It Is Possible To Commit No Mistakes and Still Lose

Gave D&D a miss this evening due to a bad Wifi connection. There have been background mentions of running yet another campaign, in, I think, yet another ruleset. I've been very quiet about how much I actually really hate having to learn new games, but it seems that we're going to be picking up a new Star Trek campaign.

I hopped back into the group chat late to see, "Since she isn't here to argue, I nominate her captain!" followed by several assertions that this was the best choice. 

Which is the exact gif I posted in the chat upon reading this exchange.
"Perfection!" 
"Wait, perfection or a declination?" 
"I'm pretty sure that's the reluctant acceptance of someone placed somewhere where the only choice is forward, like out of the Delta Quadrant." 
"Yes.  That." 
Followed by gifs of joy.  

It reminds me of the first performance review of my entire life. When I was 17, I was a junior counselor. The job was, essentially, camper with autonomy.  Not old enough to be in charge of anything, the job was to be lackey for the actual counselors and a role model for the campers.  I received a thorough dressing down that I needed to be aware that I was a natural leader, and I should use these powers for good.  They couldn't describe what I was doing wrong, only that I was somehow gradually taking over the entire camp, and I needed to stop it. 

Twenty years later, I still don't understand how one teenager had this kind of power over an entire camp (roughly 40 adults and 180 girls at any given point). Because if I actually HAVE this kind of power, why does it only work when I'm not aware I'm doing it?  And why is traditional leadership afraid of it?  

Of Course It's Nearly 3am

Not doing OK. Feeling like I don't belong, like I don't want to belong and the very last thing I want to do is tomorrow. Any tomorrow. 

Reading an article about the importance of milestones and ritual and celebrations in the face of the pandemic and it's like, sure, whatever, some of you have lives, but I can barely remember the last decade. I work in entertainment, I've been forced to decorate for other people's Christmases, it's all a blur that I can't put years to properly anymore and I don't want to do it again. 

I don't WANT to have to re-enter society. Yeah, I pretty much hated this past year and wanted to die for half of it, but I equally much don't want to go back. It's like proof how much nothing I do matters. I spend nearly the entire year in my damn apartment, it doesn't matter. Work, don't work, I'm just taking up space and there's nothing I can do to change that long term. 

It doesn't matter. I tried, and I'm never going to accidentally be all the things I wish I could because I fuck it all up. 

Other people enjoy things. I... don't. I'm afraid to go to the fucking Chipotle because it's too scary and complicated. I am terrified of Ubers, because it is always, always easier to drive yourself and not talk to anyone. 

...This is why I like the subway. Somebody else is driving and you don't have to communicate with a single other person to make it happen. Even if you're stuffed up against at least half a dozen other people on the 4/5 and none of you are acknowledging these people are the only reason you're keeping your balance, none of you are people. You're all just... there. Existing as nobody for this period in time. 

That was the best thing about NYC. You didn't have to exist there if you didn't want to. If you did? That opportunity was also available, but you didn't have to take it. 

I would like my boss to stop worrying about me. Yes. I am a fucking weirdo, and I get that this gives you some comfort about your flavour of weirdo, but, y'know, I would do better with more money and less conversation. I don't want her to know so much, but I help having to explain. Just let me be anonymous. Since nobody is ever gonna be OK with just me, the way I am, can you all please stop trying? I can't give you all different versions and nobody likes the default. I get it. But I still deserve to live, so I have to have a job, so I... I wish I could just sit in a tiny box somewhere and occasionally push buttons. No other humans, just, here are the instructions for when to push the buttons. That's all we need. We don't need you confusing us with any thoughts or ideas, here are the buttons. Here is when to press them. We'll give you 45k and full benefits. Please do not speak to anyone. 

Sounds better than death, anyway. 

Behind the Curtain in the Pantomime

 Not doing OK. Gave a friend without a car a ride to work because public transportation still isn't safe and it was supposed to dump freezing rain all evening. Went to pick him up and got to sit in the parking lot for an hour. Not his fault, but, not fun. 

Dropped him off and he mentions that it's too late for him to make what he planned for dinner, because he goes to bed around 9. Gave him what I'd planned to have for dinner because, meh. Whatever.  I don't think he's ever gonna put that together and realise what I did. 

I get taken advantage of a lot. I know it. I'm *always* going out of my way for people who never do the same for me because, well, I don't know. Somehow I think somebody will eventually notice?  I do for other people what I wish they'd do for me. I want somebody to offer, occasionally. I'm tired of doing and asking for what nobody ever wants to just give. Not to me, anyway. 

I was always being forgotten in school. Left off playbills, my homework lost. I don't know how you forget as big a pain in the ass as I am, but it happened. And, some part of me still takes to heart all that moralistic you should do good things for other people because you'll get rewarded.  I forget that the origin of that is rewarded in heaven, and there's no such place. Undiscovered country my ass. 

Not doing OK. Not going back to Facebook because it's just full of people being happy, and I don't think I get that ever again. I tried, I fucked it up, and it's too hard to do it again. I don't want anything. I don't want to waste more time doing the WORK to want anything. 

Yeah, every spring I want to get in my car and just disappear. So of course I get the news that, nope, can't do that or I'll lose my health insurance. I should have a real, actual, legit full time job, but my boss saying that over and over doesn't make it true, because at the same time I don't deserve hours, or pay, or full benefits. I'm expendable. And I've got the government backing that up good and hard. 

I need to stop talking to my boss.  I've said too much, and I'm just gonna wind up going way too far and saying too much and then I'll truly be fucked.  Again, except it'll be my boss this time. This is why I shouldn't talk to people. I tell them too much, and then I'm a problem.  I don't tell them enough, and I'm a different problem. No more information. Hand it to hundreds of strangers on Twitter who can ignore it than to somebody who's going to worry, or get mad. Name, address, social security number until I can learn to stop being a fucking weirdo who doesn't know how not to have feelings all over the place.  

Be a lot simpler to just sell my car, turn off my phone and lie down quietly somewhere. I mean, at this point, what's the difference if it's now or later?  Why *don't* I just go out and start licking doorknobs and see how quickly I can take care of this?  

Then I don't have to try to pretend I care about talking to boring dudes on the Internet just because, well, studies have shown humans can't tickle themselves, but, y'know what, just get used to it or end it.  Nothing's going to change unless you want it to and after the last year and a half, it's just not fucking worth it anymore. This is it, this is all there is without money or connections and you don't have those and you can't get them, so, why try to do this until you die? 

Sometimes, I wonder if D&D notices that they've known me for over 3 years and I haven't had a birthday yet. I still believe in immortality. I'd rather have that. I'd rather be a ghost, hanging around, but without corporeal needs. Corporeal needs need to be met and I don't want to do that.  

I'm gonna fail at pretending to be OK really soon.  And somebody's gonna try to make me go to therapy. Probably my boss. I don't need therapy. I need financial security, and every time I manage to achieve that I fuck it all up for some dude. No more dudes. No more people.  No more talking. No more worrying. 

But I'm supposed to be grateful I have a job. I'm supposed to be grateful I have health insurance.  Listen, motherfuckers, that's what I went to college FOR.  Some assholes made me believe that it did not matter what I went to college FOR, I would automatically do better than my parents. Well, fuck that lie. My parents didn't even do better than their parents.  I'm just a genetic fucking backslide into poverty and hopelessness with a useless degree and a bad temper and I guess I deserve to die, so I might as well do it and decrease the surplus population.  

I probably won't. I'm probably too fucking chicken, but I don't know what else to do with myself except to just be like everybody else. Fine. Living for the sake of working just hard enough to keep working hard enough to keep working hard enough.