Pride

Song of the Day: 'I Just Can't Wait to be King', The Lion King: 1997 Broadway Cast

I have trouble taking pride in myself.

Now, don’t get me wrong, when I’m with my family and good friends, I’m a batshit crazy fucker, and damn proud to be.

But.

Sometimes, I find myself in situations in which I’m making excuses.

Let me clear away some of the ambiguity, here.

I am every synonym for weird there is. Which isn’t to say that I’m ONLY eccentric - there are quite a few normal aspects about me as well. But I LIKE the weird things.

However, I seem to lack the ability to either show said weirdness or openly take pride in it occasionally. Or I apologize for my oddities. When a weird song comes on my iTunes, or someone sees one of the many posters/pictures/objects/things on my walls and question them. Or even when I make a nerdy reference and people don’t get it. Or, those who do are oddly surprised by it and give me weird looks.

Of course, I DO have my fellow freaks and geeks who understand, share, and accept my peculiarity. For most of them, my quirks are theirs, too. And I revel in their company.

But a lot of my time is spent apologizing to people I don’t know when my friends would usually be laughing with me.

Which is another thing that can get to me - the difference between people laughing WITH me versus AT me.

I love making my friends laugh. In fact, I spend a lot of time trying to make them laugh on purpose. I make a fool of myself, act like a dork, do things I wouldn’t do in other context.

But when I’m NOT trying to be funny, even when I’m attempting to be serious, and people laugh - not only does it hurt my feelings, it pisses me off. Or when I do something idiotic and unintentionally look like a fool and people laugh, I feel horrible. Like I didn’t already feel like a jackass, no my ‘friends’ are laughing at me.

...Which doesn’t really happen that often. But all the same. It hurts ten times more when it happens, and it can’t have happened more than a couple of times. But I can remember them more clear than a lot of my favorite memories. And that sucks.

'I hear in my mind all of these voices

I hear in my mind all of these words

I hear in my mind all of this music

and it breaks my heart, it breaks my heart.' - 'Fidelity', Regina Spektor