian is doing post-secondary, so he's only in school 2 periods of the day.  He's practically out of school already.  A.J. is already in college, no more high school for him.  And they both do it so nonchalantly.  Change seems to come easy to them.  Me, I still regularly wear a Lucky Charms shirt I've had since 9th grade.  I still watch the same shows.  Friends, the Simpsons, the Drew Carey Show.  Sometimes I just lay and think about how little I've changed, and how much everyone else has.  Like, I still want to invite friends over to watch movies and hang out, maybe even sleep over.   But now everyone has jobs, or girlfriends, or after-school activities.  I can't blame these things on anyone but myself, because I HAVE NOT CHANGED.

   The changes have started in the past couple of months.  Now I can actually grow something that can be construed as facial hair.  I can drive, finally.  I have contacts.  Over the course of 4 months, that's all that's significantly changed.

    I guess I've always considered myself a funny guy, but how funny am I really?  My friends laugh at what I say, but is that just because they understand I need someone to laugh?  What if I get to college, and I find out I'm not funny, I just have the best friends in the world (which I already know is true).  It's just, I don't know if I can honestly go without having an audience.  I've never been the loudmouthed class clown, but I've always cracked jokes that make the people around me laugh, and every now and then I say one loud enough to get a large group laugh.  But about all of the jokes are directed at one or two people who I know or think would enjoy the subject matter, and then sometimes it turns out it was a universal interest to many people.

    I didn't really write any of this to have the people I've talked about write me and say "Oh, don't worry, you're funny," or "Come on, you're not a loser."  I wrote this stuff because sometimes you just have to talk or write just to confront issues.  Like talking to an invisible shrink.  And anyone reading this has a new inlook into how neurotic I really am.  So much of the time I keep this stuff bundled up, and that's probably for the best.  But that's probably why I never change: I never try to fix any of my neuroticisms (George W. word, I know, but it works), I just shove them down and pay the prices later for not being accustomed to change.  This is really just part of what I intended on saying, but I guess revealing deep secrets about my personality is more draining than I though it would be.  Anyway.....that's where this is going to end now.