when i was in boarding school i took part in this senior leadership confrence for the prefects and such....part of this school sponsered leadership thing was learning a bit more about youself/personality type via one of those personality type quizzes where you are ascribed a primary number and some subnumbers. i don't remember much about what mine said but only that it was different then most others...in fact, i think out of 50 of us there were only 2-3 of my type. after we were done we found out that if we wanted we could ask and find out some historical figures whose types we matched up with. after it was over kristy and tovey (my best freinds), and i went to find out who we were like. being stony brook all the historical figures were biblical. kristy was mary mother of jesus and peter the rock of the church. tovey was saul/paul and mary magdelane. i was judas and pontious pilate. seriously.
i dunno why i thought of that this morning but i think it has something to do in part with some of the oh so fantatstic conversation i had last night.(thank *you* so much....i learn so much about myself just talking with *you*....i hope you know how much i am grateful.....)but anyway, part of this conversation was me talking about how i wish i could get up the gumption to talk to my best freinds from boarding school. its been almost a year since i have talked to kris and tov and over 2 since i have talked to ben. part of why i have this fear is that i am not the same person that i was. i actually think i am a better person....i am happier and more in touch with aspects of myself i used to be afraid /ashamed of. but, their personalities and life paths and presuppasitional philosophies ae so very different from mine i fear that they woudl not longer find any value in me. yes, i know this mostly has to do with self esteem issues on my part but it does hold some weight.
the last time i hung out with kris and tov was christmas 2001 when we spent the day in nyc. at this point they had been excelling in school / school related extracurriculars, they were on path with their lives, they were growing in accordance with their firm foundational beliefs, they were truely good kind christian people, they were perfect in accordance with how we were all taought to hope to be at stony brook. and then there was me.....
i was always a bit of a black sheep in my circle of friends...not quite as naturally "good" as they were. it took a lot more effort on my part to fit into what stony brook wanted me to be and i was known a bit as the exception to every rule for my ability to successfully manipulate / twist the stony brook way to suit my slightly nonconformist ways. i wasn't a rebel or a wannabe badass....no, i definatly wanted to fit in and tried for years...i looked the part, could talk the talk if need be, but at the core i just wasn't like them and pretending didn't come easily for me. so they are "perfect" and i am still the odd duck.
i didn't follow my set plan for life and i did "bad" things.....i am a sexual being and i am not embarassed by that nor do i see it as wrong. i have a slightly modified/notnormal apperance. i am not in school nor have i been for quite some time. i am (not so much now) an occasional user of various substances. my primary involvement in the last few years has not been academic but has been with a scene of ill repute (ravey stuff). i do nekkid modeling. i have done very little (seemingly) in forwarding myself in regard to my various ambitions. i am living in sin and while they are not / would not be rude or overly judgemental about it (they hold to a love the sinner hate the sin type philosophy) my lifestyle is wrong to them.....so as much as they might love me as a friend there is a huge part of *me* that they cannot love / understand.
i suppose i started thinking about all this a few days ago when i was thinking about the path my life has taken. i am grateful for where i am but when it comes down to it i don't really firmly belive in myself if i am in a sense "ashamed" of what they might think of me....but it really isn't shame so much as fear of losing....if i didn't have this fear maybe i would not be so afraid to contact these people whose friendship and influance has ment so much to me. i don't want to lose these people in my life, but i feel like they can never love *me* but only hold dear to what i was / what i let them belive i was. i wish i had the confidence to say "if they were really friends then they would love me as i am..." i think that they would love me, just not all of me....and that part that they wouldn't/coulnd't love would create a rift that would mar the present friendship and also the rememberance of the good of the past. i suppose i am most afraid that if they saw an abundance of bad in me now that it would cloud any good i may have been then....
real freinds, good true amazing lifelong freinds are such a rare thing in the world that i don't want to lose the possibility of having 2-3 such wonderful people in my life simply b/c i am fearful....i also hope that for my sake i can develop the confidence to belive that if someone loves me (as true freinds love)that they will love me as i grow and change.
i am happier now then i have been in the (exactly) 3 years since i left stony brook and i want to share that with the people who ment so much to me while i was there....
not to self:dontbeafraid.
i dunno why i thought of that this morning but i think it has something to do in part with some of the oh so fantatstic conversation i had last night.(thank *you* so much....i learn so much about myself just talking with *you*....i hope you know how much i am grateful.....)but anyway, part of this conversation was me talking about how i wish i could get up the gumption to talk to my best freinds from boarding school. its been almost a year since i have talked to kris and tov and over 2 since i have talked to ben. part of why i have this fear is that i am not the same person that i was. i actually think i am a better person....i am happier and more in touch with aspects of myself i used to be afraid /ashamed of. but, their personalities and life paths and presuppasitional philosophies ae so very different from mine i fear that they woudl not longer find any value in me. yes, i know this mostly has to do with self esteem issues on my part but it does hold some weight.
the last time i hung out with kris and tov was christmas 2001 when we spent the day in nyc. at this point they had been excelling in school / school related extracurriculars, they were on path with their lives, they were growing in accordance with their firm foundational beliefs, they were truely good kind christian people, they were perfect in accordance with how we were all taought to hope to be at stony brook. and then there was me.....
i was always a bit of a black sheep in my circle of friends...not quite as naturally "good" as they were. it took a lot more effort on my part to fit into what stony brook wanted me to be and i was known a bit as the exception to every rule for my ability to successfully manipulate / twist the stony brook way to suit my slightly nonconformist ways. i wasn't a rebel or a wannabe badass....no, i definatly wanted to fit in and tried for years...i looked the part, could talk the talk if need be, but at the core i just wasn't like them and pretending didn't come easily for me. so they are "perfect" and i am still the odd duck.
i didn't follow my set plan for life and i did "bad" things.....i am a sexual being and i am not embarassed by that nor do i see it as wrong. i have a slightly modified/notnormal apperance. i am not in school nor have i been for quite some time. i am (not so much now) an occasional user of various substances. my primary involvement in the last few years has not been academic but has been with a scene of ill repute (ravey stuff). i do nekkid modeling. i have done very little (seemingly) in forwarding myself in regard to my various ambitions. i am living in sin and while they are not / would not be rude or overly judgemental about it (they hold to a love the sinner hate the sin type philosophy) my lifestyle is wrong to them.....so as much as they might love me as a friend there is a huge part of *me* that they cannot love / understand.
i suppose i started thinking about all this a few days ago when i was thinking about the path my life has taken. i am grateful for where i am but when it comes down to it i don't really firmly belive in myself if i am in a sense "ashamed" of what they might think of me....but it really isn't shame so much as fear of losing....if i didn't have this fear maybe i would not be so afraid to contact these people whose friendship and influance has ment so much to me. i don't want to lose these people in my life, but i feel like they can never love *me* but only hold dear to what i was / what i let them belive i was. i wish i had the confidence to say "if they were really friends then they would love me as i am..." i think that they would love me, just not all of me....and that part that they wouldn't/coulnd't love would create a rift that would mar the present friendship and also the rememberance of the good of the past. i suppose i am most afraid that if they saw an abundance of bad in me now that it would cloud any good i may have been then....
real freinds, good true amazing lifelong freinds are such a rare thing in the world that i don't want to lose the possibility of having 2-3 such wonderful people in my life simply b/c i am fearful....i also hope that for my sake i can develop the confidence to belive that if someone loves me (as true freinds love)that they will love me as i grow and change.
i am happier now then i have been in the (exactly) 3 years since i left stony brook and i want to share that with the people who ment so much to me while i was there....
not to self:dontbeafraid.
historyteller:
Good luck. That's a difficult decision.
