Off By One

I was going to write about my evening last night with a few really good friends, involving mainly hockey, insanely hot wings, bowling, pool, and beer. But upon browsing my daily blog collection, I figured I’d meta-comment on this instead.

Although the timeframe is a bit extended, I think that I can really identlfy with the theme of the post, if not the specific details of it. I can remember spending much of my earlier life striving with all I had to be whatever it took to get people to like me. I would do anything asked of me, if I thought it had any hope whatsoever of making people appreciate me.

As years went by, though, as opposed to specifically “finding myself,” rather I ended up becoming more and more cynical about human nature and the world around me. I didn’t so much find myself as determine in more detail and breadth what i didn’t want to be. This, of course, is not the same thing at all.

It seems to me that I had two watershed events in my life occur at more or less the same time, though, that combined to really give me … not direction, because I was still rudderless for some time after that, but I guess you could call it hope. Not for life, because life itself was still pretty harsh on me, but more that I would come to be somebody that was independent and able to build a self without reference to the expectations of others. So for that, I have Amanda and (ironically) moving to Edmonton to thank.

Over the years since then, I’ve gone through a lot. A failed engagement, and another failed relationship that bears no further mention here. I’ve tried (and failed repeatedly) to get back into school. I’ve worked jobs that sucked, and jobs that sucked more. I’ve diversified my tastes in art and focused my passion for computers. I have met and become friends with the best people I have hever had in my life, save for the few who predate my move to Edmonton.

And more importanly, I have become (mostly) comfortable with who I am. I realize that the way I think does not make many people happy, or comfortable. Nor does the way I confront issues that are dear to me. And I just don’t care anymore. I will deal with the world on my own terms, and I feel confident that for the most part I’ll do so because that’s who I am, not who I think others want me to be.

It’s a good feeling.

(It’s also worth repeating (over and over and over and over again) that Char is at fault for much of the good in my life too, in case anyone thought that I was ignoring her)