I have a job interview tomorrow evening. It's at 6:45 pm and its for a market research job. I'm fairly excited about this. It's not too far from here, and it's work I've done before so I know that I can find it palpatable. It's eight bucks an hour, which is more than the chocolate factory would have paid, so I'm fairly excited about that. Wish me luck.
My birthday is coming up. A week from Saturday. Birthdays have depressed me for years. They're even worse now, though, because I used to always think of Jennifer on my birthday, since it meant hers was coming up. But now...it's nothing. So the usual pre birthday funk kicks in.
I decided, perhaps foolishly, to avert this feeling by having a party. The boy sent out invitations but no one responded so we decided to use evite. Of course, that makes it more infuriating since evite lets you know when someone views the page, and so he knows people are getting these emails and simply not RSVP-ing.
On Rob's birthday, no one showed up. It was pretty horrible and we were both pretty angry. We had just moved into town a week before and thought that all his old friends that he would do anything for would be happy to welcome him back. Not so. He said some angry things. Everyone of course apologized and made some promise to make it up to him, but with a couple exceptions, they were false promises.
Since it's my birthday and not his, I don't expect much. I would like to have people over but if they can't show up to someone they have known for years, what chance is there to show up for someone they only vaguely know?
The thing that gets me, though, is that this evite allows you to say yes, no or maybe. I mean how hard is that really? Especially if you're already there? To make up some feeble excuse or say something may or may not be happening. I would be disappointed if no one was going to make the effort, but I would at least understand. It's this simply not bothering to respond thing that bugs me.
It's like everything else in my life lately where I just feel like the invisible girl because people don't have the courtesy to acknowledge. e.g. this isn't something of immediate importance so fuck you. Okay, I'm exagerating and I realize this. Like I said, I get in funks with my birthday. And I realize not everyone is as straightforward or as responsible about these sort of things as I am. But I still can't help but wonder why people won't take thirty seconds for something that's a simple courtesy.
You know for the most part I'm an understanding person, but I just have no tolerance anymore for people that can't even take the time to be honest, or do the things that are a matter of common courtesy. And I certainly no longer have the patience for people who don't make the effort, except to make some feeble excuse when they find out you might be mad at them about it.
See, this is why I hate people.
It didn't seem like it used to be this way. Maybe I'm romanticizing my memories or maybe I've just changed or maybe there was something that vaguely resembled a golden era, but I have such fond memories of all the people I knew in Tucson, back in the day. Nowadays, even when I can leave the house I don't get all that excited about bars or parties anymore. It all seems so pointless.
I guess if so many friends weren't spread across the continent and the globe, some out of touch, some too far to ever see very much, some dead, maybe the perspective might be different. But I guess I just get tired of this. Making the effort. I get tired of moving but it's not even me that leaves, even if that's true most of the time, people just sometimes fall out of touch without some sort of defining thread. And I'm getting tired of being that defining thread.
I know, I know, this is really whiny. But in a way it's true. Rob tells me that I should just be more outgoing, but I really don't want to be. Not because I'm shy but because after awhile, I get sick of always making sure that the other person is okay, I get sick of always trying to empathize with their problems even when it's one sided, I get sick of always sending the letters and making the phone calls, always keeping track.
I mean, I'm not talking about any one person, I'm talking about a trend that has extended for about fifteen years. I've always known that life was short and anyone could be snatched away at any time, and everyone who has ever known me has always known me as the one who keeps in touch, the one that is always on time, always making plans, always sending cards.
Sweet fancy fucking jesus on a goddamned bicycle, I am sick of it.
But in my spirit of not being a pointless whiner, I'll say this. I'm done with it. No I mean I really am done with it. No matter who you are, no matter how long I've known you, I'll always love you and cherish the times together but I'll cherish them a hell of a lot more if it's on an even playing field. If I don't get some sort of sincere response to this party thing, I'll cancel it and I won't throw another until I know different people. I'm not going to call or write people that fall out of touch anymore. Well, except my dad and my two remaining siblings and my mother, but that's different, that's family. But for people that may or may not be in my life a year from now? Fuck it.
It's not the party, not really. That is what psychologists call a "trigger" and what realists call "the straw that broke the camel's back". I've had this gnawing feeling for a very long time that I need to change my whole life. Make it no longer recognizable. And if I get anything out of this birthday angst it will be some sort of spiteful adrenaline that instead of moping about my life makes me totally rehash it.
I'm not going to be one of those people that gets depressed about a situation and just doesn't feel like they can get out of it and then resorts to self destructive habits that inevitably kill them. I've seen that happen to too many people that I care about. I'm going to be one of those people that says "you know I don't like this and I don't think I'm going to have this anymore."
I've wasted enough time as it is.