22, and how much has changed?

Today is my 22nd birthday. I thought I should post something. I was all full up of feelings and overflowing with bits of profundity earlier, but now I am just tired.


I celebrated by doing basically nothing productive at all. It was nice.

I am just sort of...underwhelmed by all of it, if you catch my drift. I am drained and blank and kind of upset. With myself, or so I tell myself, because myself is the only one that really deserves my ire.

See, my least favorite thing in any relationship, friendly or otherwise, is someone who won't speak their mind, someone who expects you to read theirs and gets upset when you miss some cue they were evidently projecting. I am terrible at reading people. Unless I am told that something upsets you, I will continue to do that thing. Unless you tell me you want something, I will not be giving it to you. It's not for lack of trying, but I pretty much pick up on nothing nonverbal. If you are waiting for me to answer needs you haven't vocalized, you will be waiting forever, and you will be getting upset and blaming me, and I will not know what to do to fix it. I realize that some of this will be a problem with me. I do my best to ask regularly, to check on people to make sure I am not being terrible, and maybe I should be more understanding, but it just hits my rage trigger if you are upset about something I did retroactively, and you had the opportunity to stop me in the first place.

If you can't tell, this works my nerves something fierce.

And that's why it's me that I'm pissed at. I did this today. I've done it before. I've been trying not to do it again.

I was down. Tired. Feeling small, and some days . . . some days I just can't take that feeling anymore. It's probably pathetic, but once in a while, I need to know that I matter. I need to know that someone noticed when I left the room, that someone cared when I wasn't around for that thing everyone else did.

Okay, it is pathetic. But that's how I felt, and I sat in a room with people I could probably have trusted, and I didn't say anything. I worked myself into a roiling mass of anger and sadness instead. I did precisely what I can't stand.

That I recognized it for what it is at all is a measure of progress, I guess . . . ?

Or so I am going to tell myself.

It is my birthday, after all.