I Don't Do Shit

This is a blog about friendships, insecurities, and living in the moment. What it is NOT is an excuse. I am trying to improve myself by understanding myself; so while that does necessitate a degree of explanation in order to establish the *why* of my behaviors, it doesn't propose that the why in any way excuses them.

I am a huge Debbie Downer. On Friday, I am already dreading Sunday. Why? Because Monday follows Sunday, which means work, getting up early, going to sleep early, and generally not being able to do Whatever The Hell I Want (WTHIW). Honestly? I sometimes check out of my work week on Wednesday, because its basically Thursday, which is BASICALLY Friday, which is the first day of the weekend. So, as long as I work hard Monday and Tuesday, it's TOTALLY cool to slack off and be a lazy douche for the rest of the week. Logic.

However, even when I have unlimited time to pursue my interests and pleasures, I mostly sleep and zombie wander through life; if I don't have plans, why should I get up? Maybe you see the inherent contradiction in what I have laid out here, and maybe you don't. For those of you who do not, allow me to explicate further: I live my life dreading pre-planned time where I cannot do whatever I please, and when I have free time, I don't do shit. Contradiction, I has it.

For whatever reason, I procrastinate on living because there is always tomorrow; but by tomorrow, there's never enough time. I am perpetually worrying about tomorrow at the loss of today. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I'm nostalgic for yesterday. For some, this might not be more than a simple personality quirk, but for me it has had devastating repercussions.

When I see the voicemail symbol on my Android phone, I panic. The voicemail symbol indicates that in this moment someone is expecting me to be present. Nine times out of ten, I can't even bring myself to listen to the voicemail because the act of listening makes it real. Once I've listened, I can't excuse my delayed response by saying "I didn't listen to my voicemail until […]" because I'll know that I have. Being that I am so thoroughly afraid of living in the moment, of follow through today, of being held responsible for *anything*, the act of returning a call is about as daunting as traveling over Niagra Falls in a wooden tub.

I feel so insecure when I talk to people on the phone, so instead of calling them back, I tell myself I'll call them "tomorrow." Tomorrow becomes a week from tomorrow, becomes a month, becomes several months, and then it's just too awkward to bridge the gap. My delayed response results in no response, which is very damaging to a friendship, because no friend wants to reach out if you're never there for them. For me, there is no today because I am afraid of being present, and tomorrows are infinite.

Some of this insecurity can be traced back to the integration of technology into my social life. Beginning with AOL 3.0, I discovered the confidence that comes with conversational prep time. I could chat or e-mail without any feelings of insecurity, because I had the time and space to properly think through all of my inquiries and responses! None of the stress of one-on-one conversation, of responding in time, of "sounding" stupid. Of course, none of this occurred to me in 1994 when I was 9 years old; but it definitely occurs to me now, and has been apparent for many years.

When I am writing, I am confident in my intellect and wit. I can delete, I can re-word, I can take my time. There is no need to put off until tomorrow, because there's no stress in performing today. For the most part, I am able to live my electronic life in the moment.

So much about this is problematic. The most problematic aspect? My friends are geniuses. My best friend, J, is not only a genius: she is the most gorgeous genius I know. Over time, I came to feel more and more that I could not match the intellect of the folks I had surrounded myself with. I became increasingly withdrawn, dwelling more on my relative inadequacies than the awesomeness of our friendships. This fit well with my inability to live in the moment; I pushed things away, farther down the road, to avoid facing my own pain. Of course, when I actually talked to any of my friends, it was never awkward or weird: it has always been mostly in my head. I wanted more than anything to "be there" for my friends, whenever, wherever they needed me. In reality, I spent most of my time thinking about this and little of my time acting on it. Huge, painful changes happened in J's life, and they were exceptionally frightening to me. I put off phone calls, I ignored voicemails, and I hoped I could communicate my love telepathically. For future reference: no, I am not a telepath. That shit didn't work.

And it still doesn't work.

This year, I want to try and overcome my insecurity and my low self-esteem. Moreover, I want to be present and communicative with my friends. Year after year I have allowed us to grow apart in order to avoid thinking about today and thinking about my lack of confidence.

Eventually, though…there are no tomorrows. Eventually, there are no friends. All the positive energy in the world can't replace being present.
And so I vow to stop thinking about how great our friendships were, and to start thinking about how to make them incredible now.
No. Not to start *thinking* about how to make them incredible: to start DOING what it takes to be a real friend.

Here's to today!